PROSOURCE, A Service Disabled Veteran Owned LLC hired Kim Fontenot, owner of Stellar Grants, to research grants, write grant proposals, find angel investors and write RFP's. After 4 months of trying to get them to write a grant proposal and nearly $7000 later, all we have to show for it is a lousy business plan we can't even use. They spend most of their time sending back and forth emails that don't accomplish anything as fluff to show they are working on something. Most of their efforts go into their contracts and getting you to sign the dotted line. Before they quote you a price for their services they already know how much money you have by gathering information about your company for grants. Then they try and squeeze as much as they can.
We paid an overpriced $5000 business plan (which they copied the content we supplied) so we may utilize their grant services. We got the runaround until we wired them the money and then they tell us to get us a grant it would be 12 month/$48,000 contract. After a lengthy and excruciating negotiation we finally settled on 3 month/$1500 and a very large backend commission for the money they raise.
Though Stellar acts like they are helping you, they very calculatingly steer you down a track of sucking you dry.
Kim Fontenot is a savvy business person who sells you on hype and "connections". Though Stellar might be Stellar in what they say they do, PROSOURCE's experience was painfully frustrating. We were cheated by their deception, manipulation, and business ethics. They have a great talent for twisting facts and deflecting any sort of accountability. I anticipate they will do the same with this complaint by assembling some rebuttal that claims 0% accountability for all the games they play. Furthermore, Co-owner David Lipten only made our experience more frustrating by his lack of attention and detail. More often than not, the emails he sent were either not intended for us or they were other company's information.
Yesterday my partners and I decided that we had to put an end to this upsetting fiasco. PROSOURCE can't spend anymore time, energy and money on empty promises. The straw that broke the camels back today was when Kim said (after 4 months), "Honestly, unless you want to become a 501c-3 you are NOT going to qualify for many grants." Considering that's the reason we hired them, we feel very cheated! Thankfully we did not sign the 12month/$48,000 package! We have requested a refund and they responded with their attorneys number for further correspondence and claimed we were threatening them physically by filing a BBB complaint.
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