Is Scholarship Points legit? Are Scholarship Points a Scam?
Is ScholarshipPoints a Scam?? A review of Scholarship Points by a Pro. Given its wide-ranging social media promotions of lottery-style scholarships that seem too good to be true, many students, educators, and organizations may be asking this legitimate question: Is Scholarship Points a scam? Where does the money come from and who are the persons behind Scholarship Points? Let’s review the facts, and you decide.
Scholarship Points is Not Original
Scholarship Points.Com is an Edvisors Online Education company, located at 1250 Hancock Street, Suite 703N, and located in Quincy, MA. Recently, the company relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada, to excape Massachusetts taxes. The Scholarship Points system used by ScholarshipPoints is an innovative scholarship points system used to award scholarships to eligible students. However, the Scholarship Points system used by ScholarshipPoints.Com is NOT the first of its kind, however. In fact, Scholarship Points is a copycat system used by numerous traditional scholarship sponsors.
National Academy of American Scholars has always and many other traditional scholarship sponsors have instituted a scholarship points rating system to select semi-finalists, and finalists for its various scholarship applicants for the Platinum Scholarships, Gold Scholarships, Silver Scholarships, and Bronze Scholarships, and Easley Scholarships.
The system of awarding scholarship points for meritorious conduct, or scholarly behavior has been used for years by National Academy of American Scholars, and many other traditional scholarship sponsors.
Scholarship Points Lotteries Encourages Dumbing of Scholarships
Traditional scholarship sponsors typically DO NOT disclose precise point systems. National Academy of American Scholars is the financial-aid, and scholarship expert that many scholarship sponsors and scholarship programs, ranging from College Prowler, FastWeb, and Scholarship Points, and others that have sought to imitate our programs in one form or another. The scholarship points system used by Edvisors is a program that encourages its readers and users to apply for scholarships through an unorthodox and unconventional method that is popular with many students.
However, the Scholarship Points system used by ScholarshipsPoints.Com is innovative mainly because of its style, and not its substance. Meaning, traditional scholarship sponsors have always relied upon scholarship points in some form or manner to decide upon scholarship semi-finalists vs. scholarship finalists. The scholarship points were not publicly disclosed, however.
Scholarship Points sponsored by ScholarshipPoints.Com is a flashy, and a little sexy because it allows many students to earn scholarship points for contribution to a possible scholarship award, or cash drawing. Is Scholarship Points legitimate or is Scholarship Points a scam? The lottery style of Scholarship Points is not necessarily innovative other than it encourages disrespect to traditional scholarships, and dumbs the merit process via social gaming instead of merit because no real academics or merit is required.
Social Gaming Scholarships Are Really just Money Drawings
ScholarshipPoints does not charge students upfront fees to enter, and therefore this fact eliminates suspicion of a scholarship ponzi scheme by Scholarship Points.
When the FTC drafted its infamous College Scholarship Fraud Prevention Act in 2000, an Act that is a great example of government interference with private enterprise, and an Act that ignored student-loan fraud, the FTC did not figure that a company like Scholarship Points would use social gaming points to award fees whereas the revenue was generated by reward points and incentivized traffic.
In the 1990s, U.S. government informant Mark Kantrowitz was hailed by the FTC as a Financial-Aid Expert even though his newly created FinAid.org and fastweb companies were less than 1 year old at the time. The U.S. media parroted the statements od the FTC, and since that time they continue to refer to Kantrowitz as an expert in financial-aid. to give you an idea how fraudulent the FTC is: The FTC supported the unusual, unethical, and possibly illegal exclusive sponsorship arrangement by the National Association of Student Financial-Aid Administrators (NASFAA, an I.R.S. certified tax-exempt organization) and businessman/government informant Mark Kantrowitz. At the time, Mark Kantrowitz served as President and CEO of his newly created Finaid.org company. It was no secret that Kantrowitz was also the main spokesperson for Fastweb, and its programmer.
At that time, student loan fraud was rampant. However, the FTC wanted to push the College Scholarship Fraud Prevention Act while ignoring the student loan fraud that was occurring by members of NASFAA. In fact, the widely publicized College Scholarship Fraud Prevention Act did not address a single subject related to student loan frad, but it did address and encourage the business of FinAid.org/fastweb (promoters of student loan companies).
