Posted: 12/29/2014 8:36:25 PM EDT
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Just wandering. How prevalent are kickbacks in business? I'm in construction, and I've watched some very strange behavior regarding certain vendors. The vendors suck, but nobody will get rid of them. It makes no sense. It's the same vendor for multiple companies. Makes me think something is up that I'm not aware of. What says the hive? |
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Just wandering. How prevalent are kickbacks in business? I'm in construction, and I've watched some very strange behavior regarding certain vendors. The vendors suck, but nobody will get rid of them. It makes no sense. It's the same vendor for multiple companies. Makes me think something is up that I'm not aware of. What says the hive? Mob ties |
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Quoted:
Just wandering. How prevalent are kickbacks in business? I'm in construction, and I've watched some very strange behavior regarding certain vendors. The vendors suck, but nobody will get rid of them. It makes no sense. It's the same vendor for multiple companies. Makes me think something is up that I'm not aware of. What says the hive? Just business as usual. 
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I used to work for a very successful restaurant in my hometown. The owner would provide complementary food for the city council meetings, and funny enough the owner always got approved for any expansion he planned.
I detested the owner and his shady way of doing business, and was very glad to be done with him the day I quit. |
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Quoted:
Just wandering. How prevalent are kickbacks in business? I'm in construction, and I've watched some very strange behavior regarding certain vendors. The vendors suck, but nobody will get rid of them. It makes no sense. It's the same vendor for multiple companies. Makes me think something is up that I'm not aware of. What says the hive? I got fired from a job. Reasons were: We are not making any money with you here. I set the the record for 6 straight months on Inbound revenue. My profit per mile exceeded the minimum by two fold. So when the big guy told me this, I promptly ask "can you define WE, is that as in the Company, or you and your Wife? I was promptly escorted off the property 
I was offered on MANY occasions, cash dividends based on the amount of revenue I pushed to most of the brokers I used and the companys hauling the freight. So yeah, its is out there 
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Wayyyy back in nineteen and ninety five I used to work at a factory where the purchasing agent was taking kickbacks left and right. No kickback, no purchase order. A two year old Cadillac he "bought" from president of the company that sold us metal. A Caribbean cruise hat was paid for by another company. It finally got so blatant that management had to act, and they fired him. |
| As a shop foreman, I've been offered everything from fishing rods to big screen TV's to guns, fishing & hunting trips, expensive $$$ dinners & football tickets. My reply was always " If your shit was any good, you wouldn't have to try to buy me. Now, get out and take your shit with you." My integrity is worth a lot more. Not to mention, as a state employee, the penalties were severe. I did accept small shit like caps and cheap knives - those went to my guys in the shop. The most pathetic thing done for a sale was a fastener salesgirl trying to show off her tits for a foot in the door. Think of a brunette, chunky Kate Upton. I wouldn't buy anything because it was low grade Chinese junk. So, she would come by every week wearing progressively tighter pants and lower cut shirts. The last time she came in, she had on blue jeans that looked like they were spray painted on and a super tight V- neck sweater with no bra and she was cold. If she had gotten any closer, she could have put out my eye. It was so bad, my guys quit working and were snickering at her. I finally called her boss and explained how she conducted a sales call. Plus, I explained I only bought American made grade 8 nuts and bolts with traceable lineage. Liability was a major concern if I had a part failure. |
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Happens all the time in my area. Our school system buys really shitty janitorial and sanitation goods at Walmart retail prices.  The transportation people bought face recognition equipment for the buses without prior approval during a budget crisis. They got caught on that one.
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About 95% of our business comes from insurance companies and third-party administrated adjuster farms.
Back about 1995 I was new in the field and had an adjuster supervisor at a TPA here in Tulsa tell me he would send us all the business we could handle...and we were to kickback to him 10% of our gross that we billed his company in cash each month... No, I didn't do it and we never got their business. |
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My experience has been that buyers/purchasing folk like things to be easy and get kudos for saving money therefore vendors that make them shine win. I thought a vendor was doing something to keep doing business with our company so when I ended up in purchasing I made it my goal to smoke out any shenanigans. Turns out it was simply a long term relationship between the sales guy and our buyer with the salesman doing an excellent job of doing our buyer's job for him. When I challenged the buyer and vendor on the crappy return on investment as well as the money wasted on sticking with them things changed. |
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Happens all the time in my area. Our school system buys really shitty janitorial and sanitation goods at Walmart retail prices.
