Federal Grant Review: How to Check Claims and Offers

Use this federal grant review when something reaches you: an email, a call, a message from a stranger who says a fund selected you, or an advertisement. It could be a consultant's pitch or a listing on an unknown site.

This page is a procedure for deciding what it is; run it in order and stop at the first failure. Early checks are cheap; later ones cost hours.

What to take away

Check 1: can you find it at the source, without following their link

Open a new window and search the program on Grants.gov and the relevant agency's official grants office. Examples include the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Find the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) and follow its instructions; for most federal applicants, a Unique Entity ID (UEI) and active registration in SAM.gov are required.

A real agency initiative should be verifiable through the agency's official site or grants office, with the NOFO providing the program details and application instructions. If a program's only trace is the message, aggregator pages, and social posts, the review is finished.

Links inside the message prove nothing, because the link is the part the sender controls. Check the exact federal .gov domain yourself rather than trusting a lookalike. The FTC's guidance on government grant scams and the grant fraud information on Grants.gov explain common patterns.

Check 2: which direction is the money moving

Federal agencies do not charge an application or award-release fee. Applying through Grants.gov, obtaining a UEI, and registering in SAM.gov are free; check the NOFO for the program's application instructions.

A consultant may charge for optional services, but no third party can charge to unlock official application access or guarantee federal approval. The FTC's guidance on government grant scams explains how to test an offer before you pay anyone.

Check 3: did you start this conversation

Federal grants generally follow an application to an identified opportunity. A message claiming that you won money despite never applying is a strong fraud signal, even if it uses a real agency's name; verify any legitimate application contact through the agency's official site.

The same logic covers the softer version: a caller who says they are checking whether you received your allocation, or that a fund has been set aside pending confirmation of your details. There is no allocation. The call exists to collect identity or payment details.

Check 4: what is the instrument, actually

Assuming the thing is real, find out what it is before you value it. Confirm whether it is a grant, cooperative agreement, procurement contract, loan, or loan guarantee; for federal financial assistance, read 2 CFR Part 200, the Uniform Guidance, along with the NOFO and agency award terms. Ask directly whether any part is repayable, when payment happens, and to whom it is paid.

Check 5: who benefits from you believing this

For advertising and consultants, ask what the business model is: a page that gives away opportunity information and charges for writing has an honest model. A page that charges for the information itself is charging you for something published.

A page that collects your revenue, phone number, and time in business before showing you anything is selling you as a lead. The eligibility button usually leads to a financing broker, not an application.

Check 6: is it worth your time even if it is genuine

Most reviews should end here, yet this is the check people skip. Read eligibility definitions literally, price the work of applying, and review what the award requires afterward.

Plenty of real programs are a bad trade for a small business once reporting, matching, and restrictions are counted. Deciding that early is a result, not a failure. It gets easier after you see the patterns that sink otherwise reasonable applications.

If you have already paid

Stop sending money now, even a final payment labeled the last step. Contact your bank or card issuer and ask what recovery is possible for your payment method; the answer depends heavily on how and when you paid.

Keep every message, receipt, and phone number. Report suspected scams to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and, if the contact or payment was online, to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). You can also contact your state attorney general or state consumer protection office; for suspected misuse of an actual federal award, contact the awarding agency's Office of Inspector General. The False Claims Act may apply to knowingly false claims involving federal funds.

Then treat any follow-up offering to recover your money as the second stage of the same scam. Recovery services that approach victims are how the same list gets sold twice.

A quick reference

Common questions

A real agency name and logo appeared in the message. Both are trivial to copy. Verify the opportunity on Grants.gov or the agency's official grants office, and use a contact route you found there, never the one in the message.

The listing looked professional. Presentation is the cheapest part of a scam. Provenance and the direction of payment are what the review turns on.