The day you file a trademark is the day you become a target. I learned this the hard way.
I am writing it down so the next Kansas City small business owner does not pay what I paid.
Six months ago, I decided to protect the brand name of the small business I was building from my home in Overland Park.
I did what most people would do: I searched online for how to file a trademark.
I found a clean, professional-looking service. I paid it to do the work.
Then the charges started hitting my accounts. About $105 first. Then $1,050. Then $800. Then $2,025. Then $1,503.
Each one had a plausible-sounding explanation: “Comprehensive Trademark Search.” “Registration Certification Fee,” “Documents Attestation — $5 per state times 50 states.” “Notice of Publication.” “Registration Issuance Fee.”
Each follow-up email came from a different first name in a different “department” of the same operation.
When I finally pulled up the actual U.S. Patent and Trademark Office public database and searched my own business name, nothing was there.
The company had never filed anything for me.
It had attached my billing information to an unrelated Chinese handbag company’s trademark record and was invoicing me against it on the bet that I would never check.
Total damage: $5,483 across two cards.
I called my bank’s fraud department. I filed five claims. I got the money back. And just days ago, the scam operation contacted me again, apparently trying to social-engineer its way back to legitimacy after the financial recovery cut into its bottom line.
Recently, I sat down at my own keyboard and filed the real trademark myself, directly through USPTO.gov.
It took 20 minutes and $350.
Eighteen hours later, a second scam — a completely different operation — emailed me.
It cited my real serial number, my real business name, my real email address, my real mailing address.
