Pay to Play, a Whole New Concept

So, working in a company here in Jordan has been very interesting. We're trying to gain more business in the governmental services market and it has been fascinating. As some of you may be aware, my previous employer did about 90% of their business with state and local governmental agencies. We responded to RFPs and worked to get on the State's preferred vendor list (a successful RFP response that I prepared in a brief 125 pages!). So, let me tell how this works in the US. The state we were in had an automated list. We put our name on the list to be notified when new RFPs were issued. Notification came in the form of an e-mail with the web address of the RFP. That's right, they are right there on the world wide web for everyone to view and respond to as they find they will be able to provide the services. So, imagine my surprise here to learn that to get the RFP (issued by either a company OR the government), you have to pay a fee. Yes, that's right you pay JD 20-200 just for the privilege of seeing if you can provide the services. Tell me you are joking! What a great scam you could run, charging companies to get your RFP and then not awarding it. Admittedly, they'd probably only be willing to get burned once, but... The interesting thing about this is, you are basically making the statement that you don't want the best qualified people to respond, you want the deepest pockets to respond. I can not imagine issuing an RFP and then intentionally limiting the pool of people who will respond by charging them. It gives a whole new meaning to the term Pay to Play, hunh?

Good responding...