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Apr1
U.S. missile strike kills 12 in Pakistan
Filed under: U.S., World; Tagged as: afghanistan, army, barack obama, breaking news, muslim, pakistan, president barack obama, terrorist, united states, war, washington, whitehouseAttack targets alleged hide-out connected to a Taliban leader 
ISLAMABAD – A suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles Wednesday at an alleged hide-out connected to a Taliban leader who has threatened to attack Washington, killing 12 people and wounding several others, officials said.
The attack came a day after Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a police academy in the eastern city of Lahore, saying it was retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on militant strongholds along the Afghan border. Mehsud also vowed to launch an attack on Washington or even the White House in phone interviews with The Associated Press and local media.
The FBI, however, said he had made similar threats previously and that there was no indication of anything imminent.
A local intelligence official told The Associated Press that the compound attacked Wednesday in a remote area of the Orakzai tribal region near the Afghan border belonged to one of Mehsud’s commanders.
Up to 30 suspected militants were at the compound when it was hit, and the Taliban have moved the dead and injured to an undisclosed location, he said.
The strike is believed to be the first in Orakzai, another sign the U.S. is expanding its attack zone, possibly because of pressure on militants to keep moving.
Since the U.S. escalated its missile campaign starting in August, most of the estimated three dozen strikes have landed in North and South Waziristan tribal regions, where Mehsud is strongest.
Two other senior intelligence officials said they believe 12 people were killed in the strike, including close associates of Mehsud. But it was difficult to confirm the exact identities of those involved because the Taliban surrounded the area shortly after the attack, they said.
The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Liaquat Ali, a local government official in Orakzai, confirmed the attack but could not provide casualty figures or the identities of the people targeted.
Mehsud in the cross-hairs
Pakistan has publicly protested the attacks, calling them a violation of its sovereignty that also deepens anti-American sentiment. But President Barack Obama’s administration has signaled it has no intention of backing off. Officials say the strikes have killed top al-Qaida figures.Mehsud has no record of attacking targets abroad, although he is suspected of being behind a 10-man cell arrested in Barcelona in January 2008 for plotting suicide attacks in Spain. The U.S. recently placed a $5 million bounty on Mehsud’s head.
Pakistan’s former government and the CIA have named him as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani officials accuse him of harboring foreign fighters, including Central Asians linked to al-Qaida, and of training suicide bombers.
Washington has stepped up pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants operating in its territory who are believed to pose a threat to U.S. and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. Militants have also been increasing attacks within Pakistan, threatening to destabilize the nuclear-armed country.
Monday’s attack on a police academy on Lahore’s outskirts left at least 12 people dead, including seven police, and sparked an eight-hour standoff with security forces that ended when black-clad commandos stormed the compound. Some of the gunmen blew themselves up.
Analysts doubt that Mehsud’s Taliban fighters carried off the academy attack on their own, saying the group is likely working more closely than ever with militants based far from the Afghan frontier. It’s a constellation that includes al-Qaida, presenting a formidable challenge to the U.S. as it increases its troop presence in the region, not to mention Pakistan’s own stability.
No CommentsMar20Scandal puts focus on how CIA polices itself
Filed under: Obama, Politics, U.S.; Tagged as: barack obama, breaking news, central intelligence agency, cia, congress, government, Politics, president barack obama, prostitute, sex, terrorist, washington, whitehouseNo CommentsAllegations of officers’ sex misdeeds leads to scrutiny from Congress 
WASHINGTON – As a novice CIA case officer in the Middle East, Andrew Warren quickly learned the value of sex in recruiting spies. Colleagues say that he made an early habit of taking informants to strip clubs, and that he later began arranging out-of-town visits to brothels for his best recruits. Often Warren would travel with them, according to two colleagues who worked with him for years.
His methods earned him promotions and notoriety over a lengthy career, until Warren, 41, became ensnared in a sex scandal. Two Algerian women have accused the Virginia native of drugging and sexually assaulting them, and, in one instance, videotaping the encounter.
