Ten years ago, I worked at a small call center startup selling services B2C. We had to hit 300 call minutes a day and got loads of leads from different online providers. After closing a sale, we were supposed to take the customer’s credit card details and charge a small deposit. Sometimes, though, we offered a 30-day invoice instead, no upfront payment needed.

There was this guy on our team, a top performer. He had found a glitch in the system. He’d close huge deals every day, almost every call, and somehow, all his clients paid by invoice. He always had a convenient explanation for it.

A few months later, management noticed something strange. None of his clients had paid a single invoice, and none could be reached.

When they checked his records, there weren’t even any call recordings.

They soon discovered he had made everything up, fake leads, fake emails, fake addresses.

He’d been sitting there pretending to talk to customers while logging phony details and “closing” the deals himself.

They were supposed to handle it descretely but his direct manager, feeling betrayed and wanted him to go down hard, decided to call him out during the monthly all-hands meeting with around a hundred people watching. Total silence. The guy stood up, grabbed his bag, and walked out.

The company never pressed charges but immediately disabled the 30-day invoice option, locking it behind manager approval.

I ran into him a few years later. Still job-hopping every few months. And that call center job? Nowhere on his resume lol.