For small businesses trying to stay afloat during the pandemic, a company that sold grant-writing services seemed to offer a lifeline. In a lawsuit, the FTC and State of Florida say the company promised to get businesses “guaranteed” grants of $25,000 to $250,000, depending on how much they paid for its services. But, the lawsuit says, those promises were false and businesses lost thousands of dollars each.
The lawsuit alleges that the company, Grant Bae, and its owner targeted minority-owned small businesses using social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Clubhouse. The complaint says they falsely claimed that any minority-owned business that paid Grant Bae would get at least $25,000 in grant funding; promised that most Grant Bae clients would get funds within seven days of a grant’s “closing” date; and claimed they would apply for funds on behalf of business owners through the federal government’s COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.
But in most instances the defendants didn’t deliver on their promises, the complaint says. What’s more, according to the complaint, by the time business owners learned that Grant Bae wasn’t producing the promised grants and wasn’t honoring its “money-back guarantee,” it was often too late for them to dispute charges for thousands of dollars in fees that they had paid by credit card or other means.
The case is a reminder that honest businesses will never guarantee that your business will get a grant or loan. Any company making that promise is a scam. Learn more about scams that target small businesses at our Protecting Small Businesses website.
For small businesses seeking advice on financing, business planning, human resources, and more, the SBA’s SCORE Business Mentoring Program has free consulting services. Free and low-cost counseling and training for minority-owned businesses also is available directly through the SBA or through its partnership with historically Black colleges and universities across the country.
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.
Thank you for everything!!