Six weeks after the allegations came to light, Warren has been formally notified by CIA Director Leon E. Panetta of his impending dismissal, according to U.S. government officials familiar with the case. But the episode — one of three sex-related scandals to shake the CIA this year — has drawn harsh questions from Congress about whether the agency adequately polices its far-flung workforce or takes sufficient steps to root out corrupt behavior.
‘An organization of professional liars’
The CIA says that these problems involve a tiny fraction of its workforce, and that those found to have breached rules are punished or fired. But former officers say the cases underscore a perennial challenge: guarding against scandal in a workforce — the size of which is classified but is generally estimated to be 20,000 — that prides itself on secrecy and deception.“You have an organization of professional liars,” said Tyler Drumheller, who oversaw hundreds of officers as chief of the agency’s European division. Experienced field managers are needed, he said, because inevitably “some people will try to take advantage of the system . . . and it’s a system that can be taken advantage of.”
The allegations against Warren drew an angry blast from the Senate panel that oversees the CIA. “The alleged activities are completely unacceptable,” committee leaders Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) said in a joint statement last month. Feinstein also criticized the CIA for what she said was not promptly informing Congress about the case, given its potential to damage U.S. relations with Algeria.
Repeated attempts in recent weeks to contact Warren through relatives were unsuccessful.
Misuses of money
The recent string of embarrassing revelations started with the CIA’s former No. 3 officer, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, who was indicted on corruption charges two years ago. Court documents released in recent weeks depict Foggo as bullying the office of the agency’s general counsel into giving a job to his mistress, whose subsequent performance reviews were subpar.Last month, agency officials confirmed the firing of Steve Levan, a 16-year veteran who pleaded guilty to misusing CIA credit cards. Levan, an analyst, worked at the agency’s headquarters for the No. 2 official, Stephen R. Kappes. As part of his plea agreement, Levan acknowledged obtaining credit card numbers assigned to undercover operatives and using them to run up bills surpassing $115,000. Much of the money was spent on hotel rooms and gifts for a mistress, according to two agency officials familiar with the case. He is awaiting sentencing this spring.
Michael S. Nachmanoff, Levan’s attorney, declined to comment on the case. In a pre-sentencing motion filed last week, Nachmanoff said the judge should consider his client’s strong record of service for the CIA — a record the agency had declined to release, he said.
Rapid ascent halted
But the most damaging revelations involved Warren, an Arabic speaker and Middle East specialist who was on a rapid ascent after CIA postings in Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and Algeria. He most recently served as Algiers station chief. But the State Department ordered him home in October after two Algerian nationals alleged that he assaulted them in separate incidents at his apartment.The women told State Department investigators that Warren assaulted them after giving them drug-laced drinks that made them pass out. State referred the matter to the Justice Department, where an investigation is ongoing. Warren has not been charged.
While looking into the allegations, U.S. officials discovered in Warren’s apartment more than two dozen video recordings that he apparently made of his sexual encounters, according to news accounts and two U.S. officials familiar with the investigation. One of the women behind the rape allegations appears in one of the videos, the officials said.
Current and former agency officials say that Warren and Levan were considered competent professionals with stellar work records, qualities that perhaps explain why their alleged misdeeds would have gone undetected.
“The fact of the matter is that the thousands of people who work at CIA are exceptionally dedicated, and cases of impropriety are extremely rare,” agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said. When there are such cases, he said, the CIA “looks into the allegations, follows up on them and cooperates fully with law enforcement authorities.”
Warning signs?
