How can I avoid this scenario?

[I<3Endo]

So...weird scenario last week.

I work w/several agencies & am in the process of looking at options for assignment #5. I was using two agencies (A & B) for this posting. This is what happened:

Agency A: does not have the posting yet but states they work closely w/that hospital so will have the acct. manager contact them & get details. I ask for their best package & never hear back.

Agency B: puts together a nice package that I like. I wait a couple days, never hear from Agency A so have B submit me.

Several days later: Agency A emails me stating that the hospital is contacting them asking if I'm still interested. This is the first time I hear that A was still even working on this. I let them know I've already been submitted through another agency at that point. I email B & let them know that the hospital is reaching out to another agency about me so maybe they should touch base as I never was contacted for an interview.

SO! B gets all in a twist & wants to know ALL the details about A & says they are going to "take care of this problem" and blah blah. I was really reluctant to give them the info but I finally did as they were so adamant.

Holy Smokes! At that point I'm annoyed with both of them and wondering if I did something wrong. Did I? I mean, I didn't double submit, all I asked for was two pay packages to compare!

Thanks!!

[Gary Mendoza]

It sounds like you didn't do anything wrong, but my own suggestions are once one agency submitted you you should have told the other agency to forget it to prevent any double submissions or problems. There is conflicting information about double submissions. Some travelers say they have lost contracts over it, others have said it didn't effect anything and they got the contract. Personally, I wouldn't risk it.

Secondly, the agency getting in a tizzy and demanding information...Well, I wouldn't have told them anything. It is of no benefit to you whatsoever and it's none of their business as far as I'm concerned.

[I<3Endo]

Yeah....good idea. I should have told the first agency that since I hadn't heard back I had moved on.

[NedRN]

Agency A is scamming you. If they had a "close" relationship with the hospital, they would have had a contract in place and could have given you a quote. They are using your profile to try to open up a contract.

Agency B is also looking bad here. They didn't have to submit you to quote you if they had a contract. And they misinterpreted your story and felt they were in danger of losing you. In reality, they "own" you for this contract as they were presumably first to submit you.

You are partly at fault for not being clear with either agency. The best approach if you want to cross shop agencies is to say you are only looking at compensation choices and they are not to submit you without your express permission. That leaves you with full options.