The transportation people bought face recognition equipment for the buses without prior approval during a budget crisis. They got caught on that one. ha i remember that
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I used to work in an industry where it was fairly prevalent on a (position based) individual level.
Everybody knew about it, but there was so much money being made, nobody really cared. In other words, the company doesn't care/won't notice if you charge 5 times the going rate.....you get chosen, but in turn....you give me (the individual) X amount of your inflated profit. The only entity that loses is the Corp. and they are too big and dumb to notice. And I'm not talking about small stuff. (Think yearly service charges inflated hundreds of thousands of dollars) |
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Wanna talk real kickback?
Let's talk "x percentage of bids won must be from MOB, Minority Owned Businesses" But they're more expensive and haven't delivered! We've tried this business and they suck! Award them the bid. I have a bid that's 300k less, proven work for us, they're awesome! Doesn't matter - Bid award goes to MOB Now a real kickback is a promise for future personal rewards to the purchasing decision maker. Those folks think they're king, and in a way they are. They hold the purse strings. The XO level just sign off on the funding but it's purchasing that holds the real power of the bid award. Does it happen? All day, every fucking day it happens. Every large project bid award has some history or something behind it. |
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I'm in charge of overseeing a lot of rather large private and/or .gov contracts in DC, so of course I get a lot of somewhat extravagant offers.
My morals aren't for sale and neither is contract preference, but I do take them up on some of the smaller things if it's just a nice gesture sort of thing. I just run it by my boss first and make sure neither of us feels like it presents a moral issue or a conflict of interest and I'm good to go. I've gotten things ranging from free dinners/bar tabs to free shop services done as a favor to guided fishing trips and fancy yacht parties. Some of them would probably buy me a car or fly in a couple of $$$ Vegas call girls if I asked for it (not that I would). It surely doesn't hurt my opinion of whichever business , but I still make sure that I award contracts in a fair manner. A man's reputation is really all he has in the end.
I can definitely see where it would be easy to abuse kickbacks. There's a whole lot of it that I've seen go on in DC; sorry about what they're doing with your tax dollars. 
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Quoted: Kickback is a word with bad connotations. It's best described as "sales" or "customer appreciation". It's how business is done as both parties profit in some way. The business of business is to make money, period. It's anchored with bad connotations because more often than not it's not the business itself who profits, but rather intermediaries, middle-management or someone who stands to gain personally without regard for the quality of the service rendered/product/profitability. It's also done with state business or public funds, which is all kinds of fucked up for obvious reasons. It's naive to paint it with a favorable brush, as if it's just a free-market device. |
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It's anchored with bad connotations because more often than not it's not the business itself who profits, but rather intermediaries, middle-management or someone who stands to gain personally without regard for the quality of the service rendered/product/profitability. It's also done with state business or public funds, which is all kinds of fucked up for obvious reasons. It's naive to paint it with a favorable brush, as if it's just a free-market device. Quoted:
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Kickback is a word with bad connotations. It's best described as "sales" or "customer appreciation". It's how business is done as both parties profit in some way. The business of business is to make money, period. It's anchored with bad connotations because more often than not it's not the business itself who profits, but rather intermediaries, middle-management or someone who stands to gain personally without regard for the quality of the service rendered/product/profitability. It's also done with state business or public funds, which is all kinds of fucked up for obvious reasons. It's naive to paint it with a favorable brush, as if it's just a free-market device. You are correct oh wise one. What's unbelievable is the public sector has the most egregious kickbacks possible because of connections and decision making influence, not to mention the size of the awards. You would think the "transparency" in the bid awarding process these kinds of shenigans can't happen. I would even say the private sector has more checks and balances because both sides have serious lines they have to cross to make it happen. I'm going to take you out for a bunch of really nice dinners after giving me a few million bucks worth of business or even before so we can discuss the project.... vs. You'll find a new porsche in your driveway if we get this bid, can't be traced to you or me. One is a true kickback, the other is relationship building. |
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Sales has been taking clients to lunch, dinner, drinks for as long as there has been a vendor and a client. More business is done on the golf course than in the office. Hunting trips have been common and the IRS lets you deduct entertainment expenses. The three martini lunch has gone the way of the dodo, but in the old days (80& 90s) I was expected to take folks to lunch and if we didn't, it was a wasted day !
