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9
@Chae_bae
7 answers, 14 votes
 • 4 years ago •
Admissions Advice

Is GivenUs a reputable company/site?
Answered

So I found out about GivenUs through a third party, I signed up for their emails and things like that, I received a few emails from them for college help and scholarships but they keep sending an email requesting more information, and like I click on the links they send but it sends me to totally unrelated third party sites that are supposedly for college I've already given away enough information, and I'm worried I'm putting too much info out their already about myself, so I'm not sure what to do at this point.

concerned
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19
[🎤 AUTHOR]@Chae_bae4 years ago [edited]

Thanks every one who responded

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4 answers

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Accepted Answer
@ShaquilleOatmeal
expert
334 answers, 658 votes
 • 4 years ago[edited]

Hey @Chae_bae, I understand you already received your answer for this question but I wanted to chime in here for any future people who might be wondering the same thing as you. To be clear I think @DebaterMAX gave helpful advice, especially about not providing intimate details to websites, and it's advice people should take to heart. One last thing, I believe the link that Max posted might be broken. At least it was for me. Here's the link which he was referencing and that worked for me: https://www.fastweb.com/college-scholarships/articles/scholarship-scam-red-flags. Here's another website I found too which details red flags to look out for: http://www.collegescholarships.org/scam.htm. I'm going to try and avoid repeating the same info available in that article and mention the other red flags I notice.

I'd actually never heard of this website before until I read your question and decided to do some digging into it. It took some looking around the site for a bit before I was even able to find anything related to scholarships which, in my opinion, is a red flag right there. Even when you can find articles on scholarships they are full of generic information and just send you to other sites where you might be able to apply for actual scholarships. I avoided clicking on most of the links so I can't verify for sure if the sites they send you to are legit or not. None of the articles I looked at/read had an authors name on it either. That should be a red flag for any news site in general, not just on this website. Not to mention the fact that almost all the Google search results are similar questions wondering if the site is a scam. Another red flag. Finally, as you probably noticed when looking for an answer to this question, many of the emails people receive are rife with poor english and bad grammar. This indicates that people are most likely just trying to get your data so they can sell it to 3rd parties for a quick buck and not so they can help you find scholarships.

Overall I would strongly suggest avoiding this site all together. It doesn't seem like it's good for scholarships, plus @DebaterMAX provided much better resources, and most of the articles claiming you can make "fast money" or something similar are likely bogus. Depending on how much you care about them having your data it might be worth reaching out to them and requesting them to delete it. Whether they do or not is a different matter but it probably wouldn't hurt to try.

3
[🎤 AUTHOR]@Chae_bae4 years ago

@ShaquilleOatmeal Im so sorry im just seeing this i get a lot of emails but thank you from the bottom of my heart for researching this it is greatly appreciated thanks so much

@kelly_dublin3 years ago

I clicked on some of the links that the posts had and they all worked for me. They just redirected to other websites that were relevant. Wasn't too bad of a site- they actually had some interesting stuff posted. I got some scholarship ideas from givenus, so I'd say it does the job!!

7
@DebaterMAX
899 answers, 740 votes
 • 4 years ago

https://www.fastweb.com/college-scholarships/articles/scholarship-scam-red-flag

I don’t know about GivenUs but the first google result for GivenUs Legit was a reddit thread about it being a scam.

Also make sure you don’t give ultra personal details especially your social servility number among others. Assuming they don’t ask for payment quite a few of the scholarship websites make money by selling details to colleges not 3rd party sites. Also the vast majority of the time they don’t ask for address merely zip code.

But keep in mind most scholarship databases are very niche I browsed a lot of them and I wasn’t eligible for all of them but personal info and other sites are a big no no so I am very cautious of it.

Other ones that I know are legit are scholarship.com, scholarshipowl, fastweb, cappex, raiseme.

Hope this helps and comment if you need clarification.

7
[🎤 AUTHOR]@Chae_bae4 years ago

They ask questions like race, age, state, city, and home income, they also ask about whether I'm married or not and if I have children, I'm in high school and I've never had to do this stuff before and thanks for responding so quickly it means a lot.

@DebaterMAX4 years ago

That information is fine it’s identifiable info/info you can be impersonated with. But be causation if other sites that is linked as they may not be as trustworthy. Also your welcome!

@DebaterMAX4 years ago

If you feel comfortable posting it on twitter Facebook Snapchat Instagram etc to the world it is fine but yeh be cautious.

[🎤 AUTHOR]@Chae_bae4 years ago

I totally get that because this one site redirected me to third party sites to survey to get points to apply for scholarships and it felt off. So I stopped doing them pretty quickly.

0
@liamb252
1 answer, 0 votes
 • 3 years ago

Idk I've actually found some of the stuff they sent out to be useful. I signed up for emails too, I think it's pretty legit. Plus on the actual website itself there's some career/school advice that really helped me out.

0
0
@Bronx
1 answer, 0 votes
 • 3 years ago

I have also received an email from them. It seemed evident to me that it is someone attempting to use formal English but isn't quite able to. This seems highly suspicious.

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