Kristóf Szabó

Finance called IT because a customer owed us $240,000 and nobody could find them. Customer name: TEST CUSTOMER DO NOT USE. I recognized it immediately. I created that account two years ago to test our billing software. It had a fake address. A fake phone number. The contact email was [email protected]. Apparently Sales found the account last quarter and used it to demonstrate our new quoting system. Someone accidentally converted the demonstration quote into a real order. That triggered an invoice. The invoice went unpaid. Our collections software sent seven payment reminders to [email protected]. Nobody responded. Finance escalated the account to a debt collection agency. The agency spent three weeks trying to locate TEST CUSTOMER DO NOT USE. They reported the company had no registered address, no employees, and no known assets. Finance classified the account as high-risk. Yesterday Legal asked me for the customer's original contract. I explained there was no customer. They asked whether we could prove that. I said I personally invented the company. Legal said that wasn't sufficient documentation. Apparently writing "DO NOT USE" in the customer name doesn't legally establish that the customer doesn't exist. We're now paying $8,000 for an external auditor to determine whether a company I made up owes us $240,000. Finance has asked me not to delete the account until the investigation concludes. It's our third-largest customer this quarter.