About a
month ago, a small business owner attended our “10 Steps to Doing Business with
Government Agencies” and was shocked to find out that all the government
registries, certifications, and bid notifications were available at no
cost. See, just three months prior, he
paid a company $5,700 that claimed:
· They would get him registered with
all the government agency registries where buyers search for small businesses
· They would get him all his certifications
· They had “exclusive” access to
opportunities that they would forward to him
· They offer business development in
the areas of federal contracting
· And much more
Immediately
following our training, he scheduled an appointment to meet one-on-one with our
government contracting specialist to get the facts.
That meeting
occurred just the other day and we are appalled that any company would act in
such an unethical manner, preying on and taking advantage of a small business owner. The first step we took was to review what had
already been done and found several discrepancies in just the
first hour of our appointment. Among
these findings, we uncovered:
- An email account was set up for the small business (unknowingly) through one of the free services like Hotmail, Google, Etc. and uses that when registering with the various government agencies such as SAM (System for Award Management), BidSync, etc. so the small business doesn’t have access to their own accounts and doesn’t receive any notifications unless sent from this company which, by the way, are FREE.
· Paper “certifications”
were issued that look official but in actuality are fake.
They are “certifications” simply drafted from a computer and printed
out. There are NO paper certifications
for the federal market, most of the certifications that are recognized by the
federal market are self-certifying (excluding 8a and HubZone). Again, all these certifications are FREE. For more details on fake certifications, check out our other blog: http://www.northsandiegosbdc.com/2013/10/beware-of-fake-certifications.html
· There are a number of fee-based services that claim that they have "exclusive" access to government bids; there is NO "exclusive" access to government bids as all publically bid opportunities must be publicized somewhere for FREE. In this particular case, once again, an account was established using a fake email and incorrectly profiled the
small business. Fortunately, we were
able to contact the bid management companies to explain what had happened,
changed the email to the correct email, and updated the profile for
accuracy. Many of these registries have now implemented quality assurance methods to flag any business registration that appears to have been created by one of these fee-based services and flagging that account as "inactive" so the small business doesn't get anything. Once again, all these
registries and certifications are FREE.
We could go
on and on about the erroneous items we uncovered in just one two hour
appointment but the moral of this blog is:
· No one can guarantee you government
contract awards
· The registries and certifications for
government contracts are FREE
· The services offered by fee-based services can be inaccurate, incomplete, and not
always in your best interest - Be sure you do your homework
· The SBDC and other resources out there can help you do ALL of this for FREE
We have put
together a plan of action for this small business now that includes:
· Requesting at least a partial refund
of the $5,700 that he paid
· Removing this companies’ information
from the registry profiles and replacing that information with the correct information
· Updating, completing, and fixing the
current registries
· Obtaining the “real” actual
certifications
· Assisting this small business in government
contracting – local, state, and federal
All of this
and more for FREE!!! Please, don’t pay
for any service without getting guidance and advice from a trusted source that
has your best interest in mind like the Small Business Development Center
(SBDC).
In closing, we're not saying that ALL of these fee-based services are fraudulent. We are simply saying before you pay, do your research.
In closing, we're not saying that ALL of these fee-based services are fraudulent. We are simply saying before you pay, do your research.
To schedule
an appointment to meet with a professional consultant at no cost, please call
760-795-8740 or email us at centerinfo@miracosta.edu

Said company also claims that they have a "80%" closing rate in landing the contracts for their "clients". Their actual rate in landing the contracts is less than 50%. There are companies who give up their $5,000-$6,000 who have not landed one government contract.
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