Government Grant Scams – Avoid Them With These Tips

The internet seems full of ads for free grants for just about any purpose imaginable – education, home repair, or starting a business, just to name a few.  The ads go on to say that the money received from the grant does not need to be repaid, which makes the offers even more enticing.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns that grant offers like these are scams more often than not.  These ads are placed by scam artists in classifieds and on the internet, often with a web site to visit or a toll free number to call to claim the grant money.  Other government grant scams are more direct with someone calling you to say you may be eligible for a government grant.

Telephone Scams

Whether it is someone calling you to say that you may be eligible for a grant, or you calling the toll free number from an ad, telephone government grant scams tend to work the same way.

-They will congratulate you an being eligible for a grant
-They will ask for identifying information, like your social security number, in order to check your eligibility
-When they tell you that you have qualified, they may ask for banking information in order to charge a one time processing fee or to directly deposit the funds
-Their “money back guarantee” will have conditions that are nearly impossible to meet
-Instead of one application, they will send you a list of grantors that you have to contact yourself

Web Site Scams

Watch out for web sites that provide bogus grant information.  A government grant scam web site is likely to have:

-Out dated grants
-After paying an access fee, an unorganized list of grant programs with no assistance filing the applications
-No customer service or contact information
-Poor quality web sites with broken links

Facts About Legitimate Government Grants

Government grants are usually awarded to groups or individuals who are using the money to help their communities, not to individuals for personal use.  The government also does not charge a processing fee for their grants as their services are funded by tax dollars.  Another key difference between legitimate government grants and scams is that you will not be asked to provide personal information over the phone.

I avoided government grant scams, bought a business and paid off my bills. Find out how I did it – in just 3 months time.

How to Avoid a Government Grant Scam?

The government grants play a very important role in helping people who have financial problems. Due to the financial aid, some people may incautiously believe some kind of tricky scam. So you must be careful when opening yourself up to finding a grant. There are many scam artists out in the world and they are waiting for anyone possibly will bite the lure. During your searching for the grants you must practice common sense and be proactive. Here is some Information on preventing yourself from getting scammed through grants:

The first and the most important principle is grant is free and grant information is free too! You could choose to pay for help with a grant, but make you are paying for their service but not giving you free information. You can access free grant information on the internet. What you need to do is to open your computer and be on internet. Then fill some key words you can find the free grant information. In another hand, if you opt to buy a service I strongly suggest checking with several of the anti-scam websites first.

There are some common tricky set up on the internet. One of the most common trickiness is to pay to submit a grant application. So if you are proactive, please don’t pay to submit a grant application. If you are asked to pay for a application fee, obviously it is a scam. And the fee varies depending on the type of grant you are applying for. It may be required for you to show you have financial resources to cover expenses that the grant does not cover. And you will pay more money for that project and gain nothing. That’s why the scam are so boring.

People usually don’t like the application procedure because the application process for government grants is usually lengthy. Bad guys use the weakness to allure those people who is not patient enough. So if someone shows up and tells you within a week that you have been chosen for a government grant, it is most likely a scam. It’s often take few weeks for the government officers to give a grant.

The government gives the grant to you for helping you out of the difficulties not for hunting you down. The government will not make the grant profitable and get some goods from the grant. There is always a call which said they can award you a grant only if you just pay $50 for a process fee. If you are precaution you can smell a scam. Even there is a case that someone did not submit an application for a government grant before. But one day he received a call claimed that you have been awarded one government grant. It’s obviously a scam.


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