Who Is Actually Emailing You
August 2026
The moment you file anything with a government office, your name, your address and your file number become a public record. Within days you will be emailed by people who have read that record, know exactly what you just did, and want your money.
They are not guessing. They are reading the same database you filed into.
The one rule
Read the domain backwards
Almost every impersonation on this page uses the same trick, and it defeats almost everyone the first time. Look at this sender:
TEAS@uspto.gov.lawoffice139.orgIt reads as uspto.gov because that is where your eye stops. But a domain is owned from the right. The actual domain is lawoffice139.org, and uspto.gov is just a word somebody put in front of it. They could have written irs.gov.lawoffice139.org and it would be equally meaningless.
Find the last two labels before the first slash. That is who sent it. Everything to the left is decoration and anyone can put anything there.
uspto.gov.lawoffice116.us is lawoffice116.us. uspto.officepublication.us is officepublication.us. notices.sos.ca.gov.filings-desk.com would be filings-desk.com. Once you see it you cannot unsee it.
Check a sender
Paste the address. Nothing leaves this page.
Copy the sender address out of the suspicious email and paste it here. This runs entirely in your browser. No network request is made, nothing is stored, and nothing is sent anywhere. Turn off your wifi and it still works, which is the point: a page that asks you to hand over data in order to check whether you are being phished is indistinguishable from the thing it claims to detect.
It checks four things, and three of them work on domains nobody has ever reported. The known list will always be out of date; the patterns will not.
Verified examples
Received at one small company after one real trademark filing
Saluca LLC filed seven trademark applications on 19 March 2026. Every address below arrived in that mailbox afterwards, constructed to appear to originate from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. None of them did. They are listed because a real example teaches the pattern better than a description of one.
| Sender | Actual domain | What it claimed |
|---|---|---|
TEAS@uspto.gov.lawoffice139.org | lawoffice139.org | Cited real statutes and TMEP sections to look official |
teas@uspto.gov.lawoffice116.us | lawoffice116.us | "Request for Classification Clarification" |
TMOFFICIALNOTICE@uspto.gov.lawoffice143.us | lawoffice143.us | Mimics the genuine sender's display name almost exactly |
teas@uspto.lawoffice133.us | lawoffice133.us | Same construction, one label shorter |
teas@usaoffice109.com | usaoffice109.com | "Verification appointment scheduled. Failure to attend may result in abandonment." No such process exists |
derick.paul@uspto.officepublication.us | officepublication.us | "Mandatory Trademark Classification Review" |
usptofederal0ffices@gmail.com | gmail.com | A zero in place of the letter O, sent from a free mailbox |
The tells
What the fakes do that the real thing never does
- They invent a process. A "verification appointment", a "mandatory classification review", a "publication fee". If you cannot find the process described on the agency's own website, it does not exist. This is the strongest single tell, because a real agency only ever asks you to do things it has documented.
- They ask for money by email. Government fees are paid through the agency's own payment system, reached by you navigating there, never through a link in a message.
- They manufacture a deadline that is sooner than the real one. You genuinely do have deadlines. That is what makes the fake ones land.
- They cite real law. Statute numbers and manual sections are public and copying them is free. Legal citations are evidence of nothing.
- They arrive within days of a public filing. Speed is the giveaway: they are scraping a feed, not reviewing your file.
- They use a free mailbox, or a lookalike domain, or a display name that hides the address. On a phone the display name is often all you see. Expand it.
What genuine notices look like
Using the USPTO as the worked example
Every agency differs, but the shape is the same everywhere: the notice tells you something happened and sends you to the official database to read it. It does not contain the thing, and it does not contain a payment link.
| Genuine USPTO senders | |
|---|---|
TMOfficialNotices@uspto.gov | Office actions and filing receipts |
noreply@uspto.gov | Account and enrolment notices |
subscriptioncenter@subscriptions.uspto.gov | Mailing lists |
noreply@feedback.uspto.gov | Surveys |
data@uspto.gov | Open data announcements |
The genuine office-action email says, in its own words, "This email is NOT the Office action" and sends you to TSDR to read it. It even warns you about the scams, and tells you to verify by checking whether the document appears under the Documents tab in the official database.
The other waves
What else arrives when you incorporate, by category
These are categories rather than verified sightings. The addresses above were received and checked; the list below is the general landscape a new company should expect, offered so you recognise the shape when it lands. Treat it as orientation, not as evidence.
- Certificate of status and "annual records" letters. Official-looking paper mail quoting your real entity number and asking for a fee, for a document that is either optional or costs a fraction of what they ask. Often the first thing to arrive after incorporation.
- Labour law poster compliance. Real requirement, wildly inflated price. The posters are free from the relevant labour department.
- Registered agent renewal notices from companies that are not your registered agent. Check who your agent actually is on your own filing before paying anyone.
- Beneficial ownership and federal registry filings. A live and shifting area, which makes it fertile ground. Verify the current requirement directly with the agency, because the rules have changed more than once.
- Domain and listing invoices. "Your domain is expiring", "confirm your business listing", "search engine submission". Usually an invoice dressed as a renewal.
- Directory and award solicitations. You have been selected. There is a fee.
Not everything unwanted is a scam
A distinction worth making carefully
Once your filing is public, licensed attorneys and legitimate service companies will also contact you, sometimes persistently. That is lawful advertising. It is not impersonation and it is not fraud, and confusing the two is both unfair and unwise.
The line is clean and easy to apply:
| Impersonation | Lawful solicitation | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it claims to be | The government agency | Itself. A named firm or company |
| The domain | Built to look like the agency's | Its own, and it matches its website |
| What it wants | A payment, usually urgently | To be hired |
| The process it cites | Often invented | Real, and usually correctly described |
| What to do | Do not reply. Report it | Ignore it, or engage if you want the help |
No lawful advertiser is named on this page, and none should be. A firm marketing its services to a public filer is doing something entirely legal, and a public list is the wrong instrument for expressing that it was annoying.
What to do
In order, and none of it costs anything
- Verify in the official database first, every time. Look up your own file number on the agency's own site. This one habit defeats every impersonation on this page.
- Never pay from a link in a message. Navigate to the agency yourself.
- Report it. In the US, misleading solicitations of this kind can be reported to the Federal Trade Commission, and the USPTO maintains its own page for trademark-related scams and asks to be told. Reporting is what keeps the next founder from paying.
- Filter the domains, not the display names. Display names change hourly; the domain lasts as long as the registration.
- Tell whoever else has access to the mailbox. These messages are designed for whoever is least familiar with the process, and in a small company that is often not the founder.
- If you already paid, say so quickly. To your bank, to the agency, and to anyone who might get the same message. Embarrassment is the mechanism that makes this profitable.