TurnAround contacted us at the end of July and were very excited to tell us about the fact that our business is a perfect candidate for getting a $200,000 Grant.
Their fee for preparing a business plan and writing the grant was $2000. If we were to receive the grant, we would have to pay another $2000.
It sounded OK, We needed a business plan anyway, and decided to risk the $2000.
Later on, we received from them a list of the foundations they sent our application to.
On February 10, they contacted us again, and let us know that they succeeded to collect a total $182,000 for us.
They made sure that we qualify for the following "terms" of the grant:
1. That we don't owe money to the IRS
2. That we will have to hire at least two people
3. That we'll have to be incorporated at least for two years.
The first two conditions were fine, but since we were not incorporated for two years, they offered us to buy a Shelf corporation with good standing and a good credit line. They asked $9000 for purchasing the shelf corp, and for extra paperwork.
At that point, we started to check more thoroughly about "turnaround business development inc", and this is what we found:
First, We discovered two previous complaints in usacomplaints.com which suggested strongly that this is a fraud.
Than, just to make sure, we called one of the foundation they applied for. The Foundation confirmed that they indeed received a letter from TurnAround.
However, the letter was extremely unprofessional, poorly made, and didn't meet the requirements of their Grant.
To my question if the foundation believed that this is a fraudulent company, the answer was "defiantly".
The Internet is full of the different names they keep changing. When we called them, they answered the phone already with a different name.
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