Right and wrong: a moral struggle that seems tougher for some folks day after day.

Like, ya know, bribery.

Does that really ever turn out well enough to try?

Much less, to keep on trying?

Well here’s a story that tells you being scammy and outright deceitful will absolutely come back to bite you.

There’s always a smarter person than you

The characters of this story:

• Me: yours truly
• Partner: my business partner
• Accounting Woman : Head of the Accounting Department of a customer’s site.
• Site Director: Site Director and all-round good guy, with a vicious streak.

So the trouble started when a site just stopped paying.

During my time as a consultant, we started having payment problems with one multinational client. Specifically, this one site stopped paying their bills. Their excuses got worse and worse.

Now, we had a great relationship with the Site Director, and various executives. But this Accounting Department suddenly couldn’t find it’s rear with either hand.

After six months, it started looking like time to hire a lawyer and threaten lawsuits.

A horrible idea, with really bad consequences for repeat business, but….

Cue the absurdly long day. The drive time alone would have me in a bad mood.

The Accounting Woman we liaised with suggested a face-to-face, bring-all-your-documents meeting.

Three hours drive there, and the same on the return trip, probably a two-hour meeting….but….. it was a significant amount of money.

Unfortunately for her we had just acquired a neat little electronic gadget…..

Just to optimise our time there, we set up a meeting with the Site Director (Site Director) to touch bases.

Double-bonus: we could cut short a dragging-on meeting by mentioning we had to go see Site Director.

That’s when the Liaison decided to drop the trap.

She waffled, talked about anything and everything and nothing, wouldn’t say why any of this was happening.

Me and my partner exchanged disgusted looks, and stood up to walk out. She hurriedly got to the point: for an “administrative fee” of X, she would see that payments would be made within the week.

A flat out bribery hold-up.

We exchanged another look.

The conversation notes here just add so much more drama.

Me: “You seriously want us to pay you [X] to do the job this company is already paying you for?”.

Accounting Woman: “It would certainly help….”

Partner: “If we get the money to you by the end of the day, you’ll unblock the situation?”

Accounting Woman:”Yes.”

Partner: “I assume you want cash?”

Accounting Woman: “Yes, cash will be perfect.”

Me: “Right. Let’s go.”

Time to take action.

We left…. and went straight to the Site Director’s office. He graciously showed out a subordinate so he could meet with us earlier than planned.

We pulled out our neat little electronic gadget….. and played back the recording of the relevant bits of the meeting.

Site Director: “Ahh…. Thank you for confirming my suspicions. I’ll take care of it. You’ll be paid within the week.”

Partner: “You understand we’ll be keeping the original of the recording? You can have a copy….”

Site Director: “Not necessary, thank you. I’ll take care of it. Have a nice trip back.”

And wouldn’t ya know it: PAID.

Payment arrived three days later, in full. Celebration!

A different person became our site-liaison.

During a future mission at that site, we were informed (unofficially) that Accounting Woman had been “promoted” to Head of Warehouse (for which she had no training), and told to sit in a corner and just handle the inventory count (already run by computer) while her three-week “leaving period” ran out the clock.

I strongly suspected (some interesting questions from our new Accounting Liaison…) a forensic accounting effort to nail her with Professional Malfeasance and wreck her professional reputation and Unemployment benefits.

What an unbelievable feeling of success that must have been!

Let’s see what folks had to say huh?

OP was so happy to see this one end so satisfactorily for so many.

One person had my exact thoughts about the boldness of it all.

While another person was shocked this person wasn’t immediately fired.

And therrrrre’s the term for it.

Sting me once, shame on…me?

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.