Several colleagues of Warren’s, though, spoke of warning signs that might have alerted the CIA sooner. Some who worked with him over several years said they were particularly concerned about the frequency of Warren’s use of strip clubs and other sex-related establishments for recruiting. The former officers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the agency does not allow them to discuss their CIA work publicly, said they were not surprised by the assault allegations.As CIA case officers attempt to recruit a foreign spy, they often offer personal inducements, ranging from cash to medical care. In some cases, a potential recruit may be taken to a strip club or even to a prostitute if it is deemed critical to cementing the relationship, longtime officers say. But for Warren, “it was a lifestyle thing,” costing the agency thousands of dollars, said one former co-worker who describes himself as a friend. The bills were routinely paid, he said.
“As long as you were doing good work, it was okay,” he said.
Mostly a ‘self-regulating system’
A. John Radsan, a former CIA assistant general counsel, said there are internal guidelines and structures — including the CIA inspector general’s office and a separate review board that oversees clandestine operations — that are intended to guard against scandal. In reality, he said, it is a self-regulating system with few incentives for reporting bad behavior.“You want a culture that values innovation and creativity and doesn’t mind violating the laws of other countries, but at the same time, you want a culture of compliance and honesty,” Radsan said. “It is a built-in contradiction.”
The agency’s internal management practices were also called into question last month during court proceedings for Foggo, who served as the top CIA administrator from November 2004 to May 2006.
A lengthy prosecution memo, made public over the objections of Foggo’s attorneys, listed a series of ethical alarms that did not prevent his reaching the agency’s highest ranks. Two personnel reports in 1989, for example, noted that Foggo “takes a very liberal and self-serving position regarding the interpretation of Agency rules and regulations” and warned that “he is likely to remain a potential threat to security through his poor judgment.”
In a court filing last month, Foggo’s attorneys said that their client has “committed his life to public service” and that his dedication and skills justified his promotions. They declined to comment further yesterday.
“Foggo was never a truly honest public servant” during his 24 years in the CIA, three prosecutors wrote in their memo to a federal judge in Alexandria shortly before Foggo was sentenced to 37 months in prison for corrupting the agency’s contracts. “He spent years defrauding the country.”
When Foggo manipulated agency contracts in 2003 and 2005, his colleagues and subordinates did not act on their suspicions of wrongdoing, the prosecutors said. Instead, they demonstrated a persistent reluctance to challenge authority that seems at odds with the climate of dissent and debate that the agency says it encourages.
After a former colleague of Foggo’s who had become his mistress was turned down for a job in the general counsel’s office, Foggo, who was the CIA’s executive director, called an associate general counsel into his office and “grew increasingly loud in tone and condescending,” according to a memo the counsel placed in her files. “[S]peaking in the third person, [Foggo] said, among other things, that when the EXDIR has an interest in a candidate for employment that I had better respect the EXDIR’s interest.”
The mistress was subsequently hired after an accelerated security check, because her paperwork was tagged “ExDir interest.” When her failure to perform required duties provoked her supervisor’s complaints, Foggo arranged for the supervisor — a 20-year veteran who had won many performance awards — to be ousted and moved to the Defense Department. The supervisor alleged in a court affidavit that her ouster was retaliatory.
Mar6Iraq exit strategy will be expensive
Filed under: Military, U.S.; Tagged as: afghanistan, americans, americas army, army, barack obama, breaking news, iraq, Military, pakistan, Politics, president barack obamaNo CommentsFinancial, logistical and political costs of leaving expected to be high 
One of the many large U.S. military bases in Iraq, Forward Operating Base Remagen is seen in a photo relased by the U.S. military in March 2006.
Measured in blood, the price tag in Iraq is absolute: 4,238 Americans have died during America’s six-year war. For Iraqis, the toll is far greater. Icasualties.org, which tracks body counts reported by the media, notes nearly 45,000 civilians have been killed since Iraq’s Shiite-led government was formed in April 2005; another Web site puts the tally since 2003 close to 100,000.
Yet as the Pentagon prepares its exit strategy in line with President Barack Obama’s announced plans to end the war by 2012, a wholly different calculus is emerging. With the end of combat rhetorically on the horizon, the cost of leaving is now measured in financial, logistical and, above all, political terms.
