Early (April) of this year I thought about looking into grants to help my new business be a sucess, being a minority female business owner in the construction line. The Grant People responded with what sounded like something to good to be true. I was right, it was too good to be true. They said for $5000 they could get me a $200,000 grant for my business. If I send them $2500, they do all the paperwork and write all these letters on my behalf and they promised me $200,000. If I do not get a grant within a year they will contunie working for me and I only pay the other $2500 when the first $100,000 is put in an account for me.
Within 3 months I got a phone call wanting $12,000 to set me up as non-profit. I would then get $400,000 in grant money. When I told them that I did not want to do the non-profit because it sounded a little shady to me, how can a non-profit pay a profit business??? Just does not make sence. But when I told them to proceed with the orginal plans, I have not heard back from them. I call and can never speak to anyone. They are never available, or on the phone, and Michael Wheeler, the guy that set me up and took my $2500 is no longer in that department he has supposable moved up the ladder somewhere.
They did send me a list of possible organizations to supply me with the grant, however, the organizations listed only give to non-profit or homeless agencys. I am neither of these.
I did finally get to speak to someone, and all they could tell me was that it takes time to write all these letters on my behalf and it is a first come first serve letter writing. So I have to wait 4 to 5 months to see any results at all. This however is just a game of thiers, buying time is all they are doing.
I have copies of everything except the phone calls and I think my next step is a law suite against The Grant People. There is no grants here to be had.
I hope they are put out of business so no more unexpecting people will be taken advantage of. I for one could really use the $2500 I gave them for more usefull things to upgrade my business.
C
Morehead, Kentucky
U.S.A.
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