Jarrett Taylor lives on a quiet, suburban street in Longmont with his wife, kids and three dogs.
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This is also where several small businesses are located — at least according to the mail.
“This is Verve Tech LLC, JJR Goods LLC, Dynamic Down LLC,” Taylor said.
More than a dozen letters from banks and credit card companies — and catalogs from shipping companies — have arrived over the past month.
“Usually they just go straight into the recycling can,” Taylor said. “It's a little overwhelming at times.”
Taylor first noticed the mail last summer, which is linked to several fraudulent businesses. According to documents filed with the Colorado Secretary of State's Office, unknown people have been registering fake companies using Taylor's Longmont address.
“I can't exactly tell what they want, other than either to harass us or try to get money out of us,” he said.
The number of fake businesses registered to Colorado addresses is unknown, but Taylor's experience is one of many. In a few high-profile examples, residents have been surprised by a tsunami of fraud.
A Teller County family discovered 370 fake businesses using their home address; More than 12,000 entities have been registered to one downtown Denver office building.
Some of this is tied to much larger criminal networks.
In May, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced a slew of lawsuits targeting fraudulent Colorado companies involved in everything from cryptocurrency to romance scams, some of which originate in Asia.
“Fraudsters are finding new ways to trick people. A big one is registering a business and pointing people to their registered business,” Attorney General Phil Weiser told 9NEWS at the time. “They'll have a website that will look real.
Littleton resident Amanda Andrew noticed mail addressed to strange businesses last March. She quickly became concerned enough to look up those businesses in the Colorado Secretary of State’s business database. Andrew knew to do this because she is a banker who investigates fraud for a living.
“Lo and behold, I found a business that was registered to my address with that business name, by a registrant in China,” Andrew said.
She was alarmed, worried that someone had stolen the title to her home but after checking, found the title had not been modified in any way.
“How can I protect myself?” Andrew wondered. “Why is this happening? What kind of nefarious thing is happening with my name or house or address?”
‘They are created to steal’
The problem of business fraud took off during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, state lawmakers temporarily dropped the cost of registration to $1 to support small businesses. But more business fraud followed. That same year, the state created a working group to address the problem.
“They are created to victimize, they are created to steal, they are created to hide in the shadows,” said Greg Wertsch, a special agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a member of the working group.
Back then, during one of its meetings, Wertsch described registering a business in Colorado as easy — something that could be done "for a buck here in Colorado in under 30 seconds."
“Let's look at this and do something about it,” Wertsch said. “This is a tremendous opportunity here in Colorado to make change, for the better.”
Since then, some security measures for business registration have been put in place, including identity verification for registered agents and allowing law enforcement to report fraud, not just victims. During this year’s legislative session, another business fraud bill passed, streamlining the investigation process, among other changes.
Meanwhile, complaints about fraud are growing significantly each year. More than 11,000 have been filed since the complaint system was created in 2023.
‘We were surprised by the level of fraud’
The Colorado Secretary of State’s office is responsible for business filings and the complaint system. Once it reviews a complaint, it goes to the Attorney General's Office for investigation. Then the business is marked as fraudulent in the secretary of state's database.
“Honestly, we were expecting a lot fewer complaints to be filed than were filed,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold said. “We were surprised by the level of fraudsters trying to take over businesses or use people's information. So this program, I think, has been very much successful."
But going through the complaint process doesn't necessarily make the problem go away.
Both Jarrett Taylor and Amanda Andrew, after reporting the strange mail to the Secretary of State’s office, were notified that those businesses were marked as fraudulent in the database.
But both continue to get mail for fake businesses.
“It's been a year and a half, almost. I get mail at least every other day for this business,” Andrew said.
Taylor has frozen his credit and changed all of his passwords. He plans to continue reporting any strange mail that arrives.
“So it does kind of feel like there's nowhere to go with it, other than just this is what life is now,” Taylor said.
