Certificate of Incorporation- what it is and why it shouldn't be trusted!

[Rikafip]

Most of us were contacted by someone offering us fast and easy profit through either cloud mining or some other sort of HYIP, and as main proof of legitimacy, they like to show Certificate of Incorporation.

Certificate of Incorporation document is issued after approved registration  in Companies House, and it shows info as official company name, company registration number, the date of incorporation etc.


Example of Certificate of Incorporation from Forexcryptotrading, ponzi i reported few weeks ago.



And here is the same company info in  Companies House.





Problem  with Certificate of Incorporation  is that is issued by Companies House, and they don't  verify the data submitted in the applications thoroughly as they don't have investigatory powers.
So it is natural that even though data in both Certification and register are same they can still be fake. Also, even if you google person in charge, and it is a real person, scammers
might simply just use his/her identity. After all, that is the reason huge majority of those are registered in United Kingdom.

Perfect example how easy is to register with Companies House is the case of Pavel Durov ( Telegram creator). In that case, scammer made fake company  TELEGRAM OPEN NETWORK LIMITED and even used his name, and all this went through without any issues. No one noticed that  scammer for almost 2 months, and it took  Companies House further 8 months to mark the company as "Dissolved".

Stay safe, trust no one, and  in case when someone offers you easy money, don't believe any proof someone offers you, as almost everything can be easily faked.

And to add, if you are really looking for some UK based investment company, make sure to check  FCA , most of legitimate investment companies are listed there.

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[Bttzed03]

A Certificate of Incorporation is a good start to verify the existence of a company but it's certainly not a 100% proof that a business is legit. Many noobs still fall victim to these "scampanies" flashing their registrations unfortunately and this happens everywhere.

I don't know how it's done in UK but it usually takes a lot of reporting before authorities starts investigating these fraud companies from where I am from.

[Rikafip]

A Certificate of Incorporation is a good start to verify the existence of a company but it's certainly not a 100% proof that a business is legit. Many noobs still fall victim to these "scampanies" flashing their registrations unfortunately and this happens everywhere.

I don't know how it's done in UK but it usually takes a lot of reporting before authorities starts investigating these fraud companies from where I am from.

Certificate is unfortunately far from 100% proof, it is closer to 0% when you look at all those scams and ease of faking it.

Truth to be told, it is probably  not Companies House fault as they simply don't have tool to deal with that, but until that is changed  they should react much faster, as seen from that example with fake Telegram company it took them way  too much time to react, and in the meantime more people might fall for it.

[GSpgh]

Those agencies (Companies House in the UK, typically Secretary of State in the US) that register businesses are not law enforcement agencies and it's not their goal to prevent or fight scams. Registration simply allows one to use a different name than their own for doing business, and in more complex scenarios - partner with other people (shareholders). That in turn allows the business to file taxes, open bank accounts, get various licences etc as an entity. It doesn't say anything about the legitimacy of the business other than it exists. There are some rudimentary checks to prevent duplicate business names and in some cases to check the identity of owners/principals (altho I think Companies House doesn't even do that), but that's about it.

[harizen]

Bottom line: There's no such thing as easy money.

Even with certificates, licenses, proof of business registration, real-office or any forms of validating the company's identity with that kind of service, people especially newbies should use their common sense to know if some offers are too good to be true.

Spam messages will not ever stop. Once a person becomes blinded by those unrealistic promises, they will fall on the trap.

[Rikafip]

Bottom line: There's no such thing as easy money.

Even with certificates, licenses, proof of business registration, real-office or any forms of validating the company's identity with that kind of service, people especially newbies should use their common sense to know if some offers are too good to be true.

Spam messages will not ever stop. Once a person becomes blinded by those unrealistic promises, they will fall on the trap.

That is true, even if some  investment company checks out all of the boxes, it is still  risky thing to do, give them your money. While in reality for 99.99% of the people BTC hodl is the best thing to do, it is perfectly risky enough, with good potential gains in the long run, as BTC tends to outperform all those altcoins. For me, perfect risk/reward ratio.

