USA Grant Applications

If you check out their application form (it popped up when I was looking up FAFSA regs), you will begin to get the idea of what their gimmick is especially when you get to the end - if they let you see it without filling out the previous info.

They claim to check for all grants you might be eligible for, presenting themselves as a governmental organization (it would help if Google had more oversight than providing their link after legitimate financial application subjects; I doubt it was just adjacent to that FAFSA site).

Of course, I should have suspected it was "too good to be true" and thus clicked off, but as I recently actually DID miss an exceptional state grant for which I qualified ($50K fr house repairs for lower income folks) I thought it couldn't hurt to put my name out to this company especially as it was (apparently free and governtment affiliated).

So I DID fill out the required identifying info (thank goodness, excluding SS #) but still a nice haul for someone collecting identifying info by address, age, phone # and email address.

When I came to the end, though, and saw they were charging for the service I stopped the application, and looked them up on BBB after getting a bad feeling. Of course, I saw numerous complaints of people who'd been taken in - didn't get the guaranteed refund (if the company didn't find them a grant), had other charges withdrawn on their credit card, etc.

Worst of all, though, was when I was looking over the financial info part I noticed that (I guess, via autofill?!

from my password minder???) that my credit card information was already available to them!

That means, the complete number and even the security code. It was kind of greyed out, but they had it all (and before that, of course, all the personal info I had filled out which was quite a lot (as I said at least it didn't include SS # but there was plenty else.

And when I went back over the application trying to delete the info (or write in humorus substitutes, such as identifying myself as a Samoan in my early twenties, who wanted sponsorship for a GREAT IDEA I wanted to patent, I discovered everything was "unerasable" - that too was somehow permanently recorded. (FWIW finding grants to help with inventions was only one of their grant offerings.)

After a detailed account with BBB, I deleted all the personal info I could access in my Password Minder, including a "payment info" page which included all my credit card info, and of course I'll keep my eye out for any unrecognized charges on my credit card statement.

However, somehow I don't feel like all this was enough. Is there REALLY a file of my personal info through LastPass and another of "payment options"??

Ones accessible through autofill (also cancelled what I thought were pertinent autofill permissions too).

But seems to me that apart from possibly selling my personal info*, they may have other nefarious purposes. That is, thanks to what seems to be a possibly sophisticated autofill coding gimmick, they may have other ways of worming their way into my laptop.

(*I'm sure there's a hot market for personal ID such as I already provided, especially ones belonging to apparent suckers (GRRR)

Anyhow, BEWARE!!

(I can't even say "Buyer Beware" considering I hadn't even filled in the payment permission.)

When my computer savvy son gets back from a trip, I'll ask him for help, but til then? Hope for the best., I suppose. Perhaps I need to run a virus/malware scan to be safe, but I think he said there weren't any for Apple as they now had it built in.

Is he right?

PS I just tried to cut and paste my letter for possible use in contacting LastPass but for some reason (you must know) it's impossible.

I would have appreciated being able to keep a copy for my own use so I don't have to recap the situation from scratch.

:(

Why have you blocked that function? :(