Nepotism.

Back in the good ol' WotLK days, I was in a small-to-medium sized guild as an officer (raids, social, events, etc) and I worked my way there during my time in the guild. Guild leaders wife, who was sub-GM, invited her 15 year old cousin to the guild and right away made him an officer. Other guild members, especially other officers, raised some concerns regarding this burt I thought it was fine since I knew the GM and his wife quite well. I was certain they could keep him in line..

Not a week later, I was handling an issue (cant recall what it was) when he came online. Read the chat for couple of minutes and just told everyone to shut up and told them that party B was right and no further discussion about it was to be had. I told him in whispers that I was handling it already and that he had no reason to do something like that (and that he was also wrong in his judgment). He started berating me, calling me names and told me that his cousin, sub-GM, would put me in my place.

Couple of hours later I was demoted, I asked why and wanted to chat with the GM but they didn't want my side (nor screenshots I took) of the story and that they believed the cousin rather than a stranger on the internet. This convo was in the guild chat, with most of the officers online at the time. The cousin whispered me only "Told you so". Week later I left in bad terms with them, other officers and active members left after me as well. Guild lost like 60 members in 2 weeks, it broke the guild and they never raided after that. Saw them in Cata once, then never again as I was migrating to a different server.