I'm sorry to inform you of this --- the whole thing is a fraud.  Your money is gone. And "advanced fee fraud" just like the Nigerian scams.  They want you to pay money to get a larger sum of money.  They will only drain you for more money --- there will be one fee after another until you either run out of money or finally realize this is a scam

This also happened to me & here I had my daughters help me pay out all this money. To now have Steven Johnson say that I have to pay the IRS $1500 before they will release the funds. At this time all I want is to get my daughters' monies back and forget all about it. Was told by him that I had to call Robert Smith at the Federal Reserve Bank. Called and no answer. Somebody please help, my girls have their own children to take care of. Need to know I to get the money back.

I recieved one call stating they were from Wash. D. C. And I was eligable for a one time government grant. The phone number started with 0000, I was told to call 209-682-5880, the man after giving a conf # told me to go to a rite aid or cvs purchase a green dot card with $ 200 on it for security then call him from the store and my money would be released. I told him if he was from where he said why is he using a calif number. I told him I had worked for the government and had a cousin that worked for the FBI and I would be handinding this matter over to him. The man very quickly hung up.