Complaint Review: Stellar Grants - Houston Internet

I would only recommend this company to somebody who enjoys high levels of frustration and throwing away their money. 

BEWARE OF STELLAR AGREEMENTS!!!  Their rates depend upon how much money they feel they can squeeze out of you.  Their first attempt on us was 12 month/$48,000 commitment that I negotiated down to 3 months/$1500.

The only work we received that showed any competence was work done by a gentleman who no longer works with Stellar.  

Thank you ripoff report for your forum.  Hopefully this complaint may be referenced before honest, hardworking people choose a company like this one to help them.

Regards,

Ripoff Report:

Stellar returned our money for the month of June ($500) for which they did not complete any work.   They were unwilling to return our money for overcharging us $3000 for the business plan and an additional $500 for Mays RFP.  Additionally they wasted 4 months of our time.

I would only recommend this company to somebody who enjoys high levels of frustration and throwing away their money. 

BEWARE OF STELLAR AGREEMENTS!!!  Their rates depend upon how much money they feel they can squeeze out of you.  Their first attempt on us was 12 month/$48,000 commitment that I negotiated down to 3 months/$1500.

The only work we received that showed any competence was work done by a gentleman who no longer works with Stellar.  

Thank you ripoff report for your forum.  Hopefully this complaint may be referenced before honest, hardworking people choose a company like this one to help them.

Regards,

The facts you don't get from reading their rebuttal:

1.) The email they posted is dated June 15th.  We asked for the grant list at the beginning of the month because  they sent a dissatisfactory grant list late last month and missed our opportunity for a grant submission.  To avoid that from happening again I asked for it at the beginning of this month.  Though we were disappointed that they promised it after 10 days into the month on June 10th, they didn't send it.  Again we requested it on the 14th and they said they would have it to us by the end of the day for sure.  They didn't.  Again I asked for it the morning of the 15th and then they acted confused and asked us to clarify, so I did.  (that is the email they posted.  I then asked for the list again and they claimed they had it for 2 days.  Why they play this game I don't know?  Why they didn't send the grant list, I don't know? 
2.) The complimentary emails that they are referring to are true.  However, they were only sent to shield our dissatisfaction and frustration and to keep a positive working relationship so they could put together a grant proposal in which they never did.
3.) The CPA for Ohio State that they are referring to only exemplifies their poor quality of work and business ethics.  David Lipten sent a few emails saying he was working on final edits.  If you compare the document we gave them to prepare the RFP and the one they delivered is minute and only information we supplied.  If they had any ethics they would have said all you need to do is drop in the info you provided in 2 spots provided.  Instead they took $500 for this and acted like it was a job well done.
4.) They have been paid for this month in which they have provided nothing.  Why have you not returned our money?
5.) The only thing you've said regarding Angel investors is that they are interested.  You've been saying that for months.  Why no details, meetings, or further information?
6.) In a meeting with Kim Fontenot at Starbucks nearly 2 months ago she said she had a few grant opportunities in which she knew people on the committee and she'd be able to get us grants.  Where are they?  Why didn't you pursue that.  That is why I signed your contract.
7.) Everything they post I can shed light but the bottom line is, they still are not taking any accountability for their practices and have yet to return $500 for the last RFP and this month ($500) in which they have done nothing.  It wouldn't surprise me if they try and collect for next month and say "you signed our contract".  The only thing I can say that I've seen Stellar do consistently is deflect responsibility and collect their money!

I have the Master Consulting Agreement/Client Project Agreement for the ProSource which includes work for a business plan which we have completed and which the client approved.  We can send this business plan to anyone who requests it to show the quality and value of our work.  The MCA/CPA can also be sent to whomever requests it.  It is NOT for grant services but rather for the business plan that Mr. Schlossberg now says they cannot do anything with.  If they cannot do anything with it, why did they hire us to write it as the MCA/CPA clearly outlines.

The second CPA which can be sent to whomever requests it is for a very targeted RFQ ALSO which can be sent to anyone who requests it  which was completed and approved by ProSource and sent in as an application.  As you can see it is a very high quality response to an RFQ and meets all criteria for that grant.

The third CPA which can be sent to whomever requests it is a $500.00 a month maintenance agreement where we wanted to try to apply for at least one grant/RFP or angel investment per month.  AT that time they were interested in keeping their grant applications and funding options open.  We then sent them some grants that were applicable as you can see in the ProSource Grant document attached.  However, they selected one they had found through Ohio State Staffing which we then applied for online.  They have confirmation from Ohio State that this application was done and submitted to Ohio State by the due date.  It is also can be sent to anyone who requests as it represents how the online application looked.  It also was of high quality and approved by the client. 

