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August 18, 2004
What's a little fraud between friends?
Remember the last time you tried to get a loan, perhaps for a car, or a house, or just a new credit card, for that matter, but your credit score was too low to allow you to qualify? Maybe you had been late with previous loan or credit card payments. Maybe not even that late--a week or so, perhaps twice in the past year? The idea, of course, is that you were too big a credit risk, and that extending you yet more credit might result in some kind of loss to the company or bank extending it to you...
Well, it's nice to know that some folks "creditworthiness" and lack of honesty isn't held against them--at least, if their name is Halliburton.
According to the New York Times: (I won't post the link 'cuz you have to register to read their stuff anyway)
"The Army reversed a decision late Tuesday to withhold payment on 15 percent of future payments to the Halliburton Company on its contracts in Iraq and Kuwait, giving the company more time to resolve a billing dispute.
The Army had said earlier Tuesday that it had decided that starting Wednesday it would withhold 15 percent of payments on future bills from the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root because it had not issued paperwork justifying its costs. But the Army later indicated it would continue to reimburse the company in full."
Government contractors normally cannot be paid more than 85 percent of their invoices until they fully account for their costs. Twice this year, the Army set this rule aside for Halliburton as the company cataloged its costs and explained how it was billing the government. The most recent reprieve expired Sunday.
This is, of course, far more significant than paying credit card bills late...it's tantamount to you being contracted to build a house for someone, and then not being able to explain the costs, and the homeowner saying, "gee, that's ok, just keep building, and I'll keep paying...it's all good."
No, no it's not...not really
Posted by timwise at August 18, 2004 06:04 AM