Our company has evaluated your idea, and now wants to prepare a more in-depth research report. It'll be several hundred dollars. Our company makes most of its money from the royalties it gets from licensing its clients' ideas. Of course, we need some money from you before we get started. If a firm tells you this, but asks you for a large upfront fee, ask why they're not willing to help you on a contingency basis.
Unscrupulous firms make almost all their money from large upfront fees.
The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop and avoid them. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel , a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies U.S. and abroad.