January 23, 2025 at 3:49 am

A Client’s Accountant Stopped Their Payments And Attempted To Bribe Them, So It Forced The Company To Record A Conversation As Evidence To Finally Get Their Money

by Laura Ornella

Source: Reddit/ProRevenge/Pexels/Pavil Danilyuk

The corporate world is as full of crime as any other.

Read how one Redditor recalls an accountant’s attempt at bribery and the length their team went to stamp it out.

See the Reddit post below to get all the details.

There’s always a smarter person than you 2

Dramatis Personae

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-around good guy, with a vicious streak.

Now that the cast is all here, let’s begin our tale…

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 its butt with either hand.

And this pattern persisted for months.

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….

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.

But the Site Director was vague —meaning tensions rose…

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 accounting woman made her demands clear.

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.”

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.

That’s when the evidence was brought out.

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.”

But this was all the team needed to finally get their payment.

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 Liason…) a forensic accounting effort to nail her with Professional Malfeasance and wreck her professional reputation and Unemployment benefits.

Does Reddit applaud this operation? Let’s read the comments below and find out what readers are saying.

First, one user congratulated the OP on their play.

Source: Reddit/ProRevenge

But others had trouble following the OP’s writing…

Source: Reddit/ProRevenge

And one user suggested this wasn’t as much “revenge” as it was “justice.”

Source: Reddit/ProRevenge

This accountant should pick up some freelance work rather than break the law.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.