Local Records Office Scammy, Sleazy, Predatory, I-Can't-Believe-That's-Their-Business-Model Pekin Illinois

Received official-looking envelope with "LOCAL RECORDS OFFICE" in all capitals in the return address, with words printed on it like "IMPORTANT PROPERTY INFORMATION", "RESPOND PROMPTLY", and "WARNING: $2,000 FINE , 5 YEARS IMPRISONMENT OR BOTH FOR ANY PERSON INTERFERING OR OBSTRUCTING WITH DELIVERY OF THIS LETTER U.S. MAIL TTT.18 SEC 1702 U.S. CODE"

Sounds official. 

Within the letter were instructions to send $89 to this place called LOCAL RECORDS OFFICE. I am a first time home buyer, and after seeing wording that this might not be a real thing or required, I remembered the lawyer at my closing warned me of this scam. I did a quick search and found I'm not the first person to complain about this practice. What kind of business model is this? Pretend your a government record keeping office, tell people (not ask) to send money, then think everything is okay because you admit you're not a government agency? Sounds really slimy to me!

I can easily see how people could just pay this because they don't want to deal with the trouble of determining if they were legally obligated to or not.