Complaint Review: stateandfederalbids.com

If you are a respectable person who has a respectable job and are interested in stateandfederalbids.com or any company/website that Online Data Resources has anything to do with, please do yourself a favor and find a legit, professional bid service.  

My company was interested in looking at some different options to help find RFP's or bids online.  I was one of the employees tasked with testing 2 options.  I came across stateandfederalbids.com and tried it out for a couple weeks before deciding to move forward with trying it for a month.  Before I decided to try the service, which is $55 a month if you pay monthly, I tried another bid site that had been reviewed and tested by many professionals already.  It was only available to be purchased on a yearly basis though, so I told my company I would try the montly service at stateandfederalbids.com first.  So after a few weeks of playing around with other bid websites, I called the salesperson - Christopher, at stateandfederalbids.com and told him that I would like to try out the service for 1 month and I would let him know after it was over if my company was interested in a full year of service, for just over $400.  He was more than happy to help me out.  He took down my credit card info (company reimbursed me via reimbursement check) for $55 and said he would send me a confirmation via email.  I received an email shortly after with just the following in the body:

Credit Card Receipt

Transaction ID: xxxxxxxxxCAx

Amount: $55.00

Result Code: 0

Status: Approved

I then tried the monthly service for the next month and quickly realized that it was a terrible service.  The other bid sites would have bids and RFPs the day they were posted up while this site was not posting bids until there was a week left to bid or less.  I cross checked with FREE bid sites and the free sites were much faster at putting up bids and had hundreds of bid opportunities that stateandfederalbids.com never even had up on their site.  It was enough for me to tell my company that it was not a good service and they ultimately decided to purchase another service.  

After the month was up, I kept receiving daily emails from them with alerts that were specific to my company's bid interest. I no longer had the pay service so I couldnt open any bids but could see that a bid was posted and I would google the bid and find it on another website.  This continued for the next couple months and most of the time, the bids were garbage so I would just delete the emails without looking at them.  Well, that was a mistake.  

3 months after the purchase of the 1 month of service I had made, I noticed something odd in my bank account statement after making a deposit.  I had 6 charges of $0.75 in a 2 day period.  I asked my bank what they were and they told me it was stateandfederalbids.com trying to charge my old debit card that had expired.  I asked if there were any other charges from them over the past couple months and learned that they had charged me 3 total months and were attempting to charge me for another.  

I NEVER agreed to this.  I never signed anything.  I never checked a box and agreed to "terms and conditions".  Christopher, the salesperson, took my info and it was known this was a one month buy.  I called the number i called to order and spoke w/ Ford who is the "customer service rep".  He listened and said he would look into it but said that he wasnt going to be able to do anythign for me and that it would have to wait for a manager.  No manager was around as they were on a flight.  So I told him I wanted an answer by the end of the day.  He sent me an email saying he didnt forget about me and then a couple hours later said he spoke w/ management and they agreed to give me 2 free months.......what a joke.  He said the reason was they admitted they did not tell me they were going to charge me but it says on their website somewhere that this is how it works.  He said I had used the service in the past 2 months so I was using it and would have to pay for it.

I then got a call from Christopher the sales rep and learned that this is a 2 man operation - christopher and ford - and he refused to give me my money back.  He started to make up a lie that he tried calling me "a couple weeks ago" to confirm payment coming out (an outright lie). I asked him what number he called and he bumbled and stumbled to then say, "Oh I mean, oh I guess it was earlier this week" (After I called THEM).  He said he still would not give me money back and I told him I would file a complaint with my credit card company.  He then said that "We have people threaten us all the time and they never win" I said WOW wish I knew this before I tried out your company.  He tried to get me to accept the free two months one more time and I said I'll take my refund or I'll file the complaint. He then said "Fine, file it!" and hung up on me.

DO NOT do business with this company.  This is the type of shady business that gives startups a bad name.  There are laws protecting consumers so know the laws and make sure they are followed by the service provider.