Office Depot Government Contracts at RiskShame on you Office Depot. Stores of the major office supply chain have been overcharging public sector clients. They keep getting caught and it keeps happening.~~ The latest chapter in the saga came to a head when an Office Depot sales rep from Fremont, California claimed he refused to cover up a city of Berkeley overcharge of $289,000 and was fired for a failure to falsify documents. The former salesman filed a lawsuit against Office Depot in February 2009 but has since recanted, dropped the suit and now says the three years of overcharges were his fault. The overcharges were uncovered when a competitor in neighboring Hercules contacted Berkeley city officials and informed them of the $8,000 per month overcharges. Office Depot repaid the city of Berkeley in April of 2009. This instance is one of several examples of the chain overcharging government clients. Last year Office Depot cooperated with attorneys general from Florida, Texas, Michigan, Colorado, California, Ohio and three federal agencies regarding claims of overcharging. A spokesperson for an advocacy group representing office product resellers says Office Depot violated a clause that requires a vendor to offer the same pricing on office supplies to all clients in the public sector. A similar three-year contract between the Office Depot and the City of Los Angeles noted a 45 percent discount for supply purchases, according to an audit report. The report disclosed the City of Los Angeles was unaware of the deeper discounts offered to other California municipalities. The Los Angeles County contract states that if Office Depot enters into a contract with another government client offering lower prices, the company is required to honor the lower prices. By the way, the sales rep at the root of the scandal has a trial set for this year and the Offices of the California Attorney General plan to comment on its own investigation into the office supply giant. Guess I'll head to Office Max and Staples from now on. | 
