8774726814

Hi Brian, I applied for a grant. They said I was approved for 400,000 in grants. Do you think I will receive anything from this company? I have already sent in the 2600 for the retainer fee. They have all the paperwork. They said they have to send it to review and we should have something by the end of the year. Do you think this was wise........

Hi Joe, did you receive your funding through SBFC and did you speak to a guy name Aaron? Could you please give us a call and verify this company? We are a very small business and this type of venture could really hurt us. We have sent the $2600 in. Please help us. Did we make a big mistake?.....Please please please reply.....................

I had a call from these people also. I am a buisness man doing well. I was leary and told the guy this smells of scam all over it. He politely told me the secretary of state number in nevada. gave me the BBB search site and told me to take a few days to check this company out. I also recieved the adresses of thier physical buildings. If it is a scam its a damn good one. He said they have been in buisness since 1977 and have no bad reputation. I have not checked into this but I certainly got no studdering by my boiler room sales person! ( they were operating out of what i call a boiler room ). But I believe they have some things that are available may not be what we think but under right situation I believe they could streamline things for you. I am checking will get back to you. I am going for 1.5 million. remodeling for assisted living.

I was told 3700 out of the first 100,000. and no additional charge beyond that. but thier fee was 1600.00 up front to contract thier service.

I, too, repsonded to a call right at the end of September.  They were polite and provided some info, but told me I needed to get it done "RIGHT NOW" because it was the beinning of the fourth quarter and it would take another year if we didn't do it "RIGHT NOW".  I declined because I never respond to high pressure sales. But I just got another call from them saying that NOW is the best time.  So I told him I wanted them to give me some sort of "sucess rate"... you know, like XX% of our clients get RFP's or grants or something.  He tells me that info is "confidential".  But in my mind, there is no need for confidentiality with a success rate unless there is a problem.  Something just isn't passing my smell test.

I wish someone who has had success would respond, and contact me or let me contact them and talk in person.  I think I will just wait for now.

I paid $2600/- in October this year and still waiting. My budget was tight but I took a risk. However, if something positive comes out I shall definetly inform you and of course, if something negative then the whole world will know about it. Good luck to you all & me!

My husband has been speaking with someone from sbfc.  He was told that we would pay once the grant is awarded.  I will let you know if that is not the case.  We won't pay up front, I don't care what people say about that.

I have been talking to Bill Widener, ext 420, I have been approved for $175,000.00.  But, I will have pay the $2600 up front also.  He told me to check them out on the internet and that he would call me back.  I didn't find much when I searched, except a thing on Yahoo answers that were sort of scripted in my opinion.  I told him that I was having trouble letting go of that amount of money up front.  He explained that that weeds out the people that aren't serious, and they would be chaising everyone down for there $2600 if they did that.  If they can't trust us, why should we trust them?

We spoke to this man at SBFC several times and have been professional and interested so he keeps trying to keep us interested.  We asked for informaiton and so far he can only fax one page with the most basic information.  My theory is that it is a company and that they will work to find you money, but 99% of us won't qualify and the fee will pay for exactly what they promised - an attempt at getting money.  Heck, anyone can set up a business claiming they will try and it's not illegal.  Lawyers take a retainer and they can try to help you win but you might not win.  I am very skeptical and I am going to pass.  If they really want customers then they better work on responding to everyone's concern.  He also faxed a list of Foundations (top 100) that give money.  It showed their asset pool sizes but that is certainly not how the distributions are made and I believe this is a simple case of preyingon our hunger for working capital.  I do believe grants are out there but you can hire an attorney to handle it for you - funny how we are willing to write a big check but I bet most of us snear at paying an attorney in town $175/hr. to do the work for us.  I am going to take a lesson from this and spend some money on gaining information around grant applications - heck, it was money I was ready to roll the dice on in NV...

I noticed that their corporate information contains gramatical errors.  It just doesn'ta add up.  Let's face it - they are so unprofessional, if this is a good idea we might as well find a company that is doing a better job at it and hire them to represent us - these people are rookies.

The information I received said:

SBFC Inc -
311 N. Pecos Rd.
Henderson, NV 89074

www.sbfcompany.com or www.smallbusinessfundingco.com

Secretary of State

www.sos.statenv.us

Corp. # C892-1977

Our licensed is verified under:

City of Henderson
2002303...  (can't read it)

877-472-6814

Oh - forgot to mention, we qualified for $400K at the initial $2,600 level (because we applied under childcare and farm as a woman owned business) and then we got approved for $1.2million if we paid $6,700.

I really would like to know if Grant money is out there - someone let us know.