Since the beginning of June, 2010 Stellar has been researching other application grants/RFP's and angels for Prosource.  However, prior to that list being sent to ProSource we received several emails with different funding opportunities they wanted to pursue.  Since there was more than one and we are only contracted for one per month, we told them we would put together a cost estimate for the additional grant(s).  ProSource sent a follow-up email which stated that was fine.  Please see below:

-----Original Message-----

From: Daniel Schlossberg [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 11:55 AM

To: Kimberly Fontenot

Cc: Lee Helstein; Ben Helstein; 'David Lipten'

Subject: RE: grant opportunities

Kim,

A)      Do you want us to review the TWO RFP's attached to the last email

you sent and give you a quote for completing each of them for you?

YES

B)      Do you still need a list of grants or grants/RFP's to review?

YES

If you are doing the two you listed, are you looking to do more than those two?

YES

C)      Which do you want first - the list or our cost estimates of the two

RFP's attached to the last email you sent?

GRANTS ARE TOP PRIORITY.  PLEASE DON'T HOLD UP GRANTS FOR ANYTHING ELSE.

Thanks,

Daniel

-----Original Message-----

From: Kimberly Fontenot [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 11:08 AM

To: Daniel Schlossberg

Cc: Lee Helstein; Ben Helstein; 'David Lipten'

Subject: RE: grant opportunities

Dear Daniel,

Good morning!  We have had a list ready for you for two days.  But we

received an email asking about a bid procurement you were interested in and

if we could do it, then we got an email stating that ProSource was ONLY

interested in grants (NOT RFP's, RFI's, RFQ's, etc...), then we got an email

stating that the two applications you wanted us to review were RFQ's and NOT

grants.  I know I use the term interchangeably but you guys were upset by

that and we thought you were NOT using the word grant interchangeably with

RFP's, etc.... So we are thoroughly confused as we have started our list

over again TWICE.

Can you please let us know the following:

A)      Do you want us to review the TWO RFP's attached to the last email

you sent and give you a quote for completing each of them for you?

B)      Do you still need a list of grants or grants/RFP's to review?  If

you are doing the two you listed, are you looking to do more than those two?

C)      Which do you want first - the list or our cost estimates of the two

RFP's attached to the last email you sent?

Whew!  Thanks so much for everything and we look forward to the answers so

we know what to do.

Have a good one!

Take Care,

Kimberly Fontenot

President

Stellar Grants, Inc.

2106 Meadow Parkway North

League City, Texas 77573

Work - 281-635-6960

Fax - 281-538-4053

[email protected]

www.stellargrants.com

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This communication contains information from Stellar

Grants, Inc. that may be confidential, legally privileged, proprietary, or

otherwise protected from disclosure. This information is intended for use

only by the person(s) to whom it is addressed.  If you are not the intended

recipient, any use, disclosure, copying, distribution, printing, or any

action taken in reliance on the contents of this communication, is strictly

prohibited.  If you received this in error, please contact the sending party

at the above telephone number and shred, delete, or otherwise destroy the

information. Stellar Grants, Inc. makes nor implies herein, nor in any of

its actions, a guarantee that any business proposal/s, grant/s and/or RFP/s,

or application/s or submission/s or introduction will result in the client

achieving the acquisition of funds, and/or any other benefit/s. The company

offers no refunds for RFP/grants/business proposals or any other submissions

it prepares in the event the client is not awarded any fund/s and/or

benefit. Thank You.

When I received Daniel's response I wanted to make sure he understood the ProSource as a for-profit does NOT qualify for 501c-3 grants, from his capped sentence which stated, " GRANTS ARE TOP PRIORITY.  PLEASE DON'T HOLD UP GRANTS FOR ANYTHING ELSE."  Rather, ProSource qualifies for RFP/RFQ/BAA bids and grants.  That was my only intent in the below email.  It is to make sure he knew we were not going after 501c-3 grants from foundations and corporations.  Please see my below email where I go over that:

-----Original Message-----
From: Kimberly Fontenot [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 2:01 PM
To: 'Daniel Schlossberg'
Cc: 'Lee Helstein'; 'Ben Helstein'; 'David Lipten'
Subject: RE: grant opportunities

Dear Daniel and All,

Okay - I think we now understand A and B and will immediately start working on that.  However for C - you state the following, " GRANTS ARE TOP PRIORITY.  PLEASE DON'T HOLD UP GRANTS FOR ANYTHING ELSE."

