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A complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix today alleging that several Kansas-based telemarketing firms have been ripping off suckers and the elderly in countless states including Arizona.
The complaint says Landmark Publishing Group, Grant Writers Institute, Apex Holdings International and Real Estate Buyers Financial Network, would sell consumers a “federal grants guidebook,” guaranteeing them more than $25,000 in federal grants. They claimed the grants could be used for anything from vacations to health care, and charged $69 for each guide.
The problem is, most of the grants don’t really exist, and when pissed-off people started calling the companies that sold them the bogus books, all they got was an automated message basically telling them that the check was in the mail.
The telemarketers charged another $995 for “grant coaching,” which consisted of only a list of “grants, contests, loans, entitlement programs, and social welfare programs,” the complaint says.
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They say a sucker is born every minute; unfortunately for the defendants, so is a lawyer.