Same song - I received a call, left my name and number and a guy named Daniel Araya called me back.  Went thru the initial process and he told me my business (existing business of 3 yrs) would qualify for approximately $250,000 to $300,000 in grant money.  He explained that they never actually see the grant money once it is given out, it comes directly to me, that is why they ask for the retainer of $2600 up front.  Then once grant money is received I would owe an additional $3700.  I don't know if any one has seen the contract, but all they promise is to submit the proposal and if a minimum of $100,000 is not received within the first year, then the will provide their services free of charge for the second year - still no promise/guarantee of money.  He told me they nave been in business for 30+ years, but they have only been incorporated just recently.  When I checked on the BBB website they have two business names, one for general business guidance, and one for the grant writing side of the company.  The business side of grant writing has only been in business since Aug '07 - therefore not enough time for the BBB to determine if they are satisfactory or not.  

Up to this point, I have been sold on the company, except for no testimonies.  The guy I have been in contact with at SBF has been very professional and has answered my questions well.  I HAVE NOT given them any money yet.  I would like to hear of a success story.  I did run across an interesting responce on Yahoo.  Here is the link and the response in case you cannot open the link.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071108003131AADvLkz

"It is really a ploy, unless you have any where from 13,000.00 to 20,000.00 dollars to spend. You will be sold on the concept that with your initial down payment they will complete the work for you, they in turn will take an additional 3,700 dollars off the top upon your award of the grant. What they don't tell you is that they are going to try to silicate another 10,000. talking you into becoming a non profit org. and another 10,000. for actually submitting the paper work,( of which they already said they would do) stating that your down to 20 or 30 applicants for this grant. The paper work they claim they need is so overwhelming your screwed if you don't have the money to have them do it. Be Leary or they will take your initial payment and your screwed, as they did me."

I would to hear the outcome from anyone who has paid the $2600 retainer fee.  Good luck to us all!

Hi Brian, my name is Pamela Clay I have a Calif non-profit.  Can you give me a more detailed reference.  Like what is your companies name and what type of business do you have?

They call from other countries, Puerto Rico and Nicaragua, their English is very weird, and the connection is so bad.
The background is very noisy and seems like a street fair.
Henderson's office hire agents out of USA to save money,
All employees work on comissions and I really doubt if 2600 up front is spent to write our grants or to pay offices in other countries of central america.
Good luck to all.

My story is the same, I did an extensive Google search from every angle I could think of and could not come up with any real "dirt" on SBFC. When I did a search on the phone # only It showed that they have several names tied to that #. Still I thought I'd give it a try. So at the end of Nov. 2007 they had my personal check picked up by FedEx. Since then I never hear from them. I have 5 differant extensions that I try calling from time to time. Eventually after leaving many messages I'll get a call back and they will tell me to be more patient, grants take a long time. It's hard to be patient when someone takes your money and doesn't even bother to comunicate with you afterwards. They sure were comunicating before they got there money. At this point I'm about 50/50 on wether this is a scam. To the person who claims to have recieved a grant from them and that it took 6 or 8 months, how do we know your not an employee of SBFC?

In "Joes" testimonial dated Nov. 2007 he said he recieved his grant after 8 months wich means he applied sometime before March of 2007. Jeremy found out that the business side of grant writing for SBFC has only been in business since Aug '07. Just one of many descrepacies and little red flags I've found. Now I'm more in the range of 70/30 that this is a scam.

I experienced the same exact series of events listed above. Thanks to this message board, I refused to go any further.

Thank you-
Danielle

SBFC is a scam, they don't write grants, all employees work on comissions, they are not paid any base salary as they claim, the truth is that they fight for each client between themselves b'cause they get paid from check for 2600$, all of them are very aggressive, they got strange accent, and I believe they are a group of Latin Americans playing grant writing business.
THEY DON'T WRITE ANY GRANTS. They are just rude like a collecting company calling us to get money out of us, they just hunt for 2600$.
Sorry for all who were mistaken about their good intentions.

Cindy.

Hey guys,
I was called by SBFC, one agent, don't remember his name told me about their company, kindly asked me to do research on them, and check with out with BBB, afterwards he asked me few questions what my business type is, and reason for grant, and after not more than 30 min called me back saying that I have got approved for 200.000$ He did not tell me what fundation was going to give me grant and what type of grant I qualified for, when I asked him for details he just said that there were a lot of different grants.I asked him to send me a bit more information on their company, in 10 minutes I received only one page, and that was a contract to sign. I did not receive anything else. That's why I'm here looking for more information and I have found this blog. I really don't believe that they are able to get me money which they say they garantee in the contract, as a matter of fact there is no legal garantee in this contract, there is nothing about garantee or promise of completing this contract.
That guy called me from 888-238-4838 he told me they are in Henderson, Nevada, but on their contract I read Las Vegas Nevada and they give the same contact number 8882384838.

Brian, what is the name of your company?  Do you have a web site?  I just want to make sure you don't actually work for the company in question.  I would like to use their services as well but I need validation of their authenticity.  A friend of mine has already given them $2600 but there hasn't been enough time to see if this was a scam or not.

Hey, Joe, I ask Brian for his business name and website and would like to have yours as well to make sure you aren't working for the business in question.  If they are legit, I will use them.  Hard to say according to my research. If they are connected to the "Grant People"  then the BBB has them listed as "unsatisfory" with 68 complaints.