[boboroshi]

There is also an element of how government purchases services from vendors. There is some weird setup where an honest estimate often will not be awarded the contract, as it is too high. A vendor will intentionally bid low, and then change order the job to way over the "honest estimate" price.

Vendors need to be rated and penalized for this kind of bait and switch, but unfortunately there is no downside to low ball the bid, and they often win and continue to win contracts.

[rainbowzootsuit]

There's a classic meme photo of a motor yacht named "Change Order" with a dinghy attached named "Original Contract."

https://phiprojects.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/boat_chang...

[justsomehnguy]

Yes, and for public projects this is often mandated by the 'lowest bid' laws.

> Vendors need to be rated and penalized for this kind of bait and switch

That wouldn't make the process more transparent or honest, it would just drive up the starting price.

[shagmin]

It comes across as exactly more transparent and honest to me. The bait and switch is dishonest and this incentives against that. If the starting price is closer to the final price that's a better outcome and more transparent.

[Arrath]

> Yes, and for public projects this is often mandated by the 'lowest bid' laws.

Thankfully we're seeing a rise in multi-point bid comparison. Judgement criteria like "40% price, 30% Proposal Quality, 30% Prior History"

[quickthrowman]

Yeah, I’m seeing more and more public projects awarded as ‘best value’ instead of ‘lowest cost’. It helps me get my foot in the door since I’m selling union labor and the non-union shops bend the prevailing wage laws pretty hard.

[pif]

> it would just drive up the starting price.

And that is exactly the point! We want more realistic estimations, rather than void promises.

[sheepybloke]

Exactly. There was some talk of this on some government aviation projects where our company was generally outbid by competitors who would allegedly low-ball the development costs, then when the project inevitably ran out of money, just request more from the government. It was really frustrating to our PMs who tried to bid honestly and lost a lot of business because of it.