Small Business Grant Scam

Small business owners are frequently targeted with unsolicited offers of grants specifically for business expansion, equipment purchases, or recovery from an economic downturn, arriving by email, social media message, or cold call. The message often references real, existing small business grant categories to sound plausible, then asks the owner to pay an 'application' or 'registration' fee, or to submit detailed business bank account and tax information as part of the supposed application.

A more elaborate version of the scam invents a fake grant-matching or grant-writing service that charges a subscription fee for access to a database of grants, many of which turn out to be expired, fabricated, or simply copied from publicly available government listings the business owner could have found for free. Legitimate small business grants are applied for directly through the government agency or corporate program running them, are listed on official public websites, and never require payment of a fee to apply or to receive an already-approved award.