It is a scam.
The government does not offer grants to individuals for personal use.
It is a scam ran by off shore con artists to trick you into sending unrecoverable money to them.
They will say you need to get prepaid money cards, like Green Dot and load them with you own money. Once you give the details from the card to the scammer, they clean out the card. You loose your money, you get nothing.
The only legitimate avenue for government grants is through www.grants.gov which is the official US government webs site for grants.
From their FAQ concerning fraud:
http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/support/general-support/grant-fraud.html
Please note the following:
No government grant-making agency will make phone calls; send email or letters to solicit money or personal banking information from a potential grant recipient.
There are no processing fees for federal grants.
Federal grants are not issued for personal use, but are intended for institutions and non-profits to carry out projects with a public purpose.
Know who you're dealing with on the web. Scam artists will often post a website with a name similar to a legitimate site.
If you have provided personal banking information to anyone claiming to be associated with a Federal grant agency, call your bank immediately to prevent unauthorized access to your account.
If you receive a call, mail, email, FAX, or any other form of communication soliciting you for a grant, STOP.
It is a scam.
Report it to the FTC:
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0113-government-grant-scams
File a complaint with the FTC. If you think you may have been a victim of a government grant scam, file a complaint with the FTC online https://ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ , or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.
I have received five calls from this number just today....202-177-7222. It's driving me crazy!!!!!! I answered one and told them that I am on a no call list but it's not helping. I have even tried locking them and they still call. Also I have gotten five other numbers today and yesterday these numbers keep calling. I very rarely receive calls unless it's from family or doctor. I'm at the point where I don't know what to do. I don't want to turn my phone off in case of emergence. How can I stop this??????????? I noticed that when I answer the phone there is always a sound (no sure what maybe a click of a machine) then silence then someone starts talking. I've told them to stop. Does not help!!!!!!!
This number has called me 5 times today. So I tried calling it back. It does that tone then says the number you are trying to call is wrong please check the number and dial again. If they call again I'm going to answer and give them what for.
I've been receiving random calls from a long list of random numbers from all over the place, including Hawaii, Florida, NY, Chicago, etc. This call was from DC. I usually ignore these random calls from numbers I don't know since I believe my number was leaked onto some scam call list or something in the past few months because I get these calls at least 5 times a day now when I never received them before. But since I live in DC I picked up this call thinking it could be from work. It wasn't.
The person who answered the phone had a heavy accent and I could hardly understand him. He kept saying "Is this ____" but it wasn't my name. I then asked who it was and he said it was Gary, and he was looking for ____. I said he had the wrong number. And then he asked me what my name was and I just hung up and blocked the caller. Is there any way to find out how I got on this list of scam callers and how to block them all at once? It seems like once you block a number they just use another...