Description

Our law firm represents Catholic Charities USA (“CCUSA”) with respect to various intellectual property matters. Our client is a world-renowned non-profit charitable organization founded over a century ago, and is well-known across the world. CCUSA operates through a network of local Catholic Charity offices, which it oversees. More information is available at www.CatholicCharitiesUSA.org. CCUSA owns the well-known CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA marks, in respect of, inter alia, various philanthropic, social welfare, housing, employment, healthcare, personal and economic development, disaster aid and relief, along with financial sponsorship-related services. Our client’s well-known marks are registered and protected in various jurisdictions, including the United States. It has come to our attention that an unknown person or entity is impersonating our client CCUSA in order to defraud or otherwise trick unsuspecting individuals seeking legal services related to immigration. This individual or entity frequently uses the name of a real attorney, Oscar Carrillo, who has been made aware of these schemes. We have reports of this entity conducting several schemes for the malicious purposes of charging victims for nonexistent immigration-related legal services. The entity sent an email to a victim impersonating Kerry Alys Robinson, the President and CEO of CCUSA, and welcoming them into a nonexistent program to receive immigration-related legal services with Oscar Carrillo as their assigned attorney. This email included an unauthorized image of CCUSA’s U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4181972 for CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA & Design. Additionally, the email listed a contact email [email protected] which is deceptively similar to CCUSA’s domain name catholiccharitiesusa.org. Further, the email listed a phone number: +1 575 565 9883 which is associated with a WhatsApp Account that also displays an unauthorized image of CCUSA’s U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4181972 for CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA & Design in its profile picture. Another victim received an identical email except with the listed phone number 938 268 6406. This phone number is associated with another WhatsApp account that displays the same CCUSA registered trademark in its profile picture. This victim additionally received a letter prominently bearing CCUSA’s U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4181972 for CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA & Design. This letter also instructed them to pay $930 for enrollment into the Migrant Assistance Program. Further, this individual or entity has been reaching victims through Facebook ads which advertise the fraudulent program. Another victim reached out to this entity and communicated via WhatsApp to an individual they believed to be Oscar Carrillo using the phone number 516 205 8722 who requested $580 for his legal services. The individual then harassed the victim with angry messages and voicemail when they refused to pay an initial fee. This individual or entity additionally appears to be using the following email address, website, and physical address on the various WhatsApp accounts. [email protected] https://guiamigratorio.com Manhattan 26 federal plaza #0127, New York NY 10278 . This entity is using CCUSA’s U.S. Registered Trademark No. 4181972 without authorization in order to falsely imply a nonexistent connection to our client. This entity has persistently created new social media accounts and uses multiple phone numbers to conduct this large-scale scam.