In early 2018 it was reported that the System for Award Management (SAM) had suffered from fraudulent activity. Bank routing numbers were changed, preventing contractors from receiving payment for their work with the federal government. In response to the incident, GSA notified affected parties and began work to prevent further issues.
GSA decided to implement a notarized letter requirement that, according to Federal News Radio, impacted up to 70,000 government contractors. Effective March 22, 2018, companies looking to register on SAM.gov were required to submit an original signed, notarized letter to identify the entity administrator associated with the SAM record and corresponding DUNS number. As of April 27, 2018, companies were also required to submit a notarized letter to renew or make changes to their record.
Update on SAM.gov Notarized Letter Requirement
GSA is now amending the notarized letter requirement. An entity must still submit the notarized letter, but the letter will no longer need to be on file prior to the registration being activated. The new rule will give companies 30 days from the activation of their SAM Registration to submit the notarized letter. Companies that miss the 30-day deadline risk having their SAM record deactivated. This change went into effect for federal assistance programs on June 11, 2018 and will roll out to all entities on June 29, 2018.
New SAM.gov Login – Know the Email Associated with Your SAM Record by June 28th
June 29th also marks a change in the login process for SAM.gov. Starting this Friday, users will be required to create a login.gov account to access SAM.gov. Original usernames and passwords will no longer work. It is important to know the email address associated with your SAM.gov user account in order to avoid delays and automatically migrate your roles. If you are unsure of the email address associated with your SAM.gov user account, you have until June 28th to login to your account to find out.
How to find the email associated with your SAM.gov user account:
- Go to www.sam.gov
- Click My SAM
- Click My Account Setting
- Click Edit User Information
For more information on all the changes, check out GSA’s update here: https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/organization/federal-acquisition-service/office-of-systems-management/integrated-award-environment-iae/sam-update.
You can also view instructions on the new SAM.gov login process here: https://interact.gsa.gov/blog/preparing-new-samgov-login-process.