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The Scream Test
(eviltoast.org)
I work for a company that works for a company that works for a company.
We have clients that are clients of clients, and may be direct clients in some other aspect.
We host services for these entities.
That is all fine until they don't pay us.
When they don't pay us, there are multiple rounds of contacting someone who will contact someone who will contact someone. Someday.
Sometimes, someday does not arrive.
At that point, we conduct the Scream Test.
The essence of the Scream Test is:
- This thing is theoretically not needed.
- Let's turn it off.
- And see who screams?
We shut down some stuff today. Waiting on the cacophony...
The difficulty in this structure is that someone, somewhere along the chain is laid off, fired made redundant and that person may have been in charge of the invoice.
That type of disconnect can be exploited: billing for services not rendered intermittently, etc.... We used to receive thermal printing paper at random times from a random company because they knew the invoice was sent to a different address and...who really commits fraud for printer paper? It could have just been a mistake because we received that paper....Right? Such a low key crime thats hard to spot and prove mal intentions.