I live in the Dallas Tx area and have a complaint about a locally based company called Benchmark. We signed up with this company when our daughter was getting ready to start looking at college at a cost of $1600. Supposedly they were going to help us find scholarship resources to help pay college expenses. Of course they promised us the moon but we ended up with nothing. They did an initial screening and were supposed to get us info on scholarships to apply for that matched our daughters profile. They did not even send us the applications, they sent us info on where we could send for applications, she did not even qualify for half of the scholarships. For example you had to be Hispanic (which she is not) or something to that effect. She did send off for a few applications that she felt she might qualify for but lo and behold she never received any applications. And many of them were already past the application date for that year. The main reason we were succored in was because of the left handed scholarship. Our daughter is left handed and the sales rep told us there was a $2,500 scholarship for left handed people that all she had to do was apply for and it was pretty much guaranteed. After we signed up for the service and I started inquiring about how to apply for this particular scholarship I was told that it had been pulled for that year. When I complained that I was told it was available I was told that they could not guarantee what scholarships would be pulled. Since it only been a few weeks I’m sure that they already knew it was not available when they told us about it. My husband and I are usually careful with our money and feel we have been ripped off. I never receivedthe newsletters and annual applications we were promised for the service. When I inquired about this I was told that that was only the 1st year and we would have to call for info after that. It makes me a little concerned that when I do try to call and talk to someone I always get an answering machine and it takes 2 or 3 days for someone to call you back if they even do. I have asked to speak to a supervisor or the owner but get the run around about this too. I was told that if we applied for scholarships and never received any that at the end of 4 years we could request to have our money refunded. Well I can’t apply for something I can’t get the info I need on and I am not so sure these people will be around in 4 years. How can I find out more info on this company and who the people running the show are? We are feeling pretty ripped off and would like to atleast attempt to get some of our money back. That $1600 could help pay off some of those student loans we ended up having to take out instead.