Honestly, unless you want to become a 501c-3 you are NOT going to qualify for many grants.  However, you may be using the word grants and mean (RFP's, RFQ's, etc..)  Since we have had some issues with that on my side using the term interchangeably - are you using it that way too?  Or do you mean 'GRANTS' as in the nonprofit grants from foundations, corporations, etc...  If so, ProSource does NOT qualify for many of those, if any.  For-profits very, very, very rarely can apply for nonprofit grants.  So now back to you.......

Thanks!

Take Care,

Kimberly Fontenot

President

Stellar Grants, Inc.

2106 Meadow Parkway North

League City, Texas 77573

Work - 281-635-6960

Fax - 281-538-4053

[email protected]

www.stellargrants.com

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This communication contains information from Stellar Grants, Inc. that may be confidential, legally privileged, proprietary, or otherwise protected from disclosure. This information is intended for use only by the person(s) to whom it is addressed.  If you are not the intended recipient, any use, disclosure, copying, distribution, printing, or any action taken in reliance on the contents of this communication, is strictly prohibited.  If you received this in error, please contact the sending party at the above telephone number and shred, delete, or otherwise destroy the information. Stellar Grants, Inc. makes nor implies herein, nor in any of its actions, a guarantee that any business proposal/s, grant/s and/or RFP/s, or application/s or submission/s or introduction will result in the client achieving the acquisition of funds, and/or any other benefit/s. The company offers no refunds for RFP/grants/business proposals or any other submissions it prepares in the event the client is not awarded any fund/s and/or benefit. Thank You.

Right after I sent that email trying to clarify the difference between a non-profit 501c-3 grant and a federal RFP/RFQ/RFI/BAA bid or grant I received this strange email:

From: Daniel Schlossberg [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:27 PM
To: Kimberly Fontenot
Cc: Lee Helstein; Ben Helstein; 'David Lipten'
Subject: RE: grant opportunities

Kim,

This email is to officially terminate the agreement we signed a month ago with Stellar.  We expect you to wire all funds back to us by the end of business day tomorrow to show good faith (I will provide account info if you do not have it already).  In the meantime, we are gathering data about the 4 companies you took advantage of per the Houston BBB and looking for others who have a been taken by Stellar.  We are putting together a class action lawsuit against Stellar and will be forced to move forward if money is not received.  Furthermore, we will be posting our experience of deception, incompetence and unethical business practices on many internet forums to warn others about our 3 month grueling experience with Stellar.

Respectfully,

Daniel

At that time, Mr. Schlossberg wanted Stellar to return ALL the payments they had made to us even though we had produced over three separate and contracted for products (the business plan, the RFQ response and the Ohio State RFP).  Were we not supposed to be paid for anything we produced at all?  Were we supposed to work them free of charge?

We are confused by their request to terminate the contract but immediately responded that we would indeed honor their request in the following email:

-----Original Message-----
From: Kimberly Fontenot [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:39 PM
To: 'Daniel Schlossberg'
Cc: 'Lee Helstein'; 'Ben Helstein'; 'David Lipten'
Subject: RE: grant opportunities

Dear Daniel, Lee and Ben,

We are sorry to learn you wish to terminate your services with Stellar Grants, Inc. and will immediately cease and desist with your RFP's and RFQ applications.  To our record, we have written ProSource a high quality business plan and applied to two different RFP's applications YOUR company selected.  We have copies of all of the templates, applications and the business plan we produced for your company for our fee.

If you would have looked closer at the BBB report you would have seen that of the four companies that complained two were resolved to their total satisfaction and two were not.  There wasn't much we could do for the two that were not successfully resolved other than give them their work products (grant template and attachments) for them to apply for themselves to selected grant funders.  That was in  2006 and 2007.  Since that time, we have raised over $483,000,000 for our clients all of whom are quite pleased with our word product for RFP's/RFQ's/grants and successful angel investments.  All are on the record and available for review by any governing entity.

We take that you are no longer interested in the angels who were reviewing your company for investment and we will let them know per your guidance. 

Again, we are sorry you are not satisfied with our services.  Please feel free to forward all further communication to Danny Barfield, our attorney.  I can forward you his information upon request.

We hope you were pleased with the business plan and RFP/RFQ applications we did.  For the record, at the time we did them we have nothing but complimentary emails from you regarding our product and services dated April and May of 2010.  We understand that you now want to cease and desist with our services. 

We wish you the best of luck and funding for your noble company.

Take Care,

Kimberly Fontenot

President

Stellar Grants, Inc.

