SmartProcure Inc – An Elaborate Scam To Watch Out For
The internet has made it possible to learn more about a company before you make a purchase from it. Although it takes a bit of time and effort, you can research and learn more about a company. Besides, it pays off as you avoid falling into a trap. Companies that do have an online reputation should be avoided as it shows that they do not care about their customers. A company that has scammed its valued clients that you need to know about is SmartProcure Inc. Also known as SmartProcure LLC, it has many allegations and complaints that have been reported against it. To help you get an idea about the company, here is everything that you need to know.
About the Company
SmartProcure LLC is a company that has been established in the state of Florida. As for its other company under the name SmartProcure Inc. which is a Delaware corporation, the two companies are the same entity. It claims to provide data to procurement officers to help them cultivate collaboration, establish a sense of community, and make better decisions. Set up by public professionals who want to make a difference, the corporation claims to be working with thousands of government agencies at the national, state, local, and government levels.
History
SmartProcure Inc. was founded back in 2011 and is known for providing data. It aggregates data and sells it to agencies to improve accessibility for better purchasing power. The company claims to establish a community of agencies that use a comprehensive database for making the best purchasing decisions throughout the country. It aspires to become the leading information resource that agencies use when needing to make a purchase.
Services Provided
Established by government procurement professionals, SmartProcure Inc. provides transparency and facilitates the exchange of information for ensuring that better procurement processes can be established by companies. It works with numerous government agencies throughout the United States and aggregates their data into its database to enable them to easily search for all the information they require.
SmartProcure Inc. employs data engineers and data professionals who review thousands of purchase orders every day and index and organize the data to make sure that agencies can search and analyze the data for improving procurement practices. The company claims to have developed a comprehensive database that changes the way agencies actually approach procurement. It focuses on helping agencies at a strategic level. Therefore, the service that SmartProcure Inc. provides is offering access to detailed purchasing records which help procurement professionals benchmark spending and compare purchases on a national scale to measure cost savings and reduce cost with time.
How Has SmartProcure Inc. Scammed Its Customers?
Despite what SmartProcure Inc. might claim to offer, it has been in hot water for quite some time now. Agencies have reported against the company on various platforms including the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Here are some of the scams that you need to know more about.
Did You Know?
BBB (Better Business Bureau) is a private ownership firm, founded in 1912. The founder of the firm is Merle Sidener and claims of establishing a trustworthy market with self-regulatory obligations.
Selling Old and Outdated Data
One of the scams that SmartProcure Inc. has pulled off on its clients is that it sells old and outdated data. Its customers have found the data to be inadequate and believe that paying the company to access data is a waste of money.
Many of the customers find the exorbitant charges for accessing the database to be not worth it. They already had access to much of the information before and found the information provided to be inadequate. As the service offered by SmartProcure Inc. carries a hefty price tag, companies have suffered at its hands. Since the data provided by SmartProcure Inc. is outdated, agencies are unable to make the purchase decisions that the company claims to help them with. It cares to show that nothing means more to SmartProcure Inc. than to rip people off. It goes to great lengths to promote its ability to help its clients. However, its data is simply not worth paying for and is a huge rip off.
Lack of Cancellation Mechanism
Another scam that SmartProcure Inc. continues to perform is that it does not provide any cancellation mechanism. If its clients are unhappy with the performance of the database, they cannot cancel their subscription and end up having to make payments for something useless. With payments starting at $5,000, customers have been ripped off by thousands of dollars. SmartProcure Inc. provides more affordable plans for long-term users and once customers subscribe to its long-term plan, it continues to charge them even when they try to cancel their subscription.
Customers are lured by the prospect that they would get to access up to date and accurate data. However, they do not get to access such data and when they try to cancel, their request is not accepted. When some of the customers reached out to SmartProcure Inc. to share their disinterest in the service, the company demanded the remaining payments for two additional years must be made despite them not being satisfied with the service.
Moreover, the moment SmartProcure Inc. finds out that its customers are not interested in the service, it immediately sends the invoices to collections. SmartProcure Inc. makes its money by locking customers into long contracts without providing any option to exit the contract. As for customers who noticed that the contract had a clause which mentioned that they would be liable to multi-year auto-renewals, the sales representatives falsely assured them that they had nothing to worry about and that their contract could be terminated after the first year if they did not find the service to be a good fit for them. Once customers reached out to SmartProcure Inc. after the first year passed to voice their disinterest in the service, the company denied that there was any correspondence relating to the termination of the contract after the initial year and demanded that customers pay for the two additional years.
