Fraudulent scholarship searches have surfaced as a major problem nationwide, but the issue has yet to have a major impact on campus.

In the past year, the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois has had no registered complaints against any companies that sell scholarship information, said Dennis Horton, director of the regional office in Rockford.

But the Federal Trade Commission ordered College Advantage Incorporated, which operated under the name College Funding Center, to pay back $1.4 million to customers who were dissatisfied with their services in May 2003.

“I am not aware of any recent upticks,” said Scott Mulford, spokesman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. “We encourage people to file complaints with our office.”

Mulford said the state attorney general’s office works closely with the BBB, among other consumer protection agencies.

At NIU, only a select number of students have reported scholarship search fraud.

“In the 17 years that I have been assisting students with scholarship resource information, I have had only a handful of students/parents asking if we could get their money back,” said Dorothy Razniewski, NIU student financial aid adviser. “The school cannot act on a student’s behalf to get money retrieved.”

Although the financial aid office cannot tell people not to use the pay searches, they do not advocate using them. They also cannot help students get their money back from them either, Razniewski said.

According to Forbes, scholarship fraud has cost consumers nationwide at least $100 million a year.

The NIU Student Financial Aid Office offers free scholarship listings, which are available on a walk-in basis.

“If we do it for free, they can come here and get the information,” Razniewski said. “Why pay for it?”

Searching for a non-private scholarship – state scholarships, grants and NIU departmental scholarships – requires no fees and will cost the applicant only time and an envelope to find out if he or she will get a scholarship, Razniewski said.

Private scholarships sometimes require a small entry fee, usually $5, to apply for the scholarship, she said.

Some scholarship searches guarantee a student will receive a scholarship or the student will get his or her money back. These searches range anywhere from $39.99 to $259.99.

“A person may pay money for a scholarship search because ideally they think it will get them extra money when really they might just get a $50 scholarship,” Razniewski said. “If the scholarship searches were that lucrative, then everyone would be doing that. If you were to pay $40 to receive a $50 scholarship, that’s not beneficial at all.”

For students to get their money back, oftentimes they have to send rejection letters from all of the different scholarship donors, typically seven out of 10, Razniewski said.

“Often you cannot get in touch with the donor; the info they give you is old or non-existent,” she said. “If you yourself send a letter to a donor, you have to have proof that they rejected you.”

At DeKalb High School, information on how to find scholarships is included in school newsletters and at parent/teacher conferences, DHS counselor Kathy Cebulski said.

“We have had students bring in a letter that was mailed to them that says ‘if you pay ‘X’ amount of money you will be guaranteed a scholarship,’” Cebulski said. “We have had parents consider doing that but we encourage them not to. If you have to pay for scholarship money it is probably too good to be true, and it is probably fraud.”