<p>From IL here: Just wanted to update this thread. I too tend to throw most things away but this group sent it to our school and the school gave it to my daughter…I know I know but she thought she would like to experience it. Needless to say I have contacted our States Attorney and they are sending me the necessary paper work. The initial letter stated what the sponsorship fee paid for but a few days before the pagent, the new paper work had nothing of what the first letter said. We get there and when we asked where they change the woman gave us a room key…to a DIRTY, USED room (her room). They couldn’t even take a few bucks from each girls sponsorship to get a different room. When I asked that same woman about the initial letter, she said that was a letter from two years ago, we got that by mistake. THEN she says we should have gotten a new letter that had REVISED on it…no one got that letter. One girl from a school said the IL winner from last year was from her school and has not yet received her money…this after a full year of college. So the pagent I went up to one of the judges and asked how much does the national winner get. This woman got nervous told me the other judge would know. That judge said the director would know and the director said “We don’t know yet.” I called the number on the sheet and had a very interesting talk with Peggy. Peggy accused me of being upset my daughter didn’t win which could not have been farther from the truth. After we got to the dirty room, she pretty much wanted it to be over. When I told Peggy that it was not professional to put all these girls in a used room, she said that she needed to pay rent…so I googled the address on the letter…golly the head quarters is a 3,800 sq. ft. house! I have contacted the school, and the states attorney. I am a skeptical person by nature and I am not a pagent mom, but my daughter is 18 and I thought even if it was a money maker maybe she would have fun. The exceeded my thoughts on a seedy operation. If the national winner only gets 1,500 and the states get 200 (if they ever get it) where is the rest of this money going? My daughter wanted an experience and she got one…her first SCAM</p>