Tender fraud against suppliers
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud log on fake solicitations: a bid desk's month with Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud notes on public contracting are written here as a bid desk log, because that is where tender scams actually land. The desk belongs to a composite vendor, Company P, a small supplier of office equipment and IT hardware that bids on federal, state and local work. Over one month the desk logged nine items. Each entry has four columns: date, what came in, what we checked, verdict. After the log come the patterns and a first-day plan for money that has already gone. The company and the emails are invented; the rules, agencies and figures are real and American.
English version for the United States.
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud log: why a bid desk keeps one
The log started after two similar emails reached two different people in the same week and got two different answers. Fake solicitations arrive in the same inbox as real ones, they read just as officially, and the deadline is always short. Without a record, every email is judged from scratch and nobody spots the pattern.
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud checks rest on one discipline: the column marked what we checked may never be filled in with words taken from the email itself. Only what the desk found on SAM.gov, on an agency website, from a phone number it looked up independently, or from its own bank goes into that column.
The anchor source is public. Under FAR 2.101 the Governmentwide point of entry is the single place where federal business opportunities over 25,000 dollars are posted, and it lives at sam.gov. FAR 5.101 requires proposed contract actions above that amount to be publicized there. So every log entry about a federal deal starts with a search on SAM.gov by notice number or agency name.
The log itself is a shared spreadsheet that the bid manager, the bookkeeper and the owner can all read. Each of them sees what has already been checked, so nobody pays on an email a colleague has flagged. Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov suggests writing the entry the same day, while the message and the caller's number are still at hand.
Entry for the 2nd: a request for quotes from a lookalike address
What came in. A request for quotes on a batch of laptops, signed by a contracting officer at a federal agency, sent from an address that looked like .gov at a glance but ended in .net. Delivery to a warehouse in another state, payment 30 days after receipt, and a polite note that the buyer prefers email to calls.
What we checked. The GSA Office of Inspector General describes exactly this scheme: impostors posing as agency staff send fake requests for quotes from addresses that resemble .gov or .mil but sit on .net, .org or .com domains, then send a fake purchase order and Net 30 terms, and the agency rejects the vendor's invoice because it never placed the order. Its red flags match the email line by line: a ship-to address that has nothing to do with the agency, From and Reply-To that differ, urgency, easy-to-resell goods and a buyer who will not talk on the phone.
Verdict. Fake. The desk found the agency's procurement office number on the agency website, called, and heard that no such request existed. As GSA OIG advises, the attempt went to IC3 at ic3.gov and to the inspector general of the agency whose name was used. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud reviews of this pattern stress one point: the goods are the target, so the scheme only works if the shipment leaves the dock.
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud checks on a consultant who sells a sure award
Entry for the 6th. A cold call from a self-described federal contracting consultant. He named an upcoming opportunity, promised Company P the award for a percentage of contract value, and asked for a retainer by wire before the solicitation closed.
What we checked. The opportunity was already public on SAM.gov, where anyone can read it for free. Nothing in the call suggested access the desk did not already have, and the award decision belongs to the contracting officer alone. Paying for influence over a federal award would put Company P on the wrong side of the law as well.
Verdict. Declined, number and time logged, the owner informed. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud notes describe the economics of this pitch plainly: the consultant keeps the retainer whatever happens. If Company P loses, the agency gets the blame; if it wins on its own merits, the consultant claims the credit and asks for the rest.
The desk added a practical line to its rules. Legitimate help with proposals exists and is bought under a written contract with a named firm and a defined scope. Anything sold as a guaranteed result, inside contact or early look at competitors goes straight to the log and nowhere else.
Entry for the 9th: an annual credentialing fee from a fake GSA official
What came in. An email signed with the name of a real GSA contracting official, demanding an annual credentialing fee to keep Company P eligible for awards. A form for card details was attached; the sender's domain was e-gsa.us.
What we checked. GSA OIG has warned about this precise move: emails from lookalike domains such as e-gsa.us, using real staff names, asking vendors for a yearly credentialing fee and card information. Genuine GSA addresses end in gsa.gov. GSA also says vendors do not need to pay third parties to register in SAM.gov, and that once a registration is active the company is visible to every agency.
Verdict. Fake, card form deleted, accounts payable warned in writing. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud checks flag the word annual here: a recurring fee sounds routine, and routine is what stops people from asking questions.
A short video goes with this part of the log. It replays the month in six frames: the lookalike request for quotes, the consultant with a sure award, the credentialing fee, the paid SAM renewal, the purchase order to a freight forwarder, and the desk's main lesson that no money moves on the strength of an email.
