Hiring a friend to work for your company comes with some serious risks, including the risk that they will take advantage of you.

The business owner in this story hired an acquaintance and provided him with a salary as well as a company car and free gas for both personal and business use.

It turns out that this acquaintance wasn’t really doing any work, and then refused to give his car back when he got fired. So the business owner went and stole his own vehicle.

Let’s read all the details.

May not be that petty but a good story, nonetheless…

My now ex wife and I lived in Southern California back in 1991 and we owned and operated a small logistics company.

It was small, as I had just sold my interest in a large specialty logistics company, and at the time I was restricted by a non-compete.

Generating new business is essential, but difficult.

We were looking for new ways to generate business and I remembered an old acquaintance, Clive, who was in sales for the transportation of electronics, a field that I was not restricted in.

Long story short, we hire on Clive.

The package we offer Clive is a salary plus company car that he could use outside of work, but in return, he would insure the car. We would pay lunch expenses and he could fill the tank on a Friday, use it on the weekend, and we would pay for another refill on Monday.

He must be good at his job.

Clive brings on three customers in the first week. Almost, but not quite, covers his salary but not enough to pay for the other expenses (car, fuel, medical etc). However, three in the first week was terrific.

A month goes by and nothing new. And another month. And another.

And it is patently obvious he’s brought on his old buddies but he’s not got anything new to offer, or wasn’t even trying to get new business.

He’s either playing golf or hanging out at the office trying to make time with one of the girls working in accounting.

Maybe he isn’t so good after all.

I’d been gradually getting after him about production, how we could help secure leads or give additional service to the clients he already had brought on.

Nothing happening.

Then two of the three clients started ghosted us; we knew they had freight, but we were not seeing it.

I was trying to run a business, not a charity, so eventually we had a meeting, and Clive said he had a couple of leads that were very close to fruition.

I’d heard that before, so we agreed a week would see this business coming our way. I’d even been given both of these new proposed customer names, as we needed to run a D&B check to make sure they were creditworthy.

This is unsafe and illegal.

That following week, Clive was not coming into the office (which was fair enough as he was supposed to be visiting clients), but he was also not returning phone calls or pages. Also found out he had not insured the car, so he was driving around in a vehicle, with my name on the title, uninsured.

About ten days after our last meeting, we managed to track him down on his home phone.

I told him I would give him two weeks pay, but he needed to return the car, as it was uninsured, and we were done.

He said he would be in the office the next morning to wrap it all up.

Why am I not surprised.

Next day, no sign. No response to calls or his pager. Or the next day or the day after that.

I called the Police to report a stolen car and was told that as I had given Clive permission to drive the car, he had 30 days to bring it back.

Seemed like an eternity of liability to me.

So, the Super Bowl was that coming weekend and I heard he had invited mutual friends to a party at his condo. I’d already driven by to see if the car was parked outside, and no sign. The condos were built over three garages that backed up to the rear alley, and two of the three had a padlock.

He is turning into a spy to get this car back.

So, Super Bowl night, I got a ride to Clive’s residence, looked for the car and no sign.

I had a spare set of keys. It had to be parked in one of the garages, as I could hear his & his partner’s voice upstairs. Their unit overlooked the rear alley.

I opened the unlocked unit and no luck. Armed with bolt cutters, I made short work of padlock #1, but it sounded like rifle shot. Not my car in there.

Clive must have heard it, as I heard him and his partner ask each other what was that!

I made short work of padlock #2, and as the padlock came off the door, Clive ran around the corner and ran back inside. He knows who would win a tussle.

My car was there, so got in it, started it up, pulled it out of the garage, even closed the garage door, and drove it to a friend’s garage, followed by my ride.

Wow, that is some nerve.

I got home about an hour later to find two police officers on my doorstep, talking to my wife.

Clive had reported I burgled his garage.

My story was I went by to pick up my car – showed the title in my name – and it was parked on the street. I needed to recover it as it was uninsured.

They gave me a knowing smile. The gloves I used during this escapade were in my back pocket, but there was no thought to take this any further.

Next day, Clive came by with the Police escorting him, to hand over the other set of keys and I handed him a box of his belongings.

That is a crazy story. I’m glad he got the car back, but Clive really came out ahead here. He got paid to drive a car for weeks without bringing in much business at all.

Let’s see what the people in the comments on Reddit think about it.

It was an impressive fall from grace.

This is wise advice.

He had a great job and ruined it.

It seems like that sometimes.

Could he be charged with grand theft auto for stealing his own car?

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.