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Years ago I knew a guy who was the head purchasing agent for the Dow Chemical plant in Plaquemine, LA. Their second largest plant in the US. His daughter got free lunch at school back in the 80's. They eventually "kind" of cracked down on it. Back then it was free hunting trips, free fishing trips, free whatever. Guy remodeled his entire house and never spent a penny. He was spending in the millions to give you an idea. Free hunting trips to South, TX are still pretty much the norm for private business interest. Doesn't go over so well at the corporate level. |
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I'm in charge of overseeing a lot of rather large private and/or .gov contracts in DC, so of course I get a lot of somewhat extravagant offers.
My morals aren't for sale and neither is contract preference, but I do take them up on some of the smaller things if it's just a nice gesture sort of thing. I just run it by my boss first and make sure neither of us feels like it presents a moral issue or a conflict of interest and I'm good to go. I've gotten things ranging from free dinners/bar tabs to free shop services done as a favor to guided fishing trips and fancy yacht parties. Some of them would probably buy me a car or fly in a couple of $$$ Vegas call girls if I asked for it (not that I would). It surely doesn't hurt my opinion of whichever business , but I still make sure that I award contracts in a fair manner. A man's reputation is really all he has in the end.
I can definitely see where it would be easy to abuse kickbacks. There's a whole lot of it that I've seen go on in DC; sorry about what they're doing with your tax dollars. You might need to review business courtesy laws and regulations, most of the items you listed are covered and prohibited as "gifts". |
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Had a guy in my office the other day explaining a deal that he was in, that he wanted me in to, that was three layers of kickbacks into a national corporation. All the money and work you want. No compete. They give you the budget. You do the work, which costs HALF the budget, then you pay three levels of people back with everything from trips to brown bags of payola.
I think he fancied himself as a JR Ewing type person, as if that is something to strive for... I kindly encouraged him to clean up his business practices, then showed him the door. He hasn't been back since. Ive seen it for years. Nothing organized like the mafia or anything exciting and exotic. Just people with poor character caving into temptation. Id rather make my money above the table.. You make MORE money that way by the way!!! |
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A chief engineer with my agency got fired and kickbacks were involved. He went to a chrome shop in San Diego to get some parts for the ship chromed. Looks nice, prevents corrosion, blah, blah, whatever. He told the shop that since he was bringing them all kinds of government money for chrome jbs, maybe they should chrome some parts for his project car to show they appreciate the .gov business.
Good riddance to him. We're better off without his sort. |
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You might need to review business courtesy laws and regulations, most of the items you listed are covered and prohibited as "gifts". Quoted:
Quoted:
I'm in charge of overseeing a lot of rather large private and/or .gov contracts in DC, so of course I get a lot of somewhat extravagant offers.
My morals aren't for sale and neither is contract preference, but I do take them up on some of the smaller things if it's just a nice gesture sort of thing. I just run it by my boss first and make sure neither of us feels like it presents a moral issue or a conflict of interest and I'm good to go. I've gotten things ranging from free dinners/bar tabs to free shop services done as a favor to guided fishing trips and fancy yacht parties. Some of them would probably buy me a car or fly in a couple of $$$ Vegas call girls if I asked for it (not that I would). It surely doesn't hurt my opinion of whichever business , but I still make sure that I award contracts in a fair manner. A man's reputation is really all he has in the end.