Obama told Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C., that while the United States would leave Iraq “sovereign, stable and self-reliant,” the price of staying had become too great. “What we will not do is let the pursuit of the perfect stand in the way of achievable goals,” the president said. “We cannot sustain indefinitely a commitment that has put a strain on our military and will cost the American people nearly a trillion dollars.”
But if the mission has been expensive, the price of withdrawal is no zero-sum game.
The United States has spent some $939 billion in combined operations since 2001, and the Obama administration has requested an additional $130 billion to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan next year (on top of the $75.5 billion the administration requested for the remainder of 2009).
How much more it might need is pure guesswork. If Obama sticks to his threshold limit of 50,000 American trainers in Iraq after combat ends — which the president says will happen by August 31, 2010 — the United States could have as many as 80,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2011. Getting them out will cost billions.
According to a January 2009 assessment by the Congressional Budget Office, a combined 30,000 troops in the two war zones could cost $388 billion in additional expenditures through 2019. Bump that up to 75,000 troops, and U.S. taxpayers could shoulder an additional $867 billion before the decade is out — on top of what has already been spent.
Getting the troops home will take time as well as money. Back in 2007, military officials told the Baltimore Sun departing could take nearly two years to complete.
Janet St. Laurent, a defense expert with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, told lawmakers last month that as of November 2008 there were 286 U.S. installations in Iraq that would need closing. Shuttering even the smallest of these will take upwards of two months, she said, while closing installations like Balad Air Force Base — which houses about 24,000 troops and their support staff — could take “longer than 18 months.”
Obama’s new Iraq timeline roughly splits the difference between the 16 months he promised as a candidate and the 23-month timeline favored by some commanders. Some analysts question whether the United States can afford to leave as soon as Obama has suggested.
Stephen Biddle, CFR’s senior fellow for defense policy, says he would have preferred a slower drawdown to maintain the peace between Iraq’s political rivals; he told lawmakers in February that repositioning forces to Afghanistan could leave the United States vulnerable in the event of a downward spiral in Iraq.
Iraqi politicians are equally concerned. Sunni leaders fear clashes with Shiite factions once U.S. troops leave, and others say Arab-Kurdish violence is likely in the power vacuum.
Aware of the risks, the White House has made no firm plans beyond the August 2010 date. Some analysts suggest a substantial contingent of troops should stay at least through national elections in December, a scenario Defense Secretary Robert Gates says is plausible.
On March 2, the Pentagon announced a new brigade rotation to Iraq, meaning force numbers there will stay constant in the near term. And as author and military analyst Tomas E. Ricks writes on his blog, these moves suggest Obama understands that war doesn’t end with a speech, a costly lesson the Bush administration learned the hard way.
Mar5NATO renews ties with Russia
Filed under: U.S., World; Tagged as: afghanistan, breaking news, georgia, hillary clinton, pakistan, russia, secretary of state, vladimir putinNo Comments
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives to address a news conference after a NATO foreign ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, March 5, 2009.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO agreed on Thursday to resume formal ties with Russia, suspended after Moscow’s war with Georgia, in the hope of winning greater Russian support for its struggle to stabilize Afghanistan.
“We can and must find ways to work constructively with Russia where we share areas of common interest, including helping the people of Afghanistan,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
Russia immediately welcomed the move agreed at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. “This decision is positive,” its ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told a news conference, calling it “promising in terms of stability and security in Afghanistan.”
But he regretted that ties would only be formally resumed after an April 3-4 NATO summit.
“Russia is in no hurry on Afghanistan but NATO indeed should be hurrying and we are just surprised that this issue of the resuming of practical work is postponed for another month.”
Before the NATO meeting, Russia had said it would allow transit of non-lethal U.S. military supplies for Afghanistan. With its supply lines under pressure from militant attacks, NATO hopes that in future such help could be extended to air transit, air lift and routes for lethal aid.
