They stopped answering. Here is the sequence.

NY DOS ENTITY SEARCH · CPLR § 213(2)

Stop emailing the same person.

When a business client stops responding, the first mistake is to keep writing to the one contact who has gone quiet. That person may have left, been told to stall, or simply be avoiding you. The account is owed by the company, not the contact. Your next messages go to the company: the accounts-payable address, the owner or principal, and the registered address on file with the state. Silence from one inbox is a dead end; silence from the entity itself, after notice at its official address, is evidence.

The second mistake is to keep sending the same kind of message. Six friendly reminders are, legally, one reminder repeated. Escalation means changing the form, the sender, and the stakes at each step.

The escalation sequence.

1. Final notice from you (week 0). One email and one mailed letter, to accounts-payable and the principal, stating the balance, attaching a statement of account, and setting a ten-day deadline. Title it “Final Notice.” Say that the account will be referred to counsel if unpaid. This is the last message in your voice.
2. Attorney demand letter (week 2). A formal demand from a New York attorney, sent by mail and email to the entity's registered address and working contacts, stating the claims, the balance with 9% interest, and a deadline. See what it contains below.
3. Mail confirmation (week 2 to 3). Keep the tracking record or electronic return receipt. Whether the debtor signs or refuses, you now have proof the demand reached the address the company told the state to use.
4. Commercial claims or Civil Court (week 4 onward). If the letter deadline passes, file. Modest business claims go to the commercial claims part; larger ones to Civil or Supreme Court. The choice is laid out in demand letter vs. small claims.

The whole sequence takes about a month. Most ghosting clients reappear at step two, when a letter from a law firm arrives at the owner's desk rather than the contact's inbox. The ones who do not reappear were never going to, and you have lost four weeks instead of a year.

Find the right legal entity before you send anything.

You collect from a legal entity, not a brand. “Summit Media” on the email signature may be Summit Media Group LLC, Summit Media Holdings Inc., or a trade name for an individual. Sending a demand, or filing a lawsuit, against the wrong one wastes the step and can hand the debtor a defense.

Use the New York Department of State's Division of Corporations entity search, which is free and public. Search the name and variations. For each match you will see the exact legal name, the entity type (corporation, LLC, partnership), the date formed, the current status (active, dissolved, inactive), the county, and the address the entity designated for service of process. If the business is organized in another state but operates here, it should be registered in New York as a foreign entity and will appear; if it does not, note that too, because an unregistered foreign company doing business in New York has its own problems in court.

Cross-check against your own file: the name on the contract, the name on the checks or ACH transfers you did receive, the name on the purchase order. If they differ, the demand letter names all of them and we sort out which is liable. If the “company” turns out to be a sole proprietor using a trade name, the individual is personally liable, which changes the picture considerably.

Serving a business in New York.

Once you are past the letter stage, a lawsuit has to be formally served. For a New York corporation or LLC, service can generally be made on an officer or authorized agent, or through the Secretary of State, which accepts process on behalf of registered entities and forwards it to the address on file. That address-on-file mechanism is why the entity search matters: the debtor cannot avoid a lawsuit by ignoring its inbox if the state will accept the papers for it. In the commercial claims part, the court itself mails the notice of claim to the defendant's address, which makes the correct legal name and address doubly important.

For the demand letter, before any filing, we use the same logic: mail to the designated address plus email to every working contact. A debtor who later says “we never got it” is contradicted by the receipt at the address it chose.

What if the company dissolved?

Sometimes the entity search shows “dissolved” or “inactive.” That is not the end. A few things to know:

• Dissolved does not mean immune. A dissolved New York corporation continues to exist for the purpose of winding up its affairs, which includes paying its debts and being sued on them. Dissolution is not a discharge of liability. The same general principle applies to LLCs that have filed articles of dissolution.
• Assets distributed to owners can sometimes be traced. If the owners took the company's cash and walked away without paying creditors, there may be a claim to recover what was distributed. That is a litigation question for a consultation, not a demand letter.
• Successor businesses. If the same people are now running the same operation under a new name at the same address, raise it. New York recognizes successor liability in some circumstances, and the facts matter.
• Personal guarantees become decisive. If the owner signed a guarantee, the dissolution of the company is irrelevant to the owner's liability. See personal guarantees on unpaid invoices.
• Be realistic. A company that dissolved with no assets and no guarantor is often uncollectible. We will tell you that rather than sell you a letter. A quick, inexpensive letter to the former principals is sometimes still worth it, because owners who fear personal exposure occasionally pay to make it go away.

What a demand letter does here.

A ghosting client is the ideal case for an attorney letter, because the problem is attention, not disagreement. Ours is addressed to the entity by its exact legal name at its designated address, to the principal by name, and to the working accounts-payable contact, by mail and email. It restates the account, notes that no objection was ever raised to any invoice (which supports an account stated claim), computes principal plus interest under New York's 9% statutory rate, and sets a deadline with the court named. It also asks the debtor to object in writing if it disputes anything, so continued silence becomes even stronger evidence.

It is a flat fee, and for a solvent debtor who has simply been hoping you would go away, it is usually the step that ends the silence. The full strategy for business-to-business receivables is in the commercial collections hub.

Protect the claim while you wait.

Silence costs time, and time matters. A contract claim must be brought within six years under CPLR § 213(2), four years if the invoice was for goods. Months of unanswered emails do not pause that. Keep every sent message, delivery receipt, and partial payment; get the entity details now, while the company still exists and the contacts still work there; and do not let the file sit in the hope that a new fiscal year will change someone's mind. For what restarts the clock and what does not, see statute of limitations for unpaid invoices in New York.