Useless Service
Customers who were trapped into having to pay the subscription to SmartProcure Inc. tried to make use of the available resources. However, they simply found the service to be useless. This is why it is important that anyone who signs any contract with SmartProcure Inc. is cautious. One should never listen to what the sales representatives say. What SmartProcure Inc. does is that it only makes false claims of providing a reliable service only to mislead you once you access the information. It uses deceptive marketing practices to make customers think that only the most current and accurate lists are provided. There are already many companies in the market that provide a better list for much less.
Wrong Information
Not only is the information provided by SmartProcure Inc. useless, but it is also completely wrong. When some of the customers attempted mass mailing, they came to know that the email address list contains wrong emails and is inaccurate.
As customers tried to send emails to the address provided by SmartProcure Inc., their attempts were considered a spam trap. The fraudulent lists that the company offers to its customers are completely fraudulent and useless. It rips them off by $2,500 at a minimum. A tactic that SmartProcure Inc. commonly uses to scam its clients is not sending them an invoice for months. Once many months have passed, it sends an invoice that customers had not even agreed to pay. Even when customers let the company know that list is unusable and violates the FTC Act, SmartProcure Inc. fails to budge and continues to chase after them until customers make their payments.
Violates the Law
Employees who have worked at SmartProcure Inc. have left their reviews about their time spent working at the company. When it hires new employees, it tells them if they tell their co-workers, they will be instantly terminated. It also does not provide any 401k contributions and makes bogus claims. SmartProcure Inc. does not provide unpaid time off and holds unnecessary mandatory meetings which make the massive power struggles within the management evident. With a toxic work environment, SmartProcure Inc. is a company that is nothing but a scam. In addition to violating the rights of its workers, the company has violated the rights of Transene Company LLC and Bid Prime. Lawsuits have been filed against SmartProcure Inc. to seek justice.
What Happened to SmartProcure Inc.?
SmartProcure Inc. is under legal trouble with Bid Prime and Transene Company LLC. Bid Prime is a Texas startup which provides bid listings online and alleges that SmartProcure Inc. has stolen listings from its database. Thus, it filed a lawsuit against the company in the US District of Texas. Bid Prime believes that SmartProcure Inc. obtained access to legitimate users and copies over 52,000 bid listings from the database. The bids are just one of the data sources that SmartProcure Inc. stole from Bid Prime and noted that the company had scraped plenty of unique data sources.
Bid Prime even shared its complaint online which discloses various personal details about Jeff Rubenstein, the CEO of SmartProcure Inc. According to the complaint, Jeff Rubenstein used accounts from his work and home computers to access the data. The infractions are thought to have occurred from his home IP address despite proxy accounts having been used. The complaint reveals that Jeff Rubenstein had reached out to Bid Prime to start a partnership. Even though the deal never materialized, Bid Prime provided Jeff Rubenstein with free trial access which led to the Director of Sales of SmartProcure Inc. signing up for even more trials and gaining access through false names and tools in order to pull valuable data from Bid Prime. The investigation is still being conducted to find more answers. A temporary restraining order has been requested by Bid Prime against SmartProcure Inc. to ensure that it does not access its services.
Another company that fell prey to SmartProcure Inc. is Transene Company Inc. It is a Massachusetts Corporation that has filed a suit against SmartProcure Inc. at the US District Court of Florida. It claims that SmartProcure Inc. had violated the JFPA and sent a fax to competitors about the company which is a clear violation. Besides sending unauthorized fax containing important information to competitors, the company has sent faxes that contain advertisements which were transmitted to persons whom it had no permission to send. As it failed to comply with the Opt-Out Notice Requirements, the company has violated the regulations and the unsolicited advertisements it sent led to the need for court intervention. SmartProcure Inc. has unlawfully sent information which it had no right to send.
The violation has resulted in great loss to the company for which it will take strict action against SmartProcure Inc. As the established business relationship has been damaged, it is seeking hefty damages. However, SmartProcure Inc. has not made any comment against the suit so far. It will take some time until a decision is reached. But, the two cases that have been filed so far highlight the disregard SmartProcure Inc. has for the law. As more and more companies step forward, it is only a matter of time until action is taken against its deceptive tactics.