One of the more challenging stories I haven’t told is how an employee stole $50,000 from us at Pardot back in 2012. At the time, we had this great receptionist that was thoughtful, attentive, and a great culture fit. We were running a program where if a customer referred a prospect to us that did a demo, we rewarded the customer with a $100 Amazon.com gift card. To make it more personal, we’d physically mail the gift card to the customer with a handwritten thank you note.
The program had been running a couple months and was growing in success. To take some load off the sales reps that were doing it, we had everything go through the receptionist. Now, things were humming and the receptionist was ordering a number of Amazon.com gift cards on a regular basis, yet we weren’t tracking who requested what and how much was being spent on these gift cards (mistake #1).
The receptionist, being nefarious, tried adding a couple extra gift cards to an order to see if anyone would notice. Nope, no one noticed.
Next, the receptionist figured out that because we were constantly exceeding our Amex credit limit (fast growing company!) we were now paying the credit card bill twice a month such that there was a two week window from when you could put items on the Amex and someone would check the online statement (mistake #2).
Finally, it was time for the big move by the receptionist: max out the credit card with gift cards right before it was about to paid off, wait until he heard accounting made a payment on it, and then go for the kill. Being the receptionist, he took delivery of all the Amazon.com packages daily, so he decided to order a number of expensive personal items, and more gift cards with next day deliver. The very next day, several packages arrived for him and he promptly took them to his car and left calling in with a fake family emergency. We never saw him again.
After putting the pieces together, including analyzing the Amazon.com purchases, the receptionist had stolen $50,000 from Pardot. Naturally, we called the police to report him but there was no interest in pursuing a non-violent white collar crime. He got away free and clear.
As an entrepreneur, this is one of those bummer moments that’s a good learning experience. We didn’t see it coming and we made sure it wouldn’t happen again. In the end, we moved on and it turned out to be a small event in the overall story.
When it comes to money and situations like this, put in some basic processes and controls — don’t make the same mistake we did.
David Cummings on Startups 
David, what’s your best two tips for hiring? In this case, was there so thing you learned in hind sight?
It’s ridiculous that they would not care about grand theft, white collar or not!
You should call all of his employers to report him for the rest of his life!
Wow, this is a crazy story. Couldn’t you have filed for a chargeback or said the purchases was unauthorized/fraudulent in order to refund your money and deem the gift cards useless?
On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 9:12 PM, David Cummings on Startups wrote:
> David Cummings posted: “One of the more challenging stories I haven’t told > is how an employee stole $50,000 from us at Pardot back in 2012. At the > time, we had this great receptionist that was thoughtful, attentive, and a > great culture fit. We were running a program where if a c” >
Unfortunately, the employee was authorized to use the credit card so we had no recourse there
That’s what you call cashing out early. That’s where being a CPA has its benefits. How do you know it was just $50k?
Name the employee here in the post. No reason for them to get away with theft just because the police are ambivalent.