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud signs in a fake solicitation and where to see them
Sign Where it shows What to do No notice on SAM.gov Search by number or agency Do not reply Domain ends in .net, .org or .com Sender address and Reply-To Call the agency Ship-to unrelated to the buyer Purchase order, map search Hold the shipment Fee for registration or credentials Invoice or card form Delete, warn payables Payment by gift cards or wire today Message text Report to the FTC Buyer refuses to talk by phone Email thread Treat as fake Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud log: a month of fake tenders at a US bid desk Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud log entry on a paid SAM.gov renewal
Entry for the 13th. A letter, styled as an official notice, warning that Company P's SAM.gov registration was about to lapse and offering renewal for a fee, with a deadline of five business days.
What we checked. Registration does need attention: SAM.gov says it must be renewed every 365 days, and it is what allows a business to bid on government contracts and apply for federal assistance. The cost is the point. In a May 2023 bulletin GSA stated that registering in SAM.gov is always free and that the government never asks for payment to register, update or renew. The desk logged into SAM.gov directly and saw months left on the registration.
Verdict. A paid renewal service with a misleading letter. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud notes treat any invoice tied to SAM.gov as a stop sign, and the desk now checks expiry only inside its own SAM.gov account, opened from a bookmark.
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud checks cover a close cousin of this letter too: an offer to expedite a registration that seems stuck. GSA notes that validating a registration can take up to several days, so a short wait is ordinary, and paying an outsider to shorten it buys nothing the desk could not get for free.
Entry for the 16th: a real notice as the control record
Honest mail gets logged too. On the 16th a contracting office posted a small business set-aside for printers and toner, and the desk ran it through the same checks to remind itself what normal looks like.
What we checked. The notice was on SAM.gov under the agency's name, the contracting office and point of contact matched the agency directory, and questions went through the channel stated in the notice. Company P's registration was active, which is what makes it visible to agencies in the first place.
Verdict. Real, proposal submitted. The control record earns its place: after two or three entries like this, a new hire spots a fake faster than after reading any policy. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud checks recommend keeping such entries next to the suspicious ones for exactly that reason.
The desk also looked at its own SAM.gov record while it was there and set a calendar reminder well ahead of the 365-day renewal. A registration that lapses through neglect is exactly the worry that paid renewal letters feed on, so keeping the date visible takes the fear out of them.
Entries for the 20th and 23rd: a bond fee after an award and a university order
On the 20th an email congratulated Company P on an award and asked it to wire a bond fee to a new account, because the agency's usual account was under review. The domain had two letters swapped. SAM.gov showed the solicitation still open. Real bonding works differently: under FAR 28.202 corporate sureties on federal bonds must appear on Treasury Department Circular 570, and SBA guarantees bid bonds for eligible small businesses without charging a fee for them. Verdict: fake, saved with full headers.
On the 23rd a purchase order arrived on a university letterhead: laptops, Net 30 terms, delivery to an address unrelated to any campus. The FBI has described this scheme since 2014: impostors ordered equipment in the names of more than 85 universities and companies, in roughly 400 incidents against about 250 vendors, with losses close to 5 million dollars.
The FBI's advice is to verify the ship-to address independently and to report before goods leave the country; by 2014 quick reports had recovered more than 1 million dollars in merchandise. The desk called the university's purchasing office from its website and was told the order was not theirs. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud checks call this the most expensive entry of any month, because a shipped order is hard to pull back.
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud checks on a threat to suspend eligibility
Entry for the 27th. A message claiming to come from a contracting authority: Company P's eligibility would be suspended unless it settled an outstanding compliance fee that day, by wire transfer or gift cards.
What we checked. The FTC's guide for small businesses lists this script almost word for word: scammers pose as a company or a government agency, threaten to suspend a license or demand a registration update, and want payment by wire, cryptocurrency or gift cards. The FTC asks businesses to report to ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to their state attorney general.
Verdict. Extortion attempt, reported to the FTC. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud reviews single out the payment method as the tell: no government body collects a compliance fee in gift cards.
Later the desk confirmed that no contracting office had written at all. The message was kept with full headers and attached to the entry. When the same kind of threat keeps arriving, it is better to file one consolidated report than to answer any of them.
Patterns from a month of Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov's bid desk log
One entry out of nine was real. The other eight shared three features. The money was asked for outside any procurement channel: a card form, a wire to a new account, a fee by invoice, gift cards. The contact came from outside too: email, phone, a letter, never a notice found on SAM.gov first. And every message carried a deadline: today, five business days, before the solicitation closes.
