Starting today, a company called the National Grants Conferences is holding a weekend seminar at the Crowne Plaza Minneapolis North in Brooklyn Center. It’s a traveling show that promises access to government money that could pay for your home, business and education. Its web site features testimonials from people who have bought homes and started businesses with a trove of government money they only found out about through the research of the National Grants Conferences. There’s all sorts of language like this:

There are over 1,400 Federal Funding Programs available today. NATIONAL GRANTS CONFERENCES TELLS YOU WHERE THE MONEY IS AND HOW TO GET IT.

Yet a talk with Frank Kruppenbacher, an attorney representing the Boca Raton, Florida company, reveals that participants should have a more Horatio Alger-style attitude. There’s no money for nothing, he said. “We deliberately do not tout our success rate or our successes,” he told me. “What is emphasized, this is an individually driven and you people have got to work for it. If you think you’re simply going to join a program and they’re going to write you a check, it ain’t going to happen that way.”

In fact, though the web site doesn’t list any prices, it costs at least $1,000 to attend one of the conferences. That’s one of the sources of complaints to the Better Business Bureau, which booted the National Grants Conference out of the BBB in 2006 and gives it an “F” rating for the pattern of complaints and advertising it calls misleading.

“You go in and you get a free seminar, then you’re asked to come back for further information,” said Brodie White, president of the BBB of Southeast Florida and the Caribbean. “Then you’re asked to pay a thousand dollars for the rest of the information. We felt that was almost a bait and switch practice.”

That’s the reaction of Carolyn Hamilton of Webster, Minn. Hamilton attended a National Grants Conference “preliminary” meeting Feb. 17 at a Bloomington hotel. She had hopes of finding capital for her family business, a jewelry wholesaler. At the end of the session, she found herself writing checks totaling $1,300 so she could continue with her training. She quickly changed her mind, after realizing she had a scheduling conflict with the upcoming conference, but was unable to reach anyone at the National Grants Conferences within the three-day window in which they’re legally required to refund her money. She decided to go through with the training, and brought her son, James Hamilton, to a second preliminary meeting, on Tuesday night at a hotel in Minnetonka. That’s when the alarms went off for them.

“All they do in four hours is pitch you a software system that you have to pay for, a credit card system you have to pay for, a monthly fee you have to pay for, the subscription to the drop shippers that’s something you have to pay for,” Carolyn Hamilton said. So she approached her bank, which stopped payment on the two checks.

James Hamilton, who lives in Lakeville, said he has filed complaints with Attorney General Lori Swanson and the Federal Trade Commission. He wanted to warn those who might be going to the weekend conference. “I am very upset with what is going to happen to people,” he said.

When told of Carolyn Hamilton’s situation, Kruppenbacher said he wanted to reimburse her and company officials attempted to reach her. Hamilton said she doesn’t want anything more to do with them.

In December 2006, the company reached a settlement of a consumer fraud lawsuit brought by the Vermont Attorney General, offering to reimburse participants and promising not to make unsubstantiated claims about its success. The National Grants Conferences, also called Proven Methods Seminars LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

Kruppenbacher criticized the BBB’s “F” rating as arbitrary, computer-generated and inaccurate. Any company that has a large number of customers will generate complaints, he said. White, the BBB president, acknowledged that a computer algorithm is used to develop the letter grades, but that the nature of the complaints, not the number, plays a bigger role.

When I reached White at his office in West Palm Beach on Friday, he said he had heard the company had gone out of business. Told that it was still a going concern, he said: “Darn. I didn’t think I would have to deal with any complaints any more.”

The company’s “Summary of Services” offers this disclaimer:

As a research and educational company, NGC is not affiliated with, or sanctioned or endorsed by, any government agency. NGC does not make any representation, or compile information about the number of customers who obtain grants, loans and/or subsidies. However, we do welcome on-going status reports from you. NGC cannot and does not guarantee your result. Obtaining a grant, loan or subsidy is subject to your meeting qualification standards. The results shown at the NGC Conferences and in advertisements should not be construed as typical. Your results may vary. NGC does not give legal, financial, or investment advice. NGC Memberships are nontransferable. All prices listed are subject to change without prior notice.

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