BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry is alerting business owners across the state to be on the lookout for fraudulent letters attempting to deceive companies into filing their annual reports through an unauthorized third-party service.
The letters, which appear to come from an entity named Business Filing powered by Firstep, falsely claim that a business may face administrative dissolution or revocation if it does not file its annual report through the Firstep platform by a specified deadline. These notices are not from the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Commercial Division and should be disregarded.
“All legitimate communications regarding business filings will come from our office—either through official Secretary of State letterhead or the geauxBIZ portal,” said Landry. “We strongly urge business owners to be vigilant and avoid acting on these deceptive mailings.”
Business owners are encouraged to manage their filings, including annual report renewals, directly through the state’s official geauxBIZ portal at www.geauxBIZ.com. For assistance, they may also contact the Commercial Division at (225) 925-4704 or via email at [email protected].
To further protect against fraud, Landry is urging businesses to subscribe to the state’s free commercial email notification system available through the geauxBIZ portal. This system alerts business owners to important updates, filing deadlines, office closures, and suspected fraudulent activity.
For more information, visit www.geauxBIZ.com.