I can definitely see where it would be easy to abuse kickbacks. There's a whole lot of it that I've seen go on in DC; sorry about what they're doing with your tax dollars. You might need to review business courtesy laws and regulations, most of the items you listed are covered and prohibited as "gifts". I'll check it out, but I would be extremely surprised if it was close to violating any of that. As I said, it's all reported and I wouldn't accept anything that was morally questionable. Most of it is a business meeting type setting and it's a fairly common thing to do. People do have meetings and it's usually courtesy for somebody to pick up the tab. |
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I'll check it out, but I would be extremely surprised if it was close to violating any of that. As I said, it's all reported and I wouldn't accept anything that was morally questionable. Most of it is a business meeting type setting and it's a fairly common thing to do. People do have meetings and it's usually courtesy for somebody to pick up the tab. Quoted:
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I'm in charge of overseeing a lot of rather large private and/or .gov contracts in DC, so of course I get a lot of somewhat extravagant offers.
My morals aren't for sale and neither is contract preference, but I do take them up on some of the smaller things if it's just a nice gesture sort of thing. I just run it by my boss first and make sure neither of us feels like it presents a moral issue or a conflict of interest and I'm good to go. I've gotten things ranging from free dinners/bar tabs to free shop services done as a favor to guided fishing trips and fancy yacht parties. Some of them would probably buy me a car or fly in a couple of $$$ Vegas call girls if I asked for it (not that I would). It surely doesn't hurt my opinion of whichever business , but I still make sure that I award contracts in a fair manner. A man's reputation is really all he has in the end.
I can definitely see where it would be easy to abuse kickbacks. There's a whole lot of it that I've seen go on in DC; sorry about what they're doing with your tax dollars. You might need to review business courtesy laws and regulations, most of the items you listed are covered and prohibited as "gifts". I'll check it out, but I would be extremely surprised if it was close to violating any of that. As I said, it's all reported and I wouldn't accept anything that was morally questionable. Most of it is a business meeting type setting and it's a fairly common thing to do. People do have meetings and it's usually courtesy for somebody to pick up the tab. Shop service and fishing trips are certainly candidates, and enough to get yourself into a jam. Dinners, bar tabs, and parties might or might not pass scrutiny depending on the attendees. |
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Shop service and fishing trips are certainly candidates, and enough to get yourself into a jam. Dinners, bar tabs, and parties might or might not pass scrutiny depending on the attendees. Quoted:
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I'm in charge of overseeing a lot of rather large private and/or .gov contracts in DC, so of course I get a lot of somewhat extravagant offers.
My morals aren't for sale and neither is contract preference, but I do take them up on some of the smaller things if it's just a nice gesture sort of thing. I just run it by my boss first and make sure neither of us feels like it presents a moral issue or a conflict of interest and I'm good to go. I've gotten things ranging from free dinners/bar tabs to free shop services done as a favor to guided fishing trips and fancy yacht parties. Some of them would probably buy me a car or fly in a couple of $$$ Vegas call girls if I asked for it (not that I would). It surely doesn't hurt my opinion of whichever business , but I still make sure that I award contracts in a fair manner. A man's reputation is really all he has in the end.
I can definitely see where it would be easy to abuse kickbacks. There's a whole lot of it that I've seen go on in DC; sorry about what they're doing with your tax dollars. You might need to review business courtesy laws and regulations, most of the items you listed are covered and prohibited as "gifts". I'll check it out, but I would be extremely surprised if it was close to violating any of that. As I said, it's all reported and I wouldn't accept anything that was morally questionable. Most of it is a business meeting type setting and it's a fairly common thing to do. People do have meetings and it's usually courtesy for somebody to pick up the tab. Shop service and fishing trips are certainly candidates, and enough to get yourself into a jam. Dinners, bar tabs, and parties might or might not pass scrutiny depending on the attendees. I did kick in a little cash for the fishing trip, would have been a bit too much otherwise. And the shop stuff is really pretty small and mostly just happened because I shoot with one of the guys there. Just needed to borrow some tools I don't have at my shop. Really, I hate all the corruption BS I see happen in DC and I'm not going to be a part of it. I was just pointing out that it happens a lot in my AO. |