Those had better be some good washers...

[Lead Head]

The State | 08/16/2007 | Lexington woman pleads guilty to bilking Defense Dept. of millions

Originally Posted by Article

A Lexington County woman admitted Thursday she bilked taxpayers out of $20.5 million by over billing the Defense Department for nine years — a crime that also resulted in her twin sister’s taking her life. Federal prosecutors said Charlene Corley, 46, billed the Pentagon $998,798 for two 19-cent flat washers.

I read in another article, that apparently they exploited a flaw in the DoD's automated paying service. I think it went that basically if it was priority, it was automatically instantly payed for. Here's more reading into what else they over charged for

[RA1D]

the one that committed suicide was a theif and a coward.

i was a supply petty officer for two years at my last command, in charge of buying office supplies for all the departments in the building. the navy would only allow us to purchase from certain companies / contractors. 99% of the supplies i bought were overpriced and i would say about 50% of the stuff i bought was ridiculously overpriced. i would spend about $2k per quarter on basic office supplies that realistically should have cost about $500. its not surprising to read about this type of stuff but it is sad. once these companies have a government contract, they are set. these girls just got greedy.

[garetjax]

Originally Posted by RAID

...these girls just got greedy.

There's an understatement. Plastic surgery? Ten vehicles? multiple properties. Two million and change in one single bank account, lord knows how much stashed away in others? The remaining sister deserves the book to be thrown at her.

[Dread]

As one of the four purchasers in my section, we are 'required' to purchase from selected vendors, in some instances it helps us get what we need to perform our jobs while saving the government some money, in other cases it would be cheaper to drive off post and buy from a local vendor.

Example - Envision Xpress has been awarded a sole-source contract by the Army. They competed against several other office supply companies to be one of only two authorized suppliers for all the Army's office supply needs. I can log into their on line site (or drive to the under-stocked store on base) and select toner cartridges for a laser printer we have. HP 4000n toner cartridges list for $137.50 from envision (includes delivery costs). Then call the local mom & pop store downtown for a quote - $125.00, I just have to spend 15 minutes of government time driving there and picking it up.

I'm 'required' to purchase from Envision Xpress, even though it costs more, it is saving the government money. How do you ask? I will be at work doing nothing (printer is down, no toner cartridge) as opposed to taking 15 minutes driving off post to buy and return the toner (5 minutes drive there, 5 minutes in store, 5 minutes drive back).

So now we can't get a lot of work done for several days as we wait for the toner to be delivered from some mysterious warehouse, and we've spent more money on it. Almost forgot to mention. We are NOT allowed to keep extras in stock, this is wasteful and borderline fraudulent behavior according to our auditor section (bean counters).

Am I making a blanket statement that all things in Envision Xpress are over-priced and take days to get to us? NO. But I am saying that it happens more often than not. They have a blanket authority to be our sole-sources for purchases, so we're stuck with them for everything, regardless of price and availability.

These two (sisters) are probably only a drop in a much larger bucket.

I don't believe this problem is as rampant as it once was, but still think common sense is what is lacking in the Army's procurement system.