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Almost got scammed when registering our trademark

Hey indiehackers,

I'm writing this post in the hope that some of you will be able to learn from our experience of being a scam target.

Long story short, about two months ago we've filed a trademark registration request for "Themesberg" in the European Union. The costs were around 900 euros, and we knew the whole process would take around 3 months.

A few days ago, I got an invoice in my mail, and it said that we had to pay around 2000 euros for the registration fees. And I was like, whaaat? Something doesn't feel right.

I sent a mail to our representative who has helped us with the registration, and I also researched the internet and it turns out this is just one small part of many misleading invoices that are being sent out to companies registering their trademark. (here's the list: https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/misleading-invoices?fbclid=IwAR05nkTlp3NjcmtQxIQYZV_nXdq0uRIVllCazHGDO20HrtwafCw91FmvFJ8)

So guys, be very careful with the invoices, and anything that seems suspicious, should not be taken lightly. These scams are getting more credible and targeted by the day.

Take care!

  1. 2

    I got a similar scam letter for my California LLC. There is a $20 filing fee that you can pay online and I received a letter that looked like official paperwork saying that I needed to pay $200 via mail.

    https://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/customer-alerts/alert-misleading-solicitations-statements-information

    The letter looked very official but I knew for a fact that the fee was $20 so I got suspicious and investigated.

    1. 1

      Sorry to hear that, but I'm glad that you successfully averted the scam. They're making it look more credible as the years pass.

  2. 2

    These are private website directories pretending to be official organizations. It happened to me too a few years ago when I trademarked an eCommerce brand. I received dozens of invoices like this for almost a year.

    1. 2

      It's still pretty sad that this keeps going on.

  3. 1

    I have seen many people facing issues related to trademark registration.

    QuickCompany provides the best trademark registration service in India.
    https://www.quickcompany.in/trademarks/registration

  4. 1

    Same things happen sometimes for domain name registration, through email and also mail.

  5. 1

    I've received such invoice for my patent application and have written about it to raise some awareness - Scam alert : mail from IPTI.

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