The fraudulent RFQs are for small electronic devices such as laptops, tablets and cell phones. Image: Tetiana Yurchenko/Shutterstock.com
A notice from the inspector general’s office at the GSA warns federal agencies that they–and sometimes actual individual officials–are being spoofed in fraudulent requests for quotations being sent to contractors registered in the SAM.gov system.
“The fraudsters generally seek RFQs for electronic equipment (cell phones, laptops, tablets, and other electronic devices). These “spoofed” emails appear to originate from government email domains, including “.gov” or “.mil”, but have non-government domain extensions such as “.net”, “.org”, or “.com.”,” it says.
“The fraudulent RFQs also appear nearly identical to legitimate RFQs used by federal government agencies, often using the names of real agency officials. However, the fraudulent RFQs have illegitimate contact information, including email addresses and phone numbers that send any correspondence back to the fraudsters and not to any legitimate government entity,” it adds.
In many cases, the fraudulent RFQs are for small electronic devices such as laptops, tablets and cell phones. “If a business entity responds to the RFQ, the fraudster will accept the quote, provide a fraudulent Purchase Order (PO) and the business is provided with an address to which they can ship the devices. The PO will usually include the “signature” of the federal official, likely copied and photoshopped from publicly available contract files,” it says.
The businesses commonly don’t discover the fraud until they bill the spoofed agency and the invoice is rejected, it says.
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