The letter looks official. Read the small print before you pay it.

Separating puts your name into public records — a court filing, a new address, a new business, a deed. Those records are scraped, and a certain kind of letter follows. It is printed to look like a government notice, it names a real obligation, it quotes a plausible fee, and somewhere on it, usually in the smallest type on the page, it says it is not from the government at all. That sentence is there because it has to be. It is also the fastest way to tell.

The short version7 points · tap one to jump to it

1. The tell is always in the disclaimer, and the disclaimer is always there
2. What they impersonate, and what the real thing costs — The pattern is always the same: a genuine obligation you probably do have, at a price several times what it actually costs, from a company that will file the same form you could file yourself.
3. Six things to check, in order, in about ninety seconds — The phone number, the QR code and the web address on a fraudulent notice all lead back to the sender, who will confirm everything it says.
4. Why divorce specifically
5. Where to report one — Reporting it does nothing for you personally and takes four minutes.
6. If you already paid
7. What we could not verify — Connecticut Secretary of the State, “Domestic Annual Report Forms and Fees,” read on business.ct.gov — LLC annual report $80, and “All annual reports must be filed online.” Checked 16 Sep 2026.

In this subject 7

1. The tell is always in the disclaimer, and the disclaimer is always there

This is the thing worth learning once. An operation that sends official-looking mail without a disclaimer is committing plain fraud and gets shut down. The ones that keep operating year after year do so because they disclose — in six-point type, on the reverse, in a gray box below the fold, in language written to be skimmed past.

So before anything else, find the sentence. It will look something like “this is not a bill,” “we are not affiliated with any government agency,” “this is a solicitation,” or “you are not obligated to use our services.” If that sentence is on the page, the letter has told you what it is, and everything above it is marketing.

2. What they impersonate, and what the real thing costs

The pattern is always the same: a genuine obligation you probably do have, at a price several times what it actually costs, from a company that will file the same form you could file yourself.

What the letter is about	The real obligation	Who actually handles it
Trademark renewal, “registration maintenance”, an international register	Real deadlines exist, and real USPTO fees exist. They are published on the USPTO’s own fees page	The USPTO only. Its domains are USPTO.gov and my.USPTO.gov, and its emails end @uspto.gov
Business annual report or “certificate of good standing”	Genuine and usually cheap. Connecticut’s LLC annual report, for example, is $80, filed online	Your Secretary of State’s own site, directly
“Labor law poster compliance”	The posting requirement is real	Federal and state labor departments publish the posters free
“Deed retrieval” or a certified copy of your property record	You can get a copy	Your county recorder, at the county’s own fee

3. Six things to check, in order, in about ninety seconds

1. Find the disclaimer. Front, back, and the bottom margin. This settles most letters on its own.
2. Read the name again, slowly. Is it the agency’s actual name, or a near-miss? Bureau, Service, Commission, Center, Compliance and Division are the usual substitutions.
3. Look at the return address. A real agency writes from a government address. A private mailbox in a state you have no connection to is a private mailbox.
4. Look at the domain and the email. Federal agencies use .gov. A .com, .org or .us that merely contains the agency’s name is not the agency.
5. Check the deadline against the real one. These letters invent urgency, often arriving months before anything is due, or naming a date that is not the statutory one.
6. Go to the agency yourself and check. Type the address in; do not use the letter’s QR code, link or phone number. This is the step that actually decides it, and it is the one people skip.

4. Why divorce specifically

Three reasons, and it is worth knowing them so the timing stops feeling personal.

• Court filings are public records. A new case generates a searchable entry with a name and often an address. That list is bought.
• A change of address is a public signal. So is a new deed, a new business registration, a name change, a new vehicle title. Each one is a separate mailing list.
• The state you are in is the point. These letters are written for someone who is already dealing with official paperwork, already paying fees they did not expect, and already unsure which envelopes matter. One more official-looking envelope with a fee on it does not stand out. That is the entire business model, and it is why the letters arrive when they do.

5. Where to report one

• Anything impersonating the USPTO or about a trademark — TMScams@uspto.gov. This is the USPTO’s own reporting address, published on its caution page.
• Anything that arrived by post — the US Postal Inspection Service handles mail fraud, at uspis.gov.
• Anything else — the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and your state Attorney General, who is usually the one who actually sues these operations.

Reporting it does nothing for you personally and takes four minutes. It is worth doing anyway: these cases are built from volume, and the pattern of complaints is what makes one possible.

6. If you already paid

• Call your card issuer and dispute it. A card payment to a service that misrepresented itself is a chargeback, and the window is finite — do it now rather than after you have thought about it.
• Check whether the underlying obligation is still outstanding. Some of these companies do file the thing, badly or late. Some take the money and file nothing. Assume nothing was filed until the agency’s own record says it was.
• Then file it yourself, with the agency, directly. A duplicate filing is a nuisance. A missed one is a penalty.
• Do not reply to the letter to complain. A response confirms the address is live, and live addresses are resold.

7. What we could not verify

• How many of these operations are running, or what they take in. We looked for a figure we would stand behind and did not find one. There is no number on this page rather than an estimate.
• Whether any particular company is acting unlawfully. We are not naming companies. Disclosing in small print is, in many cases, exactly what keeps an operation lawful, which is the uncomfortable point of section 1 — the letter can be legal and still be designed to be misread.
• Fees outside the two we checked. The USPTO reporting address and Connecticut’s $80 LLC annual report are read from those agencies’ own pages. The labor-poster and deed-copy rows describe the pattern; we have not priced them in every state.

Authority: United States Patent and Trademark Office, “Caution: misleading notices,” read on uspto.gov — source of the TMScams@uspto.gov reporting address and of the quoted sentence about name variations. Connecticut Secretary of the State, “Domestic Annual Report Forms and Fees,” read on business.ct.gov — LLC annual report $80, and “All annual reports must be filed online.” Checked 16 Sep 2026.

This page describes a pattern, not any particular company, and nothing on it is an allegation about a named business. It is not legal advice. The Cusp is not a law firm and does not provide legal, financial or clinical advice. If a letter names a deadline you think might be real, check it with the agency directly rather than relying on this page or on the letter. Where we get something wrong we publish it at thecusp.app/corrections with the date and how long the error was live.