It also hopes to see Russian cooperation in encouraging Central Asian states to allow the passage of NATO supplies, and in keeping open bases used by NATO forces, one of which is about to be closed down by Kyrgyzstan.
Alliance member Lithuania had blocked quick agreement to resume cooperation with Moscow through the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), the body that directs dialogue between the two sides on security issues, but later dropped its objections.
NATO had suspended cooperation in protest at Russia’s war last August with Georgia, an aspiring member of the alliance.
NEED TO TALK
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said ministers agreed to resume formal NRC sessions, including at ministerial level, as soon as possible after the summit. “Russia is a global player. Not talking to them is not an option,” he said.
NATO said differences remained with Moscow and de Hoop Scheffer urged Russia to fully meet its commitments on Georgia.
NATO members say a build-up of Russia’s military presence in breakaway Georgian regions and violates Georgian territorial integrity and goes against a French-brokered ceasefire deal.
“We have quite a number of areas where we have fundamental differences of opinion and where we think that Russia should really change its position,” de Hoop Scheffer said.
Clinton, while pressing for a fresh start with Russia, said the door to alliance membership must be kept open for ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine. Moscow strongly opposes their entry bids.
Clinton is set to hold her first substantive talks with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Friday and agreement on resuming ties with NATO will help the atmosphere.
The United States, the biggest force contributor in Afghanistan, is carrying out a review of its strategy, and Clinton proposed an international conference for March 31 to map out future strategy to tackle the insurgency.
So far Washington’s appeals for more troops for Afghanistan have generated only a limited response from Europe.
But Clinton said there had been “broad agreement” on a new strategy, including a regional approach, better coordinated civilian and military commitments and intensive efforts to promote governance and economic opportunities.
“All the participants recognized the need for increased resources and manpower,” she told a news conference.
Mar4Beware Sites Promising Big Government Stimulus Checks for a Fee
Filed under: Economy, U.S.; Tagged as: barack obama, breaking news, Economy, government, government stimulus check, Politics, president barack obama, scam, stimulus checks, the federal trade commissionNo CommentsFTC, BBB officials say that sites promising a piece of the stimulus action are misleading at best, and may charge big bucks to provide information you could get for free. 
The Federal Trade Commission is warning Americans to beware of scams offering to get them some of the federal government's $787 billion stimulus. The scams will likely cost you money instead of getting you money.
“I Got a $12,000 Stimulus Check in Less than 7 days. Get Yours!” Over the past week, this attractive-sounding offer appeared in a Google text ad. Other ads have claimed “Obama’s Giving You Cash” and touted “$40,000 [y]ou don’t ever have to pay back!”
But both the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau are cautioning consumers about ads that promise easy access to government money, ads that they say have multiplied since passage of the economic stimulus package.
“The bottom line on this is, these are scams,” says Eileen Harrington, acting director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The stimulus is not passing out checks to individual consumers.”
In an investigation, PC World found multiple sites that offered to send “free” information on how to obtain government grants. Some of those sites asked for personal information–such as name, employment status, and household income–in order to determine whether we “qualified” for grant money. Once we submitted our information, the sites asked us to pay a shipping and handling charge for the information on getting stimulus money–information that Harrington says is probably publicly available.
And that’s where things got interesting. At site after site, hefty monthly membership fees were buried in the fine print. And as we looked more closely at one site, following the path from the ad to the offer, we discovered something unsettling: Even as we were editing this story, that path changed repeatedly, sending visitors to several different sites.
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.
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 appearing on the Rip-off Report site just weeks ago.
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.
The Grant One Day “Terms and Conditions” listed a membership fee of $94.89, however, in contrast to the previous site’s charge of $79.95. The language regarding the “vigorous” fighting of all refund requests was still present.
