No one likes to find out they’re working for a company who is actively stealing from their clients. For one thing, you could implicated. For another, it’s just wrong.
And when that left wanders into the millions of dollars, a lot of people would be more than a little nervous.
OP started at the bottom of the ladder in a big company.
Forgive me if this is long…. This happened a while ago, but its still so fresh im my mind. I left college with a business degree in one hand and no job in the other.
And like so many colleges, the promises of alumni willing to give jobs to graduates could not have been further from the truth.
So I had to seek out my start from the bottom. I found a good job in Operations at a company ( I can’t say who without giving it away). Had a great boss, who taught me pretty much everything I needed to know.
Work was great and the money was good.
I need to explain how the business worked so you can understand how the plan worked. The corporate office was in California and we were….not….
There are alot of things that went on at this company,and I can’t get into all of them because it would just take away from the story but let’s just say they had a very Stratton Oakmont vibe when it came to sales.
He quickly worked his way up to a place where he was basically a check and balance.
I started out worked in Operations with some of the smaller clients, but with some help from my boss, was able to “climb the ladder” rather quickly to the point of being over all the Operations and order processing for the firm.
We had a VERY LARGE CLIENT (90 % of the companies business) The way it worked was we had two sets of sales reps, TSR’s and CSR’s – TSR’s were the heavy hitters who reached out to the other big businesses and tech firms to extend their warranties on a product. They made real good money.
The CSR’s were more of the “mom and pop” crowd and the inbound sales calls for those that wanted to extend their warranties. The reps were all given codes that associates the clients files with theirs, so if someone did a renewal automatically, they would get paid as it was their client. Pretty sweet gig.
The client hired the firm to be the middleman for their B2B as they handled all of their everyday clients.
Then, the company gave more control of the money to the sales managers.
For every $100 that came into our firm, 18% or $18 would be for the company and the rest would be sent to the clients with the warranties activated. Most of the clients paid by CC or PO with a wire transfer but there would also be a good amount of checks each week that would need to be processed.
A little while after I started, the client check portion was now going to be “overseen” by one of the sales managers. Didn’t really phase me because I was working on the smaller accounts.
Since we were a publicly traded company, all the sales reps orders had to go to Operations to be fulfilled. They weren’t allowed to process them on their own.
Suddenly his boss – who everyone liked – was fired.
This is when things started going downhill. My boss at the time was given temporary access to the financials as they were hiring a new CFO and he had a background with it.
We went to lunch like we had done plenty of times before but he seemed different. When I asked him if something was wrong, he told me that something looked off with with our biggest client for one of the accounts.
He wanted to make sure before he said anything to the higher ups. While this was going on, I had been offered the chance to be our new compliance officer, which means I would need to make sure everything was on the up and up.
Soon after, I come in to find out that my boss was just terminated for a multitude of reasons all of which HAD to be untrue because he was a pretty well liked guy with not just with the company but with our client as well.
That boss had given OP access to his files, though, and it didn’t take him long to catch onto what was happening.
As I log into my terminal I see that before he left, he had given me admin access to his files. Here’s where things started to pop off. Remember those checks that clients were sending in to renew their warranties?
Well we were cashing them all right. Apparently we just weren’t adding those renewals to their products in the system. That would have triggered a payout to our Client who as you remember would be getting 82% of that money.
Instead, they were cashing the checks, keeping the money, and using the interest in the accounts (Yes, in the mid 2000’s banks actually paid interest) to cover losses in their collections department.
He couldn’t just sit back and let it happen.
It was wild to see that this was happening, and something had to be done. So I hatched a plan.
First things first, secure a new job cuz it won’t be a fun place to work after this! Done. My previous boss knew of other companies that would scoop me up.
Put in my notice, and stated in my exit interview that I just couldn’t be a part of what was happening, even though HR was in on this. I Wanted it on the record. Next, get approval for overtime for all the operations crew to come in on a Saturday (and double pay them).
They arrive early Saturday, obviously not too thrilled as to why they are there. But when I explain that if they complete the task, not only to so they get their overtime, but they get nice bonuses, they were much happier.
They spent the entire day applying all of those checks dated back years to the client accounts, We are talking millions of dollars. When all the sales reps arrived Monday they were shocked.
Not only did they meet their weekly goals before picking up the phones, they made their monthly and quarterly goals too… 2 weeks into the new quarter….
With millions of dollars in sales “secured” in one day, the place was a party!
Cheers! Partying! Yelling! Screaming! Celebrating! Except sales management. They went from being really excited, to skeptical, to confused, to “oh crap” in about 2 hours.
They realized where it must have come from. Because not only did the company hit all these sales, since it had been over a day, the client came into work Monday to see a very nice payday in their system as well.
And like anyone, would have questions, and says they are coming out to congratulate the team on such great numbers.
Management was confused and the big client CEO was a bit suspicious.
So management starts scrambling because they can’t figure out how this happened and all under my bosses old log in.
On my last day I arrive and in the lobby. I’ve got my box to for the last of my things, etx. Guy walks up as is waiting for the elevator with me and we strike up conversation.
He notices my box and jokes about getting fired, and I just tell him I had a great opportunity come up so I decided to leave “before s— hits the fan”, we laughed. Really nice down to earth guy.
He realizes we are getting off on the same floor. He asks if I work for X, I say yes. He asks where, I tell him Operations and he reveals that he is the CEO of our client (Gulp!). We go our separate ways.
Client shows up and there is a big party. Afterwards, the client says that they would love to get a breakdown of where most of the sales came from so they can allocate more money to that department.
Management says sure, but it made up a lie about how they can’t share client payment info due to regulations, blah blah blah.
OP went on his merry way, but when that CEO called, he couldn’t help himself.
Cue my exit from the company. Two weeks go by and I get a phone call from a number I don’t recognize, so I let it go to VM.
When I get off work I checked it, to find out it was the CEO of the client where I used to work. He “has had something come up” and would like to talk to me.
Of course I’m nervous, but I call him back and he picks up on the first ring and we get to chatting for a bit and he finally just asks me “Why did you leave?”
I tell him I had a great opportunity come up. He doesn’t buy it and says that apparently my comment about “s— hitting the fan” really stuck with him and he thinks something more is going on.
So after a little more prodding from him, I tell him “Just look at Collections and that’s all I can say” He thanks me and I hang up.
It didn’t take long for everyone to get what they deserved.
Two days later, he pulled the plug on the account. Apparently my old company tried to threaten him with a lawsuit for pulling the account three years early.
He replied with, “That’s fine, because when I show the courts that I have the evidence that you commited fraud”.
Corporate came in and cleaned house. All of management was fired within the day.
One month later, my friends and I had a very memorable trip in Vegas all courtesy of our old client.
Does Reddit think the payoff was worth the journey? I’m curious!
They thought the story had an excellent plot.
This person would sit down and watch the movie.
Well, maybe they could add a few action sequences.
Of course, some people can’t handle the truth.
OP is definitely the hero here.
This was a long but worth-it tale.
You don’t see that all the time on Reddit.
If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.