**Trademark Registration Scam Campaign Targets Small Businesses Through Financial Institution Impersonation**
Our analysis has identified a sophisticated scam campaign operating through five connected phone numbers that falsely represent legitimate financial institutions while primarily targeting small businesses with fraudulent trademark registration schemes. The campaign utilizes phone numbers 301-615-9344, 312-358-5141, 318-503-6796, 571-260-5181, and 571-648-1763, all of which demonstrate high-confidence connections indicating coordinated operation within the same fraudulent campaign. Despite generating no formal FTC complaints to date, the campaign has been linked through consumer reports to Ready Capital Corporation (65 CFPB complaints) and United Group Inc. (75 CFPB complaints), suggesting scammers are impersonating these legitimate mortgage and vehicle lending companies.
Community reports reveal the campaign's primary tactic involves contacting businesses with fraudulent trademark application notifications, claiming "Your trademark application is now live and ready to be verified, attested, and endorsed so that the authorities may reserve your trademark with all Secretary of State offices in the United States." The scammers use multiple identities, as evidenced by one report describing contact from an individual claiming to be "Jason Briggs" who immediately changed his name to "Jason House." The geographic distribution of the phone numbers spans Maryland (301), Illinois (312), Louisiana (318), and Virginia (571 area codes), indicating a multi-state operation designed to appear geographically diverse and legitimate.
The campaign's connection patterns show 301-615-9344 serves as a central hub, directly linked to all other numbers in the network with 70% confidence levels. The fraudsters appear to be leveraging the reputations of established financial service companies, with Ready Capital Corporation showing the strongest association to multiple campaign numbers, including a 59% confidence connection to the central number. This impersonation strategy likely aims to exploit consumer trust in legitimate financial institutions while executing trademark registration fraud.
To protect yourself from this campaign, verify any trademark-related communications by contacting the official USPTO directly at uspto.gov rather than responding to unsolicited calls or emails. Legitimate trademark processes do not require immediate phone verification or endorsement through third parties. If contacted by any of these numbers or similar trademark schemes, hang up immediately, do not click any links, and report the incident to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov or to the FCC for unwanted calls. Before engaging with any financial service company, verify phone numbers through official company websites and check suspicious numbers through the FTC's complaint database or trusted scam-reporting platforms.
This campaign represents a moderate threat level due to its multi-state coordination and impersonation of legitimate businesses, though the lack of formal FTC complaints suggests either early-stage operation or underreporting. Businesses should immediately implement verification procedures for any trademark-related communications and report encounters with these numbers to appropriate authorities. The campaign's sophisticated use of multiple identities and geographic dispersion indicates professional operation requiring continued monitoring and consumer awareness efforts.