To pay the shipping charges, however, you had to provide your credit card information. And by doing so, you authorized Financial Crisis Grant to bill you, indefinitely, a $79.95 monthly "membership fee"--as you would have seen only if you happened to click on the small "Terms and Conditions" link buried at the bottom of the page. The terms of service didn't make clear what exactly you received in exchange for that membership fee. Canceling within seven days of placing the order was the only way to avoid the first charge.

What's more, the terms stated that any "chargebacks" or "reversals" would be considered "potential cases of fraudulent use of [the] services and/or theft of services." Assuming that you received the company's kit and a password to its site, the terms stated, any refund requests would be "vigorously fought" and could lead to the company's "reporting the incident to the appropriate authorities in your state to investigate theft of services." The terms also stated that all site activity and IP information were being "monitored" and could "be used in a civil and criminal case" against you in the event of a requested refund.

At least a few claims of abuse by Financial Crisis Grant have begun to surface around the Internet, with one posting just weeks ago.

Changing Links

On subsequent visits, we saw that "Jeff's Grants Blog" had altered its links numerous times, pointing to different pages on different days. The page it linked to on Saturday was called Grant One Day, hosted at the domain grantoneday.org. While the title, the graphical look, and the contact information were all different (among other things, a video of a young woman promoting the offer began playing as soon as you reached the page), the basics were the same: Grant One Day would send you free information if you paid for shipping and handling.