Back to that ad about the $12,000 stimulus check: Clicking on it led to a page entitled "Jeff's Grant Blog." The site's domain, jeffrysgrantblog.com, was registered anonymously via the Enom domain registrar on February 13.

The page has a photo of a young man, and the caption underneath reads: "My name is Jeff Donahue, and I started this blog because I want everyone to know how I went from being broke to completely paying off my debt in 7 days by spending a few minutes filling out a form online that qualified me for a Free $12,000 Financial Aid Check from the US Government."

Elsewhere, the site says you can get grant money for almost anything--home repair, personal expenses, even paying off debt. Numerous testimonials vouch for the service (but all are signed with screen-name handles--lee1010, ravensfly, and such--as opposed to full names). All you have to do, the site says, is pay about $3 to cover shipping costs for your "free grant kit."

When I first looked at "Jeff's Grant Blog" on Friday, all of its links led to a shopping-cart site with copyrighted content attributed to a company called Financial Crisis Grant, LLC. There, next to a large photo of President Barack Obama, the site presented a form to enter your information, pay a shipping charge, and--the site said--receive a check "in as little as seven days."

Also on the page was a graphic labeled "Grants in the Media," with logos from MSNBC, CNN, and other major media outlets.