For those new to government contracting you may have received emails from individuals, like “Rick Schobitz” below, claiming to be a procurement officer looking to purchase a product or service from you. Your initial thought might be; this is awesome! I’m about to get a government contract! But if you look much closer you will see that this is a scam.

First off; the REAL Richard Schobitz, according to the official government website, is responsible for “… directing all functions regarding personnel, administration, operations, readiness, deployment, and policy for approximately 6,000 members of the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Commissioned Corps.”

So procuring laptops is not his department per se.

Also, Rick Schobitz’s email address is listed as rick.schobitz@usphsgov.us. That is 100% a red flag. Legitimate contracting procurement officers tend to use .gov email addresses. Read below for more tips on how to watch out for scams like this one.

This is the attachment from the email:

 

Tips On How To Mitigate Getting Scammed:

• Verify email addresses.
• Verify the procurement/contracting officer.
• Call the agency.
• Pay attention to typos and syntax errors.
• Pay attention to the agency logo.