Trust your IT vendor?

I was just asked a question that, unfortunately, is not unfamiliar to me, “Has network monitoring/reporting software ever been used to create false reports for the purpose of billing?” This question has been stated in a few of our meeting over the past 20+ years of my professional career.

The vast majority of people are fearful of the unknown, especially IT. A small subset of micro managers (control freaks) feel like they are being cheated when someone finds anomalies in their systems. These people avoid mistakes in their own life and as such have a high need to correct others in case they find anything wrong. More than likely someone running the software tool has been directed the same person who is looking for fault in the report. I is hard to fake “canned” reporting tools, but not impossible. The tools generally produce PDF files for the reports and most anyone can edit a PDF.

I have seen some pretty shady and down right illegal behavior from some of our competitors, but most MSPs are very standup people. Most MSPs are people pleasers and wish everything to work smoothly. I do recall one time that one of our customers accused us of breaking their systems so that we could bill them for the work. I had to remind the customer that we work from fixed rate contracts and that any work cost my company money. Therefore, why would we ever break anything?

People never cease to surprise me but one can generally trust your MSP. If you have reason to be suspicious call for another vendor to review your IT vendor’s work, but do not offer the other vendor a job in advance. And most importantly, take the advice from your vendor and you will be surprised how well your systems will run over time.

As always, if you have questions please feel free to call at (844) 506-2116 to discuss your situation.

created by Jeff King (Linkedin – Jeff King)