Don't Fall For Bogus Stimulus Checks

[Peaches]

Scam Alert: Don't Fall for Bogus 'Stimulus' Checks

FTC, BBB officials say that sites promising a piece of the stimulus action are misleading at best, and may charge big bucks to provide information you could get for free.

JR Raphael, PC World

"I Got a $12,000 Stimulus Check in Less than 7 days. Get Yours!" Over the past week, this attractive-sounding offer appeared in a Google text ad. Other ads have claimed "Obama's Giving You Cash" and touted "$40,000 [y]ou don't ever have to pay back!"

But both the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau are cautioning consumers about ads that promise easy access to government money, ads that they say have multiplied since passage of the economic stimulus package.

"The bottom line on this is, these are scams," says Eileen Harrington, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "The stimulus is not passing out checks to individual consumers."

In an investigation, PC World found multiple sites that offered to send "free" information on how to obtain government grants. Some of those sites asked for personal information--such as name, employment status, and household income--in order to determine whether we "qualified" for grant money. Once we submitted our information, the sites asked us to pay a shipping and handling charge for the information on getting stimulus money--information that Harrington says is probably publicly available.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/160367/scam...lus_checks.html