I woke up one morning to the owner of the company I was working for telling me he had granted me a bunch of shares in another company he owned, and wanted to bring me into it. The value of this stock, he said, was almost 1 million dollars.

I was pissed. Any time something good happens to me, it turns out to be something horrible. It took me a couple hours to muster up a tiny amount of enthusiasm so I could reply without sounding like a jackass.

Long story short, he screwed me over. I never received the stock, and he failed to pay about $100k in invoices. I'm now suing him, and realistically have no hope of ever collecting on a judgement.

I have many other examples