After surviving countless calls into the endless labyrinth of “voice mail hell” and waiting 45 minutes to talk to a real person you feel like you deserve at least some restitution.

But since most business’ customer service calls are handled by low-level employee peons, or worse, outsourced to some bargain basement in India, they simply don’t have the power (much less the motivation) to provide any meaningful assistance.

This is where the Executive Customer Service Staff comes into play. What most people don’t realize is a lot of companies have a higher, “Rolls-Royce” level of elite customer service ninjas ready, willing and able to cut through all the bullshit red tape – straight to direct action.

Oftentimes, getting to these people is simply a matter of knowing what to say and who to say it to.

Step #1. Find The Corporate Office

For public companies, this is as simple as entering their stock ticker symbol into Yahoo or Google Finance. That’ll pull up the company’s profile page and the corporate office address and phone shouldn’t be too far away.

For private companies, you might have to do a little Google digging if their main phone isn’t somewhere on the company website. If Google brings up nil, the next easiest way to do this is with a Whois search on their domain name, which will frequently reveal all you need to know. There are ways to mask Whois information using a 3rd party agent, so if they’ve done this you’ll need to do a public records search in their state of incorporation.

And if you still hit a dry well after all that, then the company you’re dealing with is either a scam, or they’ve hidden themselves using Joe Decameron’s Perfect Privacy Solution.

Step #2. Call The Corporate Office

Ask to be transferred to the office of the CEO, his/her assistant, or some other top brass. For added clout, reference the person by name.

The operator will likely transfer you over to some lower-level executive assistant – but that’s good. It’s precisely what we wanted. You could get voicemail or a live person, that doesn’t really matter. The point is to leave a message with exec about the facts of your case. Don’t ramble, and especially don’t sound angry – even if you’re bubbling with rage. Include any order numbers, confirmation numbers and any other specific details that could be useful.

Step #3. The Call Back

Within a day or so, you’ll get a call back from the few, the proud, The Executive Service Team.

Fill them in on the facts of your case because they might not have gotten the full story from our mid-level up-and-comer. Take down the contact information of whoever you’re speaking with because they have now become your direct lifeline to the holy grail of help.

If they can’t help you, no one can. Using these methods will often get a problem solved in 2 or 3 days – one that could’ve normally taken a month or more.

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Unfortunately, most of the people still pushing this concept either have outdated information or are trying to con you out of some extra fees.

In recent years, the state has taken quite a beating. It’s not the do-all end-all it once was.

Usually when people want to form a Nevada corporation, they’re after these benefits:

1. To save on state income taxes, and/or
2. To conceal ownership of the company

Sometimes people also say they want their Nevada corporation because of the state’s excellent entity laws or they want to utilize what’s called a “series LLC.”

On the surface these sound like great reasons, but the reality reveals a dangerous half-truth. To really understand if a Nevada corporation is right for you, we need to look at each of the benefits in more detail.

Myth #1. To save taxes

Reality: If you are not based in Nevada, a Nevada corporation will only allow you to dodge income taxes on revenue derived from Nevada, or other states that do not have income tax, or foreign countries. U.S. law says that if you have a Nevada corporation but also a physical location in a state that has an income tax, then the state with the income tax can tax all income derived within its borders.

That’s why stores and other kinds of businesses that rely on their physical presence to make money are not good candidates for Nevada corporations. If you have a retail clothing store in Arizona, you’ll still have to pay Arizona state taxes regardless of your Nevada setup.

Don’t try to weasel around this – it’s not worth the heavy interest and penalties they’ll sock you with when discovered.

Myth #2. To conceal ownership

There is nothing wrong with wanting privacy. In fact we have a whole course dedicated to that very subject called “The Perfect Privacy Solution.” But if you hide your ownership of a corporation for devious purposes and end up in court, you’ll have some explaining to do before the judge. If you can’t convince him that you weren’t trying to do anything illegal, then you run the risk of the court piercing your corporate veil which means you could be sued personally for debts and liabilities.

It was once said Nevada corporations offer decent privacy protection because historically they’re the only state not to voluntarily share tax information with the IRS. It was also a little more difficult to find out who the real owner of the corporation actually was. Some people took that as a green light to do whatever they want – and most ended up in hot water. Don’t you be one of them.

The thing that helped with this in the past were “bearer shares” which are basically shares of company stock that are owned simply by someone possessing them – much like how the “owner” of a $20 bill is whoever has it in his pocket at the time. But since July 1, 2001 bearer shares have been outlawed in Nevada.

There are structures that allow for better privacy protection than the norm, but you MUST have a legitimate “business purpose” for using them! Courts will not accept “to minimize taxes” or “privacy” as a legitimate purpose. It’s got to be something else that fits in with the scope of your operation. For example, since I own a publishing company that sells to countries all over the world, that could be seen as a “legitimate business purpose” for a different type of ownership setup.

Myth #3. Best corporate laws

Technically speaking, Delaware ranks #1 in the United States for perceived fairness of its corporate laws. That’s one of the reasons why you see so many huge companies incorporated there.

Corporations are only allowed to do business in states which they are incorporated or qualified. So if a Nevada corporation is wanting to do business in say, New York, it’s got to qualify by filing a registration statement with the New York Secretary of State. And that goes double for real estate businesses because you can’t hold real estate in a state where you’re not qualified to do business.

So what happens if your business venture is deemed “unqualified” by a court? Well, they just ignore your corporate structure and rule as if it never existed. As you can imagine, that opens up all the assets you own personally to the circling vultures waiting to pluck you dry.

But even if you do qualify to do business in other states, it will be THEIR state laws, and not Nevada’s, that will govern the facts of your case. In other words, any secrecy or privacy protection from Nevada will not apply.

Nevada state law won’t help you in federal court either, because of what’s known as the Supremacy Clause in the United States Constitution. Remember, the Confederacy LOST the Civil War, so if you get sued in federal court it is federal law that applies.

Myth #4. Series LLC

Presumably this is a setup some have touted as a way to segregate and spread out liability over each series LLC that operate in the same state, as long as all activities take place in the state of formation, the plaintiff is in the state of formation, and the lawsuit is filed in the state of formation.

This is uncharted legal territory I’d just prefer to stay out of because there hasn’t been enough precedent court cases on which to base any solid plan of protection. It’s foolish to hope something unproven will work when you could just spend a little more money for an additional LLC to hold assets.

For more information on incorporating, funding, and running your business with the least amount of legal hassle, check out our “How To Outswim The Sharks” package. It will arm you with the legal tools to survive and thrive in our modern-day sue-happy society.

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