I received a letter dated October 31 congratulating me on my business/home improvement grant being approved in category A of the North American grant paid to qualified and randomly selected applicants across the USA. The name of the company is Southwest Trust. I called the number on the letter and was told by a woman with a foreign accent that I needed to deposit the check take out 1950.00 go to moneygram at walmart send the money by moneygram to the agent noted at the bottom of the letter a Victoria Travino in Houston Texas and I would receive a 35,050.00 check within 3 to 5 business days. The grant total was 37,000.00. I started to ask some questions. Why did I have to pay the tax before I received the money. The woman told me that it was to verify that I was the correct person the grant was going to. I then asked what would happen if I just cashed the check and didnt send the money. The woman said nothing you just wont receive the rest of the grant. I then called the bank listed on the check which was Union bank of Californina. The bank does exist and they did verify that there was an account for a Southwest trust financial, they gave me a fax number to verify the check and to let me know if the funds were available in the account to cover the check. I then googled this company and found a Southwest Trust financial trading company with almost the exact same address with a 951 california area code number, the area code on the letter was 289. I then went onto the international area code website and found that this area code is from a number in Toronto Canada. So like everyone else on this website has reported I also believe this is a scam. I have not applied for a home improvement grant as I do not own a home on the back of this letter it states that you do not need to own a home to qualify for this grant. The grant is a prize I won and does not require repayment. There is also a list of contributing donors such as microsoft, walmart, starbucks etc. I have been given until November 18th to file this claim. Someone has to stop these horrible scammers! This is the first time this has ever happened to me and honestly I feel very violated! It seems these scammers are also trying to become smarter rather than show a Canada address on the label they make up a California address with a Canada telephone number. When I called back to ask some more questions I received an answering machine with a full mailbox also. Im glad I didnt deposit this check!
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