Contractors upcharging invoices for environmental testing has become egregious

Over the past year we have had more requests for our individual invoices that were previously submitted to referring contractors than in the 17 years before.  There has always been marking up of sub-contractor industries that has managed to slip through.  This includes consistent abuse of the 10 and 10 markup that exists for general contractors who are genuinely managing multiple trades for a complex project.  We have recently seen companies take our invoice submission, literally triple our invoice amount and submit it to insurance or management companies. 

It appears a number of these entities are getting wise to this, which has resulted in the uptick in requests for our actual invoice submission.  As previous adjusters and now environmental consultants, I see no reason for a mitigation company who picked up the phone and referred an environmental testing firm to their project to make additional funds from the entity being billed, especially above the standard 10 and 10 for overhead and profit.  If the consultant and referring contractor want to work out a referral fee that comes out of the consulting firms end that can be done legally, but charging clients double or even triple what the firm actually charged is egregious, unethical and further damages the reputation of an industry that already has a tarnished reputation. Xactimate line items for environmental testing are very generous compared to most other trades on that platform and there is little to no reason for that type of work to cost more than the database line items allow for.