One of the stranger phenomena associated with running a coworking space these days are those people who randomly claim to be based in your space. They list your workhub as their registered office address on the official Companies House site. Even though they have never asked you to do this and have certainly never paid for a virtual office/mailbox facility.
Some dubious characters who set up shop (sometimes literally) then skip their bills. A good way to evade these costs, they presumably think, is to search for unwitting coworking spaces or shared offices to use as their supposed official address. Completely bogus, but it can work (or at least help them delay detection).
In our case we have had official letters and then debt chasers contacting us as they chase up businesses often right at the other end of the country. One recent character was opening mobile phone shops and then closing them without paying business rates.
You can look up the name of such a business yourself on Companies House and potentially find the home address of the individual scammer. You could try to contact the business owner direct, but you may find that their given home address is fake too. We have had ‘no longer at this address’ mail returned in these situations.
More worrying is when a burly bailiff turns up chasing down the thousands owed by these people and understandably coming to your premises which the scammer has given as a registered office.
The bailiffs quickly understand the situation and will take you off the list. But you may need to prove no connection to the dodgy scammer and to show that your company is listed on Companies House genuinely at the address.
Unfortunately Companies House are not exactly rapid in responding to your complaints on this – presumably they are too short staffed. So it’s best to assume that if you offer virtual office or mailbox services some scammers will still give your address without permission.
This is of course a completely different situation to having paid customers using your virtual office facility if you offer this. In those cases I would always advise doing due diligence on who they are and what their contact details are. In our experience we’ve had way worse experiences with fake unpaid registered office scams than any real customer.
So what can you do? According to the CAB: “If you feel that any of the above has happened, you can email fraud@companieshouse.gov.uk and give as much information as possible, including your own contact details, so that Companies House are able to fully investigate your concerns.” It’s worth doing this. But don’t hold your breath though. And do remember that if someone has chosen to list your premises without permission or payment it’s not your problem. But it might be an irritation.
Want to find out more about this? There is a good article by Which on this trend here.