Fakes are rarely built from nothing. The easier move is to borrow a real agency, a real opponent or a real notice and change a single detail: the domain, the ship-to address, the bank account. That is why confirming that an opportunity exists proves little. The useful check is the one detail where the message parts ways with the official record.
The scale is worth keeping in mind. IC3 counted 305,033 business email compromise incidents between October 2013 and December 2023, with potential losses of 55,499,915,582 dollars. Tender scams belong to the same family: nobody hacks anything, someone at the vendor pays or ships on the strength of a convincing email.
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud notes add a fourth pattern about timing. The suspicious messages clustered on Friday evenings, in the last days before proposals were due and right after large notices were posted. At those moments the desk pays nothing that is not written into the solicitation itself, however hard the sender pushes.
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud checks against official US sources
Source What it shows Cost SAM.gov contract opportunities Federal notices over 25,000 dollars Free SAM.gov entity registration Your status and renewal date Free Treasury Circular 570 Certified sureties for federal bonds Free Agency inspector general Reports of impersonation Free IC3 at ic3.gov Complaints about online fraud Free ReportFraud.ftc.gov Reports from businesses Free Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud steps for the first day after a payment
If money has already gone, call your bank first and ask it to recall the transfer. IC3 says the request should come at once, that a complaint at ic3.gov should follow as soon as possible whatever the amount, and that any change of bank details should be confirmed through a second channel.
Then file the complaint and attach the log page itself: the email with full headers, the SAM.gov search, the note of the call to the real agency or company, the payment record. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud notes stress that a detailed what we checked column saves investigators the questions they would otherwise ask.
If goods have shipped, call the carrier and try to stop the delivery, then tell the organization whose name was used. The FTC also reminds businesses that fake invoices count on being paid without a second look, and that unordered merchandise can be kept as a free gift.
If a purchase order used a university or an agency as cover, tell that organization's purchasing office as well. It may already be collecting reports from other vendors, and an inspector general can only act on impersonation it hears about.
Bid desk rules for next month
The desk wrote down five rules. Every federal opportunity is checked on SAM.gov before anyone replies. Phone numbers come from agency websites or the notice itself. Registration status is read inside the desk's own SAM.gov account, never from a letter.
Ship-to addresses are searched before any order is accepted on credit. Offers of a guaranteed award, a faster review or a waived penalty in return for money go into the log and to the owner, and the desk does not answer them.
Bid security and bonds come from sureties listed on Circular 570, through the desk's own broker or bank, and no fee is wired because an email says so. More counterparty checks by Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov, written in the same register-first style, are collected in this section of the site.
Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud log, one month of bid desk entries
| Date and what came in | What we checked | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 2nd, request for quotes from a .net address | GSA OIG alert, agency phone | Fake, reported to IC3 |
| 6th, consultant selling a sure award | Notice already public on SAM.gov | Declined |
| 9th, annual credentialing fee | GSA OIG alert, gsa.gov domain | Fake |
| 13th, paid SAM.gov renewal | GSA bulletin, own SAM.gov account | Misleading service |
| 16th, small business set-aside | Notice on SAM.gov, agency directory | Real, proposal sent |
| 20th, bond fee after an award | Open solicitation, Circular 570 | Fake |
| 23rd, university purchase order | Ship-to search, call to purchasing | Fake |
| 27th, suspension threat, gift cards | FTC small business guide | Extortion, reported |
| 30th, month total | Nine entries | One real opportunity |
Questions and answers
- Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud checks: how do I tell if a request for quotes is real?
- Find the agency's number independently and call. GSA OIG says fake requests come from domains that resemble .gov or .mil but end in .net, .org or .com, with ship-to addresses unrelated to the agency.
- Do I have to pay to register or renew in SAM.gov?
- No. GSA states that registration in SAM.gov is always free, including updates and renewals, and that vendors do not need to pay third parties. Renewal is due every 365 days.
- Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov fraud notes: can a consultant guarantee a federal award?
- No. Opportunities over 25,000 dollars are public on SAM.gov and the award decision belongs to the contracting officer. A retainer for a sure result is a pitch to log and decline.
- What does a fake purchase order scheme look like?
- In the case the FBI described in 2014, impostors used the names of more than 85 organizations against about 250 vendors, with Net 30 terms and delivery to addresses unrelated to the buyer.
- Who checks sureties on federal bonds?
- Under FAR 28.202 corporate sureties must appear on Treasury Department Circular 570. SBA guarantees bid bonds for eligible small businesses and charges no fee for them.
- Where do I report a tender scam in the US?
- Ask your bank to recall the payment, then file at ic3.gov. Impersonation of an agency also goes to its inspector general, and business scams to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.