[dkbit98]

I saw and reported so so many projects that had this 'magical' certificate
that I can't even count. Latest I remember are Invest-Limited and Hourbull
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5177587

Only good thing about this is that we can identify someones real name,
but I doubt registered person is always the real creator behind this projects.

[Rikafip]

I saw and reported so so many projects that had this 'magical' certificate
that I can't even count. Latest I remember are Invest-Limited and Hourbull
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5177587

Only good thing about this is that we can identify someones real name,
but I doubt registered person is always the real creator behind this projects.

Yep, they indeed use that thing as something "magical" as you said, and as in that case that you linked, they will almost always put the Certificate of Incorporation and the CRN (company registration number) somewhere on the homepage, where it is easily visible.

One of the flaws is that they often use other people's identities, as seen in that Pavel Durov case.

[Daniel91]

Personally I have experience in this field, I have opened and registered a company in the UK twice.
Why I opened a business right there?
It is very simple, unlike my country, it is much faster and easier to register a company and it is more convenient if co-owners are from different countries.
In fact, the whole registration process took 10-15 minutes to complete and in my country everything would last at least a week and I would still have to physically visit many offices.
In the UK I solved everything over the Internet, I didn't have to go anywhere and I received all the company documents in an email.
Even a company address and a secretary can be rented and also arrange official mail forwarding.
These are the reasons why many people start businesses in UK, everything is much faster and easier than in other countries.
Of course, such benefits as the ability to hide the right address, to rent address, ease of registration and lack of official verification by authorities are ideal for scammers as well.
That is why people who do business with such a firm should look not only for company registration but also seek the company’s financial and tax report, and audit report.
As someone once said, people lie but the numbers always tell the truth.

[Rikafip]

Personally I have experience in this field, I have opened and registered a company in the UK twice.
Why I opened a business right there?
It is very simple, unlike my country, it is much faster and easier to register a company and it is more convenient if co-owners are from different countries.
In fact, the whole registration process took 10-15 minutes to complete and in my country everything would last at least a week and I would still have to physically visit many offices.
In the UK I solved everything over the Internet, I didn't have to go anywhere and I received all the company documents in an email.
Even a company address and a secretary can be rented and also arrange official mail forwarding.
These are the reasons why many people start businesses in UK, everything is much faster and easier than in other countries.
Of course, such benefits as the ability to hide the right address, to rent address, ease of registration and lack of official verification by authorities are ideal for scammers as well.
That is why people who do business with such a firm should look not only for company registration but also seek the company’s financial and tax report, and audit report.
As someone once said, people lie but the numbers always tell the truth.

It is indeed a good thing, to remove bureaucracy as much as possible from something as important and crucial for country economy as registering new company is, but unfortunately these kind of "flaws" in the system will be used by scammers.

But in the end , we are all responsible for ourselves, and we have to due our own due diligence.

[Rikafip]

Bump to spread the awareness about the dangers of thinking that Certificate of Incorporation is any kind of proof business being legitimate. Nothing changed in that regard as Companies House is still not verifying legitimacy of data submitted, and  it doesn't look like that will be changed anytime soon so it's still one of the scammers favorites tools.

My advice is, when you see a website boasting with this chances are good  that something is not right so be extra careful in case you decide to deal with them nevertheless.

[Daniel91]

Bump to spread the awareness about the dangers of thinking that Certificate of Incorporation is any kind of proof business being legitimate. Nothing changed in that regard as Companies House is still not verifying legitimacy of data submitted, and  it doesn't look like that will be changed anytime soon so it's still one of the scammers favorites tools.

My advice is, when you see a website boasting with this chances are good  that something is not right so be extra careful in case you decide to deal with them nevertheless.

Exactly!
As a former owner of a UK registered company I can confirm that this document is very easy and simple to obtain and has practically no meaning and value other than confirming the fact that a company exists.
Data on the company's operations and audit are much more important.