Scholarship Points Executive Denounces Business Model as a Lottery
During this time period, the official Scholarship Points did not exist. However, the operators of Scholarship Points were running a controversial student loan company that would eventually receive a CEASE-AND-DESIST letter from the N.Y. Attorney General in regards to student loan fraud, steering, etc.
Kantrowitz, as a government informant, promoted himself an unbiased and neutral financial-aid critic while in reality his statements (Scholarship Scam warnings) were designed to steer attention away from the acts of student loan companies, and the fact that Fastweb was peddling student data and/or steering students to expensive loans.
Also, the current executive of Scholarship Points, had declared in the 1990s that systems such as scholarship points were lotteries. More than 20 years later, Mark Kantrowitz accepted an executive position at a company that engages in lottery-style social gaming scholarships.
Real Scholarships Require Merit and Recommendations
The current executive of Scholarship Points, Mark Kantrowitz is rather infamous for denouncing any scholarship program that ask for up-front and extended processing fees, or handling fees. Never spend more than a postage stamp on a scholarship. Students that apply for Scholarship Points scholarships are required to participate in data sharing and be subject to sharing of their personal information. The information is then shared with marketers for a fee. Scholarship Points and students names are entered into a contest.
No detailed interview ever takes place, no essay, and no personal recommendations are needed to win a scholarship by Scholarship Points. Essentially, the student can be illiterate and still be competitive to win a scholarship points scholarship.
Deceptive use of Scholarship
What is debatable, however, is the use of the term “scholarship” to provide awards to students when very little scholarly conduct was engaged in to win the award. For example, ScholarshipPoints.com participants are not required to submit official scholarship applications, or even recommendation letters, or even written essays, GPA requirements, etc.
On August 15th, 2012, ScholarshipsPoints.Com official sought to register the term scholarshippoints/ScholarshipPoints with the U.S. Trademark/Service office. The submission of the trademark office is evidence that the phrases “scholarshippoints”,”ScholarshipPoints”, “Scholarshippoints”, “Scholarship Points”, are not the exclusive property of ScholarshipPoints.Com. In any other words, any person,group, or organization can use the phases “scholarshippoints”,”ScholarshipPoints”, “Scholarshippoints”, “Scholarship Points”, and not be in violation of the U.S. Trademark Act, or violate the intellectual property rights of ScholarshipsPoints.Com. mark registration for the phrase “ScholarshipPoints.”
What is striking, however, is that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office concurred that that the Scholarship Points system used by ScholarshipPoints.Com is simply social-media gaming and has little to do with the legal practice of awarding official “scholarships”; a point we referred to above.
Thus, we conclude the following: a.) the use of Scholarship Points in the selection and/or administration of scholarships, grants, and financial-aid is NOT illegal; b.) ScholarshipPoints.Com DOES NOT have exclusive use of any of the phrases “scholarshippoints”,”ScholarshipPoints”, “Scholarshippoints”, “Scholarship Points”; and, c.) we do NOT believe that the use of Scholarship Points by ScholarshipPoints.Com is illegal.
In fact, National Academy of American Scholars has unveiled a new scholarship points system that incorporates social media for active students.
Please click this link for our current Scholarship Points table of Scholarship Points for scholarships, grant, and financial-aid.
Please click this link for our current Scholarship Points table of Scholarship Points for scholarships, grant, and financial-aid.
Scholarship Points applies for Scholarship Points trademark
Note: This article is copy-right protected, and is written exclusively for fans and followers of National Academy of American Scholars, and for the members of Scholarship Club of America. You may link to this article. Any attempts to copy the contents thereof, or use the contents without full attribution to National Academy of American Scholars is a crime.
A Facebook user posed this question on the timeline of scholarshippoints:
“I just found this, a chart showing expiration dates for scholarshippoints’ points. Is this factual and current or not? I am confused, I have been saving points for some time and have not been watching for disappearing points.”
Our representative replied as follows:”Hello. I can answer that question. The phrase “Scholarship Points” is not the exclusive property of ScholarshipPoints.Com, and scholarship points have been used for several years by National Academy of American Scholars, which was founded in 1988, a decade before ScholarshipPoints.Com “