Pentagon Pays $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to Texas

Pentagon Pays Millions to ship 30 cent washers to Iraq.

news.yahoo.com

Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to a Texas base, U.S. officials said.

The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon recor

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 16-8-2007 by AnAbsoluteCreation]

[edit on 16-8-2007 by AnAbsoluteCreation]

Is there even an excuse that would make this seems plausible? If this isn't any indication of the type of administration we have in office, I don't know a better example. Of course I know the pentagon exists outside the whitehouse, but this whitehouse is different.

I mean:

C&D's fraudulent billing started in 2000, Stroot, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service's chief agent in Raleigh, North Carolina, said in an interview. ``As time went on they got more aggressive in the amounts they put in.''

Nobody caught on since 2000?

What do you think of this ATS?

AAC

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 16-8-2007 by AnAbsoluteCreation]

Well, u know there's that famous line on "Independence Day" wherein this is proposed as the mechanism whereby Area 51 is funded.

Heck, I'll sell them washers for half that price.

And they wonder why we hate to pay taxes.

Originally posted by MBF

And they wonder why we hate to pay taxes.

I wish I'd of said that. Pefectly put.

AAC

One thing that no one should do is try to rip off the government. Their wrath will be swift and strong. How can you get THAT greedy? They'll be wishing they never even thought of an idea like this when they are rotting for the rest of their lives in prison.

Enh, the good news is that the gov't can get most of the money back by auctioning off the ill-gotten gains of the corrupt company.

Our soldiers lack certain armor and are in harms way. These business men steal millions and sit inside their gated communities. Um, seems fair... not so much. :shk:

AAC

Originally posted by AnAbsoluteCreation
These business men steal millions and sit inside their gated communities.

This was done by two women, twin sisters. It's not just business men who are unethical and greedy any more. Thanks equal opportunity and feminism Unbridled white collar crime now has no glass ceiling, hooray!

I understand these two exploited an automated payments system that the Pentagon had going for priority shipping to conflict zones. Would it of been that hard or cumbersome to check shipping as a proportion of total costs? Or even just compare the cost of the items to the cost of shipping and flag gross discrepancies? I mean if you order a million dollar piece of equipment and shipping is something like $10,000 you could be forgiven for automatically paying such shipping to ease bureaucracy. Shipping in that instance is 1% of the item cost.

In one of the fraudulent instances here, 38c worth of items was charged $998,798 shipping. That's 262,841,579% the item cost. Hmm, not exactly going to be hard to detect such activity really...

Originally posted by hikix
One thing that no one should do is try to rip off the government. Their wrath will be swift and strong. How can you get THAT greedy? They'll be wishing they never even thought of an idea like this when they are rotting for the rest of their lives in prison.

Well I agree and disagree. I agree with wondering how anyone can be THAT greedy. If you give it some thought, they had obviously over billed and got away with it. Then clearly, they got completely obnoxious about it and stupidity got them caught.

I disagree with the rest of your post. Why not try to rip off the government? They have been ripping me off for years! I'm just trying to get some pay back. As far as I am concerned, they owe me money and if I can find a way to get some of it back, I'm going to do it.

Their wrath will be swift and strong?? It has taken them 7 years to catch this blatantly obvious over billing. That is hardly what I would call swift!

If I was these people I would have milked it slowly, built up enough cash to live on and taken off to South America so I wouldn't have to worry about extradition.

A great thought Subz, but most fortune 50 companies don't have software implemented that check these kind of discrepancies. They usually battle over other types of software implementations and security is usually the last option. Good Idea though.

C'mon,
Really.
How would you not know?

Someone in the administration knew full well what was happening.

For example, look at the cost of basics being paid for corporations in Iraq.
The amazing suv's that are bought for secretartis workign in the greenzone...... fully kitted out...

The fat cats know full well how much money is being ripped of, well its not being ripped off, its being signed off..

if something comes to light, like this...
they government has to play the fraudulent card
Afterall they cant appear to be acceptable and allowing this sort of basic greed... especialyl when its tax payer funded money.


Pssht, and people wonder WHY The economy is crashing.

A million for some postage to texas, how do these guys get away with putting in figures like that. I am sure a normal business, cannot put a thousand dollar toilet seat, into there accounts so how come the government does it to steal money into the black projects.

Wow that takes real guts and stupidity to attempt to rip off the gov't so blatantly and on such a relatively staggering scale.

I've no doubt this happens all the time in the procurement process, and with numbers far bigger, but I've always assumed it was confined to the likes of Halliburton, to pad their nest, and to the big contractors to cover the hidden costs of black ops programs. This sort of abuse attempted by a small operation that's not part of the inner system seems pure madness.

But then the Pentagon itself admits its budget is only a guesstimate because the funding is so byzantine and so much has to go off the books at one time or another.

I'm just wondering why they didn't just stop at $10 million and call it a day, head down to the beach in some faraway place and chill.

I wonder if there's a charming backstory to the motivations of the twin sisters. Could be a story that's just right for Hollywood.

At least we know where some of that 23 trillion when... You know when Rumsfield was talking about it on 9/10 saying things need to change within the pentagon...

Originally posted by AnAbsoluteCreation

Is there even an excuse that would make this seems plausible? If this isn't any indication of the type of administration we have in office, I don't know a better example. Of course I know the pentagon exists outside the whitehouse, but this whitehouse is different.

I mean:

C&D's fraudulent billing started in 2000, Stroot, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service's chief agent in Raleigh, North Carolina, said in an interview. ``As time went on they got more aggressive in the amounts they put in.''

Nobody caught on since 2000?

Yep. A perfect example of the type of administration that we HAD in office. The CLINTON administration! As I recall Bush didn"t take over untill Jan. 2001.

These people found a loophole in the system and exploited it to their advantage. They knew that the item price would have sent up a flag, but they found that the shipping part could be exploited.

Government contractors almost always have friends in high places. I'm sure a lot of that money went towards kickbacks. This is why people don't want to lose the power and will do anything to keep it.

Peace

Originally posted by uberarcanist
Well, u know there's that famous line on "Independence Day" wherein this is proposed as the mechanism whereby Area 51 is funded.

There's a large chunk of change that goes unaccounted for each year.

This probably isn't the best source, but if you do a little digging, I'm sure eveyone can come up with more exact figures from a more reputable source.

The public and our representatives have demanded accountability and evaluation in programs across the government. For successful programs, such as Head Start, we know how well they work and why. We deserve the same on the defense front. The extra $20 billion thrown at the Pentagon last fall largely is unaccounted for. Congress did not attach strings, and we'll probably never know what simply went to pet projects.

Thichheaded
At least we know where some of that 23 trillion when... You know when Rumsfield was talking about it on 9/10 saying things need to change within the pentagon...

The highest estimates of the "lost" money was 3.3 trillion, made by someone in Congress I believe. The figure had to do with gaps in the DOD's accounting, I think; however, Dov Zakheim was tasked with improving the procedures and eventually, nearly all of this "lost" money was accounted for. At least, so they say. [armed-services.senate.gov...].

This kind of # is bound to happen when you're dealing with bureaucracy. And we're not just talking about any bureaucracy; this is the Department of Defense in a country with a defense budget that is larger than the next 14 combined.

Problems with accounting may have improved, according to the link above, but the Government Accountability Office is still having issues with the DOD. [en.wikipedia.org... See references]

[edit on 17-8-2007 by Luap]