The Center for Verification’s (CVE) help desk line is going to be blowing up today.
The long and the short of it – some kind of technical error happened with the VetBiz registry, which is the database used to house and list all of the information of 7,157 veteran-owned businesses. If you are in that database, and you have received a message that looks like this, ignore it.
Basically, this message says that your business has expired and has been removed from the VetBiz database, which means that you are not eligible to compete for contracts issued by the United States Department of Veterans’ Affairs as a veteran-owned small business (VOSB) or service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDOVSB) set-aside.
If you have gone through the verification process and suddenly think your verification status has been taken away from you, this is, of course, a very big, very bad deal. But please don’t panic! It appears that this message has been sent to everyone in the database (or if not everyone, at least a large percentage); when I checked my email and voicemail this morning, I had a number of messages from panicked veterans.
In sum, don’t call the CVE, don’t do anything – this is a terrible error, but nothing has actually happened to your business’ status. If you should be verified, you are still verified, I assure you!
As a last note, it appears that a few different problems have been at play ever since a system upgrade went into effect in late April. I have seen a few truly strange things happen with applications since that time; and I know of one business that received a notice to change their password…but the link provided was broken. Accordingly, now they cannot access their account to make any necessary changes.
“Someone needs to be held accountable,” that veteran business owner said to me. “This isn’t a system problem, it’s a person problem. It shouldn’t be my job to stay on hold with the help desk for an hour.”
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thank you for the calming assurance Sarah. I am sure that many VOSB’s and SDVOSB’s who worked so hard to get verified will be furious when they receive that email. So, to put out an early alert is reassuring.
Thank you
William Osgood
Thank you, I just wish I saw your comment sooner. I got both the removal and password Emails and was very upset and sent CVE a polite Email. Now I am also locked out as I was unable to change my password. Maybe it was because my new password was a profanity about CVE and how hard they work at messing things up.
Hello Sarah – Got a similar message today which told me that CVE was
removing us from the data base because our certification expired on SEPTEMBER 11, 2014. I ignored it because our verification is actually good to Aug 1, 2016 and w know how messed up they are. Also got messages from them that my password needed to changed. So I changed it but it took a long time – their PW rules are so weird and difficult.
The more things change the more they remain the same:)
Thanks, Sarah. I foolishly responded the the email, then was required to change my password, then was required to create security question answers, and now I am unable to create a password that is acceptable. And, I have have a “password generator”, so I know that my numerous failed attempts are with passwords that meet their specifications!
Hello – I changed my password by going to the vetbiz website. Did not respond to the emails. Strange goings on and CVE has posted a notice about the emails.