2106 Meadow Parkway North

League City, Texas 77573

Work - 281-635-6960

Fax - 281-538-4053

[email protected]

www.stellargrants.com

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This communication contains information from Stellar Grants, Inc. that may be confidential, legally privileged, proprietary, or otherwise protected from disclosure. This information is intended for use only by the person(s) to whom it is addressed.  If you are not the intended recipient, any use, disclosure, copying, distribution, printing, or any action taken in reliance on the contents of this communication, is strictly prohibited.  If you received this in error, please contact the sending party at the above telephone number and shred, delete, or otherwise destroy the information. Stellar Grants, Inc. makes nor implies herein, nor in any of its actions, a guarantee that any business proposal/s, grant/s and/or RFP/s, or application/s or submission/s or introduction will result in the client achieving the acquisition of funds, and/or any other benefit/s. The company offers no refunds for RFP/grants/business proposals or any other submissions it prepares in the event the client is not awarded any fund/s and/or benefit. Thank You.

I then re-read the email from them and grew concerned about their "threat" in which they stated the following:  "We are putting together a class action lawsuit against Stellar and will be forced to move forward if money is not received.  Furthermore, we will be posting our experience of deception, incompetence and unethical business practices on many internet forums to warn others about our 3 month grueling experience with Stellar".

I took that to mean they were going to spread 'rumors' about Stellar that could damage and threaten our business and leave them open to a lawsuit.  I then responded with this email, which as you will note states NOTHING about BBB as Mr. Schlossberg states in his above complaint when he says - " We have requested a refund and they responded with their attorneys number for further correspondence and claimed we were threatening them physically by filing a BBB complaint." 

Since I never brought up BBB in the below email we were confused by his interpretation of the below email:

-----Original Message-----
From: Kimberly Fontenot [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:59 PM
To: 'Daniel Schlossberg'
Cc: 'Lee Helstein'; 'Ben Helstein'; 'David Lipten'
Subject: RE: grant opportunities

Dear Daniel, Lee and Ben,

One more thing.  The last half of your email in threatening to discredit Stellar through internet communication sounds a bit like a threat (electronic and physical).  We are concerned that if you do this with another party (besides Stellar but someone else you are upset with too), it could be used against you.   Please do not put things like that in a written record (email) for future references.  It can be used against you.

We are assuming in the heat of the moment it flew out and won't report it to the authorities.  But please, in the future, be careful.  As you know until you have some proof in any charge; civil or criminal you cannot fly around and say or put on the internet anything you want.  Especially, if it sounds threatening as this did upon further review.

Take Care,

Kimberly Fontenot

President

Stellar Grants, Inc.

2106 Meadow Parkway North

League City, Texas 77573

Work - 281-635-6960

Fax - 281-538-4053

[email protected]

www.stellargrants.com

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This communication contains information from Stellar Grants, Inc. that may be confidential, legally privileged, proprietary, or otherwise protected from disclosure. This information is intended for use only by the person(s) to whom it is addressed.  If you are not the intended recipient, any use, disclosure, copying, distribution, printing, or any action taken in reliance on the contents of this communication, is strictly prohibited.  If you received this in error, please contact the sending party at the above telephone number and shred, delete, or otherwise destroy the information. Stellar Grants, Inc. makes nor implies herein, nor in any of its actions, a guarantee that any business proposal/s, grant/s and/or RFP/s, or application/s or submission/s or introduction will result in the client achieving the acquisition of funds, and/or any other benefit/s. The company offers no refunds for RFP/grants/business proposals or any other submissions it prepares in the event the client is not awarded any fund/s and/or benefit. Thank You.

So as you can see, BBB was never mentioned nor did we even allude to it. 

It is our opinion that we have successfully completed the terms of all three CPA's with all the products we were hired to produced (all of which can be sent to ANYONE who asks for it) from Stellar and of course, will honor their request to cease and desist in helping them with any future grants/RFP's/RFQ's/BAA's, etc...

Also, we did not take them on as client without protecting ourselves with the fee we charge within the contracts attached and have successfully produced the attached products which the contracts represent.  The attached final products  attests to our work products for them. 

We have several emails where they give us complimentary statements regarding our work products and felt more than satisfied with our services.  We can send those at your request.  Up until the email I sent on June 15, 2010 clarifying that we were submitting grants for them that were RFP/RFQ/BAA based and not 501c-3 based we had a productive relationship.  

However, that email set off a firestorm in their company and we have no idea why.  We NEVER stated they could not or would not qualify for grants that are offered through the federal government as RFP/RFQ'/BAA and RFI's.  In fact, not only do they know that to be true, but they have work product that was submitted to the federal government for ProSource for that purpose.  So we are at a loss how to resolve this issue further than the work products already produced under the terms of the attached agreements.

Thank you for your kind consideration of this matter.  We look forward to hearing back from you.