Grant scams are all over the Internet, promising that you can get free government money to pay your bills, pay off your home, or even start a business. While the government offers grants, these typically are not available to the general public. Learn more about grant scams so you can avoid them.
What is a Grant?
A grant is a source of free money--money that does not have to be paid back--that can be used for a variety of purposes. Grants are typically provided to college students to help cover a few expenses, and are made available for businesses and organizations to apply for. When applying for the grant, applicants need to designate why they are applying, what makes them qualify, and what they would do with the funds.
While grant money is availble, it's not as easy to get as many grant scams make people believe, and it certainly isn't available to help pay regular bills as many companies would like people to believe.
Grant Scams
Similar to the Advanced Fee Scams, these scams tell people they are to get access to information for several hundred, maybe even thousand different government programs and grants that they can use for many different purposes. These companies will typically ask for a processing fee of some sort, most often $1.98 to send a booklet of information. Those who send the processing fee will get some form of grant information in return, but the information will not be what the customer was expecting.
If the grant scams don't ask for a processing fee to send information, they offer to send a grant kit that will help people to apply to an unlimited amount of grants, or some other software to help with securing a goverment grant. The dollar amount the person will be prompted to pay varies depending on the site, the product, and the depth of the scam.
Why Does it Work?
It works because people want free money, and often times need free money. It works because after paying for the information or software, they get a tangible product, most often containing information relevant to what they originally paid for. Though consumers are not satisfied with their product, they are not really able to combat the problem with legal action.
Avoiding the Scam
Anything that claims to provide free money is lying. It will always be a scam, so don't pay for it. If information is what you are after, the information on what grants are available and to whom can be found at grants.gov.