I’ve run across a scenario locally in which a company has claimed to have contracts with multiple government entities for their AR pattern rifles. As this information is generally within the public domain, how can I verify their claims? Where or how would someone look to find this information?
http://www.fbo.gov is a good starting point. If you have the company’s CAGE code or SAM registration number (usually the same CAGE code), just Google it with the company’s name and/or address and contracts should come up from the Fed Biz Ops site or other contract sites. If nothing comes up with searching, they either sell under a different company’s name or vehicle (like someone else puts their product on their contract or schedule), or they are super high speed black budget ninjas that get paid in blow from the CIA, or their claims are likely exaggerated.
If their claims are genuine but with local government agencies (like the local dog catcher, as an example) as the “government entity” where they have exaggerated the “government” part to imply federal, there may or may not be something online depending on how tech savvy the local city council is about posting things online. If this is the case, there would be paper records of the local agency budget someplace locally.
Thank you. This is what I was looking for. This particular vendor claims to have contracts with DOS, TSA, DEA among others.
Should they have a cage code if their claims are in fact true? I guess what I’m getting at, is there a quick and dirty way to find out if they do business with .gov agencies?
You can search for a company’s CAGE code at www.sam.gov , but the site isn’t always working and isn’t always updated. The .gov is migrating from the CCR registry to this SAM registry, but not all companies have updated or changed over yet. If you check the “inactive” box on records search, this references the old CCR registry.
To get a CAGE code, you just complete the forms online to register for it. It is required to get contracts, but does not mean you have any. It is just something that identifies a company so it can do business with the government, but doesn’t guarantee anything.
I have just been through all this crap today for my company’s contract stuff.
If they are legit, and have nothing to fear then they should simply provide the contract information or number. Also, if they don’t have a CAGE code or DUNS info I don’t think they can have legit contracts, but I may be wrong.
My CAGE and DUNS are required for all of my .gov dealings.
ETA- At least if I want to get paid, don’t know if it’s needed for pro-bono work.
Thanks guys. Obviously, I have my doubts about this company’s claims. I suspect that they have sold guns to individual officers at gun shows or may provide parts as a subcontractor to other vendors and are representing that as having contracts with govt agencies.
If they don’t have a DUNS or CAGE Code, or don’t know what they are, then they are full of shit.
To another poster: I just got finished migrating from CCR to SAMS (didn’t migrate very well)…
It took me three tries. The first two resulted in emails from the GSA (responsible agency for SAM) saying that the data was lost and/or security was compromised. Not something to inspire much confidence when you have to provide your banking info for their database.
I guess the adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t apply to the .gov folks who keep records. Frankly, I don’t see anything the new SAM system does that CCR didn’t do without all the drama. From what a contracting officer told me, it is the result of a territorial match where GSA and the DoD wanted to piss on the same tree and the GSA was given the tree.
In our case, what didn’t migrate well were the ‘additional locations’ portion; it didn’t migrate correctly and continually failed updating - finally, after having to sign up to the new help desk (ANOTHER agency), I had to completely delete and enter those from scratch to get it to take.
You sound like you know more about this than me (sorry to the OP!); did this also change WAWF and myinvoice? We only have about 1-2 of these a year, so it’s always brand new every time I have to figure it out all over again…thanks!
Actually, if you want to PM me the name, I think I can search for them in the database…
My migration problems were similar. We have a foreign office, and I couldn’t get the new system to recognize a non-US address, so I had to do the same and just delete and start over. For the WAWF, I haven’t hit that step yet. Since everything has migrated to the new system, I am sure it needs to be done again, but I am going to wait until we actually need it to do it. The urgency for us to get everything on the new system was with a contract to a non-DoD agency.
The good thing is that we have a very helpful PTAC guy locally that can do a lot of the admin work on the contracts side free. This is a real blessing since we are a small company and don’t have the human resources (or time/patience) to do all the admin work. Have you tried these guys for help: http://www.aptac-us.org/new/Govt_Contracting/find.php?what=search&State=TN (assuming you’re in Tennessee)? I can’t say enough great things about our local guy. He’s awesome and very helpful. We are now getting a GSA contract squared away and the steps got significantly shorter with his help. Plus, they’re funded by DoD grants so the cost is free to us.
Sorry to the OP for a thread derail…
I’m sorry too. I have maybe 1-2 sales a year that require using SAM/CCR/WAWF etc. I’ll keep that referal you had in mind thanks. There is a LOT OF MONEY in learning how to use the Contracts system (if you can learn it).
To the OP: Per our PM’s and after researching, I’d be willing to call the guy out as being a fraud - but go ahead and let him dig himself so deep in the hole he can’t get out of it first…maybe when its all done you’ll post up a link on M4C so we can all have a huge laugh as it will be an epic moment 
You guys have been a great help, so I don’t mind the sidebar at all. A big thanks to skydivr for his help!