US GRANTS INTERACTIVE Tried to RIPOFF offering fake grant money Saint George Utah *EDitor's Suggestions on how to get your money back into your bank account!

I also received a phone call on thursday 11/10/05. It was on my cell phone too which i only give out to the internet and important others. i thot it was alil weird and like a telemarketer too. since i was only the net checking my email the day b4. i was not aware of getting any grant emails till today. but the same guy with that accent" bob willams w/ rep id# 2949 called me and my caller id said "unknown caller" 1/2 way through the call my phone hung up then he called back. he asked me those questions and didnt say anything about a cd or fee till he wanted me to talk to supervisor darren to verify and that guy sounded american "no accent"(same as the 800# voice saying diff times they gave me, "in a mountain time zone". "not from the EST time" which they told me on the phone" which im in Pac time and im 1 hour behind them now.
after he asked what bank i had. he told me the bank routing number "i thot wow they new that already" but not my bank acc # then. then there was a proccessing fee "I was very worried about there "Proccessing fee" of 299$ i thot that was alot". even for 5k or more grant.

after both guys were done they transferred me to this automated female recording menu were he did the dialing and we went threw the menu sounded like it was from the ftc. they already had all my info besides my acc# after that it gave me 800# and m-f 9-4 est to call customer service and a time frame on my payment and proccessing date of the 23rd. and they gave my a verification # too.

doubt ill be able to reach them to cancel on mon if possible. im glad i came to research them "after the fact" that u guys had this info on them made me feel more or less worried and called my bank but they said to wait and try to get a hold of them. hmm yea b4 stopping payment on. so i wasted 30 mins of my airtime on them wasnt happy either. but alteast i caught it in time to do something about it.

You don't even listen to what these frauds are trying to offer you. Once you get involved, they'll suck you into their con.



The minute you realize they want something, you say exactly what I told you above.



No job.

No money.

No bank account.

No credit card.



How can they argue with a guy who has nothing?

I also received a phone call today (10/21/05). It was on my cell phone, and the caller i.d. only indicated "Unavailable." I'm familiar with these sorts of scams (thank you Ripoffreport!) so I was on guard. I was irritated enough to string him along just to see what his pitch was going to be, though I suspected as soon as he mentioned "grants" that he was going to eventually try to get my bank account number.



He called himself "Robert Jones" (or Johnson? Something like that) though the man clearly had an East Indian accent. I even asked him, a little sarcastically, if that was his real name, and of course he said yes. What else could he say? I think if I had an accent like that I would at least make up an Indian-sounding name. Oh well, minor point.



He immediately launched into an obviously scripted pitch about how easy it was to get government grants in almost any amount of money. I tried to ask a few questions but he stubbornly kept returning to the script. For instance, he asked, "Do you know what grants are?" -- I said, "Yes, of course." He said, "Well, some people don't know what they are, what they are is money that you never have to pay back . . . etc." I felt my intelligence had been insulted a bit, but I wanted the pitch to go as far as it could to see where he was leading me, so I played dumb and eager and let him continue with his leading questions.



He kept asking typical leading questions, e.g.: "What would you do with grant money -- pay off bills, open a business?" And so forth.



He said that to "qualify" I only need be a U.S. citizen, over 18 years old, and have (here it comes!) a valid bank account. That was the giant RED FLAG I was waiting for, and he hit it on the head. He tried to make me feel special for meeting all of those qualifications (as if they were really stringent or something.)



He mentioned that his company would send me a CD-ROM in the mail containing information on how to obtain any sort of government grant. He also promised that the company would be available any time that I needed extra information or help getting a grant. He indicated that all this would cost "only" $299.



I asked if I could send the money via money order or check, but he was quite adamant that the "best way" to pay was via direct bank transfer, supposedly so that it could be safely and securely verified and that we both would have records of the transaction. He worked very hard to try to get my account number on the phone.



I asked him where he was calling from. He said St. George, Utah (an area I'm familiar with, though I had no way to confirm it.) He gave the name of the company as US Grants Interactive, and gave me the web page address but only after I asked for it repeatedly. He then expected me to check it immediately, while he was still on the phone, which I was unable to do since I was on my cell phone in a parking lot, which I told him at this point.



By now I figured I had strung him as far as I could, so I let the cat out of the bag. I said I knew exactly what sort of scam this was, and that I had read extensively about these cons on the internet, where random telemarketers try to get people to reveal their bank account numbers and then get money taken from their account.



Of course, this Hindu "Robert Jones" kept insisting it was not a scam, that the company was reputable, that everything he was saying was being recorded, and so forth.



I asked to be transferred to a supervisor. He put me on hold for a few moments and I could vaguely hear some sort of conversation he seemed to be having with another man, but couldn't quite make out the words. He seemed to be complaining about my questions, and the supervisor seemed to be coaching him on proper responses. "Robert Jones" came back on the line, but still refused to let me speak to the supervisor.



Finally, my patience was at an end. I told him he had wasted about 10 minutes of my cell phone time with this scam, and that he was in fact conducting an illegal scam. I told him he was engaging in wire fraud, and that I now had the address and name of him and his company (not exactly true) and that soon there would be charges and arrests. I made it clear that he as an individual was liable for this crime, and that hiding behind the company would not exonerate him.



I told him that I was doing _him_ a big favor tonight by warning him that he was engaging in wire fraud each time he solicited someone with this scam, and that the smartest thing he could do would be, as soon as we ended our conversation, to go up to his supervisor, tell the boss what I just said, and tell him that he was quitting immediately, and that he should then simply walk out the door and never come back. I made it clear that, in my opinion, I was giving him some very valuable advice and that he ought to take it seriously.



The conversation ended soon after, and hopefully that's the last I hear from this scam company. I do sincerely hope that Mr. "Robert Johnson/Jones", the Hindu, takes my advice to heart and stops scamming people with this particular scheme.



BTW: I did check their website later (www.usgrantsinteractive.com), and it is as I suspected it would be, totally useless. It consists of a single page with a few photos. Every "link" simply pops up a small window advising you to call their 800 number to order their CD-ROM. That's all -- no street address, no mailing address information, no "live" phone number.