State of Florida’s warning emails make incorporation services do their dirty work

The state of Florida’s Department of Corporations has switched all of its warning notices to email notifications to save money. But this cost-cutting move is placing much of the burden on incorporation companies.

Officials recently sent out thousands of emails to companies, notifying their owners that they had not filed annual reports, and saying the corporations would be dissolved if they did not file the required paperwork.

Not only do some of those emails never reach the business owners due to email address changes or other issues, the messages also flood the inboxes of incorporation service companies – which also gave the state their contact information.

While those companies maintain a relationship with many of the small business owners, and could pass along the email, the sheer volume of the messages makes it difficult to keep up.

“Our email is being literally bombarded by the state emails,” said Nina Birnbach from ActiveFilings.com. “This is almost impossible to do in a short period of time.”

Florida is just one of many states that have promoted email notifications over traditional paper ones. Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Louisiana and many others have pushed for the use of online notifications to help save money.