Dun & Bradstreet

[Eomer]

Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just wondering if anyone has experience with these guys or knows much about them or what they do. They called recently, wanting us to update our corporate file with them. Apparently it hasn't been done since 2000. They seem like a fairly legitimate operation, not scammy in any way. They knew exactly when the company was originally started, for example, and that was 2-3 names and five decades ago.

They said the reason a flag was raised was because in the fall they got a large number of inquiries from companies wanting to see our file. Normally it would be once every couple months, but suddenly in Nov/Dec 6-8 inquiries were made about us.

Now, we don't generally need to secure credit and the like from anyone other than the bank we deal with, so I'm not sure if this is something we should bother with. It's $469 to "update" our corporate file and potentially improve a couple of the scores they keep on us that are mediocre. Supposedly our credit and "financial stress" scores were 3 out of 5 (1 being best), while our "paydex score" (how well we pay people) was 77 out of 80, which was another discrepancy they noticed.

So anyone have experience with these or similar agencies? Like I said, they sound pretty legit, I'm just not sure it's worth the money to bother updating our file since we don't much care what's in it. Our name is golden in the construction and development industry, so I'm not concerned that someone would go pull our file and chose not to work with us because it hasn't been updated or has a mediocre scoring.

edit: info from their website: D&B Canada : Financial Stress Score Report

https://smallbusiness.dnb.com/glossa...1814009-1.html

[Agraza]

I do not own a business. I am ignorant of these things. I can google though.

Using this search "dun & bradstreet scam investigation" all the top results were of shady behavior on the part of the company made in recent years (2005-2011). It read like a shakedown, but like I said, I am ignorant of these things.

[Eyashusa]

My only experience with them has to do with our contracts with the city of Chicago. They require us to have a DUNS# to do business with them.

I'm not involved with the process of applying for or updating any information though, but I can at least say they are a legit company.

[Etoille]

Originally Posted by Eyashusa

My only experience with them has to do with our contracts with the city of Chicago. They require us to have a DUNS# to do business with them.

I'm not involved with the process of applying for or updating any information though, but I can at least say they are a legit company.

This.

Think of it as essentially a faux social security number that anyone wanting to do research on your company to make sure that it is financially sound will consider essential before taking a risk on you.

The pulls may be from someone considering accepting any bids you've put in say around Sept/Oct timeframe.

Before you think 'your name is golden' - if that's the case why are they bothering to do a pull in the first place?

Think of this as a retardedly small 'check the box' kind of thing. Its less than 500 dollars. There's always people out there that don't know you no matter how awesome you think your company is and if this is the first interaction they have with your company's history 500 dollars seems a pitance to pay to make sure that its a positive, up to date one.

I can tell you when I have D&B files pulled that we generally wont sub to anyone less than a 2 on the financial stress score unless its a small business in which case we'll extract extra assurances/there's another nonfinancial motive. In your case though it sounds like it might be a situation where because you haven't needed to get credit you haven't borrowed which obviously as we all know impacts the score.

Your understanding of Paydex seemed off to me so I pulled what I had assumed it was -

D&B Credit Rating and PAYDEX® Interpretation Tables

Maybe Canada is different I dunno. 5 days longer than payment terms isn't an issue for most folks.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Eomer

So anyone have experience with these or similar agencies? Like I said, they sound pretty legit, I'm just not sure it's worth the money to bother updating our file since we don't much care what's in it. Our name is golden in the construction and development industry, so I'm not concerned that someone would go pull our file and chose not to work with us because it hasn't been updated or has a mediocre scoring.

They are a legit company, some companies use them to check credit. If you are confident you'll never need a good rating with them to secure credit, then you've really answered your own question. Keep in mind though there are probably some places that pay for the service and use it strictly to determine credit so you may or may not be affected if you come in contact with them.

[Etoille]

Its not just about securing credit though. A lot of places looking to award contracts will use it as an indicator of whether or not they're going to have to replace you halfway through the contract because you've folded.

Its not just credit, its potential new business.

[NargorothRiP]

Fatass is correct. However your business model won't really benefit but it's only 500 shrug

[Eomer]

Thanks for the info. Like has been said, it's not a big expense at all, so I may just update it. It's not like you have to pay an ongoing fee or anything. As far as people using it to evaluate whether or not to award bids to us, that's fairly doubtful as we don't bid publicly tendered work at all and are generally only bidding to contractors, owners or developers that we have a relationship with and know who we are. Could be insurance companies or something as well, or perhaps a law firm, as there's a lawsuit or two floating around out there where we've been pulled in as third parties etc.

[Araysar]

Since you're not in a nickel and dime business, you should go ahead and update it.

We have an account for some of the government bids that we do and it's required (like others have mentioned here). Its worth the $500

[r3probate]

When I worked for a commercial lender, we occasionally pulled their reports on potential new lending relationships as part of our underwriting, especially if they weren't referred from another bank customer. If you have to change banks for whatever reason, they may pull the reports as well.

[Vvoid]

Adding to the other comments here, since you know I'm in a construction-related field. It becomes less useful as you develop those relationships you mentioned and deal more and more in negotiated work, but every once in awhile some fat job passes through that has more stringent requirements for whatever reason, and having a good D&B number is sometimes part of that decision process. For that little (relative) money, there's no reason not to have it up to date.

[Eomer]

Got the reports last week, reviewed them today. Now that I have I know exactly what happened. Back in the summer we were working on a 40 unit social housing project. Our contract was with the general contractor, who was acting as construction manager for the society building it. Apparently there was some sort of infighting on the board of the society, someone was opposed to the project and wouldn't let it go. That fucked up their financing in one way or another, which is ridiculous since the project was over half built. On top of that, some of the funding was coming in the form of government grants, and there was a dispute between the financing and grants about who was first secured.

None of that has anything to do with us, but the result was that we didn't get paid on the job for nearly 3 months. And of course neither did our subtrades. We had actually pulled off site and diverted some large air handling units from the factory to our sub-trade's yard because we weren't going to send equipment worth 6 figures to a job we hadn't been paid on for 3 months, but the manufacturer wanted it out of their yard. The general and society are now bitching about us billing them a couple grand for the extra hoisting and storage, but that's got nothing to do with the D&B report, it's just frustrating. Why should us and our subtrades be expected to bear costs that were incurred because the society couldn't get it's shit together and pay people on time?

From what I can tell in the reports, looks like either our HVAC subtrade or some of their suppliers were reporting late payments, pulling reports on us etc because they thought we might be going tits up. We weren't of course, that's just the way construction works: the money flows down from the owner, through the general, on to the subs, and then the sub-subs. If no money comes from the top, things grind to a halt.

And we end up with the bad credit report because of it. Nice.

[General Antony]

Originally Posted by Araysar

Since you're not in a nickel and dime business, you should go ahead and update it.

We have an account for some of the government bids that we do and it's required (like others have mentioned here). Its worth the $500

Another fucking government rent seeker.

[Etoille]

Originally Posted by General Antony

Another fucking government rent seeker.

still waiting on your ksa's pussy.

[General Antony]

Speak english freak