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If you are reading this, you may be wondering, what a government grant scam has to do with technology. Most people wouldn’t relate this type of scam with technology simply because there is so much literature out there on grants. Try looking for books on grants at a Barnes and Nobel or Borders. There will be a lot of them.

The scam isn’t that government grants don’t exist. The scam is in the presentation. Email communications, web sites and late night TV advertisements make it sound like anyone qualifies for “FREE MONEY” from the government. Really? I’ve heard of stimulus checks, but the grant scam goes way beyond this.

Have you ever seen an email or tv commercial telling you that you qualify for free, no cost, government grants to buy a car, purchase a home, start a business, pay your credit card bills or even to take a vacation? This is usually followed by telling you how easy their system will make it. I always want to ask, if it is so easy to get a grant, and the government is just waiting to give me free money, and it doesn’t cost anything to apply for a grant, why would I need to buy some CD/DVD on the topic?

You’ve seen Matthew Lesko on TV for sure. He’s the guy in the weird, question mark suits. Have you ever picked up one of his books at a bookstore? He and his business may not be a scam, but why buy his books? What does he know that the public isn’t told? What information are the official government web sites hiding from us about grants? I do know this though, if his books put grant money in the pockets of everyone who purchased them, every US citizen own their own copy of his books already!

Matthew Lesko

The government grant scam is kind of like selling you standard options on a new vehicle for an additional cost. Hello, mirrors and doors come standard! Information on grants is available freely, on state and federal government web sites. This doesn’t stop people from trying to sell it to you though! As a matter of fact, the issue got such attention, NBC/MSNBC did a story on it in March of this year. (Read it here!)

How does all this tie back to technology? The companies offering information on how to secure a government grant use the latest in email technology to spam out millions of emails. These emails are meant to grab your attention, get your hopes up, sell you a product, and then leave you hanging.

If you need additional information about grants, click the links at the bottom of the MSNBC story I mentioned above. You could also buy a book from a bookstore with a good return policy (you wont have to get very far into the book to know if it is going to be helpful). Another thing you could do, is to contact community help organizations for which you need your grant. For instance, if you are looking for a grant to help start a business, talk to your local chamber of commerce or local SBA (Small Business Administration) office.

and…

by all means…

DO NOT RESPOND TO THE EMAIL you received! Don’t even click the link that says it will remove you from their list. If spamming is illegal and their scam is illegal, what makes you think they will remove you from an illegal email system, which is illegally mis-representing the grant system?