Contracts!

[Dips]

I've been dealing with a repeat caller over the last few weeks.

Every time she calls us (and it's the same woman every time) she asks for the person in charge of contracts.

Every time I've explained that I need to know what she wants in order to help get her to the right person.

Does she have a contract with us? No.

OK. We have two types of contacts with other parties. OEM contracts for people interested in incorporating our software into their product and reseller contracts for resellers who want Net-30 terms with us.

So is she looking to become an OEM or a reseller? No.

Then I tell her I'm not sure how to help her as I'm not sure what kind of contract she expects to have with us and she hasn't really given me much to go on.

Then she states that she is looking for vendors to sell to government agencies.

So I ask her if she is interesting in buying something from us.

No. She just needs to talk to the person in charge of contracts.

Since we haven't really gotten anywhere, I then would tell her that I'm afraid I don't know if we can help her without knowing what she wants from us.

Instead of elaborating, she just hangs up and then calls again another day to have the same blasted conversation.

And then yesterday we had a breakthough. She says she works with or for (it wasn't quite clear which it was) the government of another US state. She wants us to sign a contract so they can list us as an approved vendor and sell to that state government.

This could be legitimate. Many state governments are trying to get businesses in other states to agree collect their sales tax as a requirement to sell to that state government. While legitimate, we are not interested in signing such an agreement.

It could also be one of the numerous scam "bid agents" who promise to help you win bids for government contracts but don't really deliver in any meaningful way.

Scammer or not, we don't sign contracts without looking them over first. So I asked her to fax us a copy to my attention. We'd look it over and see if the terms were acceptable.

I'm still waiting to see a copy of this contract 24 hours later.

[bainsidhe]

It could also be one of the numerous scam "bid agents" who promise to help you win bids for government contracts but don't really deliver in any meaningful way.

Bingo. Interestingly enough, I fielded the same call about a week ago. Keep in mind, we sell to OEMs, distributors, retailers, even end-users. For the woman to ask who handles government contacts isn't necessarily a red flag. It sucks, but she really made me think it was a legitimate government sales call and made it sound as if "she" would be doing the purchasing. I gave our sales manager's name, ph#, email etc and she promised to fax something right over.

And thus arrived the 8 page sales spiel about how wonderful their company is at helping us secure government contracts. WTF? I admit, her spiel was quite convincing and you had probably deterred your caller because you have a narrower offering of services. I'm just steamed I wasted time talking to a useless salesperson when legitimate customers were calling in. Not to mention now they have my sales manager's contact information and she is much too busy to deal with such crap. Grrr.

[Dips]

Update:

We never heard a thing from contract lady.

However, we got a large order from the state in question from one of our regular resellers (this one, in fact; they've been placing prepaid orders quite regulary with us since that incident).

So my guess is that she was, indeed, one of those people who make money "hooking up" suppliers and government buyers.

The thing is that we don't need a middleman. Any bid which specifies our product by brand name is going to find us one way or another. We are the only people who manufacture it.

[Rapscallion]

Sounds like a win-win for you

Rapscallion

[QASlave]

Collecting out of state sales tax!!!???

Those farging sneaky bastages!!

[Dips]

Collecting out of state sales tax!!!???

Those farging sneaky bastages!!

Oh, yeah. Some states have gone so far as to tell us that if we wanted to sell to them, we'd have to sign an agreement to collect sales tax for all sales in that state. They know darn well that they can't legally make us do it if we don't sign a contract.

For the record, we just told those guys no thanks and referred them to some in-state resellers.

Another state college bought from us and insisted on paying the sales tax even though we told them not to. [I don't get that either. I THOUGHT state colleges would be tax exempt, but...] When they sent the check they included the tax anyway. We sent back the invoice marked PAID along with a check for the amount they "overpaid." Nice try guys, but no. You want to pay sales tax to your state, just pay it directly to them and leave us out of it.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Oh, yeah. Some states have gone so far as to tell us that if we wanted to sell to them, we'd have to sign an agreement to collect sales tax for all sales in that state. They know darn well that they can't legally make us do it if we don't sign a contract.

For the record, we just told those guys no thanks and referred them to some in-state resellers.

Another state college bought from us and insisted on paying the sales tax even though we told them not to. [I don't get that either. I THOUGHT state colleges would be tax exempt, but...] When they sent the check they included the tax anyway. We sent back the invoice marked PAID along with a check for the amount they "overpaid." Nice try guys, but no. You want to pay sales tax to your state, just pay it directly to them and leave us out of it.

Virginia is one of the states pushing to collect sales tax on all out of state sales made to Virginians. Even to the point of having a consumers use tax as part of the state income tax for people to voluntarily pay a sales tax on things they buy by mail order or over the Internet. I'm surprised anyone actually pays it.