By Monday, Jeff’s Grant Blog was linking to yet another site, federalgovernmentgrantsolutions.com, whose “Terms and Conditions” indicated it was operated by a company called JRS Media Solutions. This time the membership offer wasn’t buried in the terms; it was in small print under the button for submitting credit card information, and involved signing up for not one but three subscription services with monthly fees.
But the terms still contained a surprise: By submitting an order, the user would be agreeing that any complaint they had with JRS would be brought in the Phillippines. The terms also specified that by submitting personal information, the user was agreeing that “JRS Media Solutions, its associates, sponsors and co-sponsors of this offer may contact you by means of telephone, e-mail or other sources of marketing, even if your number is found on a do not call registry or listed on an opt out list pursuant to the CAN-SPAM Act.” A Google search for “JRS Media” turned up numerous customer complaints in various online forums.
The original “Terms and Conditions” document–that is, the one for Financial Crisis Grant, LLC–listed a contact address in Orem, Utah, for Financial Crisis Grant. Doing a Google search led me to four other business names operating at the same address: Economic Crisis Grant, USB Grants, My Grant Drive, and EZ Grant Source. Each has its own Web site with essentially the same configuration and offer. In addition to the Utah address, at the time of this writing, three of the five businesses I found on Friday listed a jurisdiction address in the Mediterranean nation of Cyprus.All five of the sites I saw had toll-free phone numbers that, according to a reverse toll-free number lookup utility, are all operated by the same Voice-over-IP service. When I dialed the number listed for Economic Crisis Grant last Friday, a woman who identified herself only as Jen picked up and agreed to answer questions for this story.
Jen confirmed that the multiple company names I had found at the same address were all part of the same organization.
“We help people who seek financial assistance and provide customers with information on federal grants and programs,” Jen said when I asked what the organization did.
I next asked if an average person could actually get this federal grant money within days, even without a business- or education-related reason. Jen said yes.
When I asked what the $79.95 monthly membership fee bought, Jen responded: “It’s just a monthly fee, your membership.” I asked again what one actually received for that fee, and a long silence followed. Jen asked me twice to repeat my question, and then finally said: “It’s a membership fee, monthly, when you are involved in our program.”
At one point Jen told me I could use an online discount code to pay a lower fee.
She was, however, unable to tell me whether the media outlets whose logos were depicted on the shopping-cart page had actually aired coverage about the organization’s services, and if so, where I could locate those reports.
The Better Business Bureau’s national office in Arlington, Virginia, has seen an explosion in sites that make offers tied specifically to the stimulus package.
“We’ve received complaints from people who had to actually cancel their credit cards to keep from getting billed, because they couldn’t get hold of anyone to cancel the service,” says Alison Preszler, a spokesperson for the Better Business Bureau.
The circumstances Preszler described were a dead-on match with my observations: The Web sites claim to get you quick and easy money, they use misleading language (such as statements definitively indicating that you “qualify for a free grant”), and they feature testimonials from people who can’t be traced easily. Moreover, they hide sizable fees somewhere in their small print, typically making no mention of them on the sites’ primary pages.
“These Web sites make it look like it’s very easy and you just get a $10,000 check for breathing,” Preszler says. “That’s not how it works.”
Harrington says the Federal Trade Commission last week issued an alert about sites promising easy access to stimulus money.
Even if you do qualify for some type of government grant, Preszler and the FTC’s Harrington both say, there’s nothing these companies could send you that you couldn’t find for free on your own.
“At most, the people who part with their money this way are going to receive a few pieces of paper with publicly available information about a variety of public programs,” Harrington says. “Nobody is going to get money from the government by paying money to these operators.”
The Better Business Bureau is planning to release its formal warning next week, Preszler says.
Representatives from Google, meanwhile, say they use a combination of automated systems and user-submitted complaints to find and remove any potentially problematic ads. Preszler also says that Facebook recently removed similar ads because of numerous user complaints.
“Ever since the stimulus package started getting bounced around, these Web sites have started trying to take advantage,” Preszler says.