Maryville (WVLT) - A Blount County woman feels scammed after she's spent more than a month trying to get a refund on a self help program from an internet company she says only amounted to getting some training manuals with a pricetag of $2,500.

Instead of making a million dollars like she hoped, she's just hoping to get her initial payment back.

Volunteer TV's Stephen McLamb has the latest.

Work at home. Loretta Salts felt starting a website business might be a great way to make some money. She didn't know how, so she used the internet and that's when she found Prosper Incorporated. She used the internet to check them out, even checking out the sites testimonials, but that's not been Salts experience.

"They scammed me. You know, I don't know a lot about those other people," Salts said.

With a $2,500 pricetag, Salts says she received some training materials in the mail and was ready to learn, but it was the help of the coach that sold her.

"Recommended talking to this coach daily...emailing whenever, as much as possible, just stay in contact with this person and do what he tells us to do," Salts said.

But after making the initial 500 dollar payment, Salts says she was informed she wasn't getting a coach so she wanted a refund.

Well, I called him back and he didn't answer and that's the last I was able to get anyone a hold of me," Salts said.

Knoxville police Sergeant Mike McCarter says there are scam artists and bad businesses on the internet, but you can protect yourself using the internet to check out a company to see if they're where they say they are.

"You can go to Google maps or Mapquest and search that to the addresses that's listed and see if it matches," McCarter said.

But equally important, McCarter says it never hurts to check out the company itself ..like we did with Prosper, using a search engine and see what may show up.

"Allegations of fraud and consumer complaints and so forth. Many times they'll be listed along with the company itself," McCarter said.

Salts says Visa is now investigating her complaint and her $500 has provisionally been reimbursed.

Officials with the Better Business Bureau say using their website to check out a company before you buy can be helpful.

We checked out Prosper, Incorporated on the website and found they had 172 complaints in their three year existence. Nearly a third of those related to refunding issues.