The Trade Show

To: Richard Weeden

Vice President of Sales

Standard Pharmaceutical Corporation

From: Sylvia Gardner

Human Resources Manager

Consolidated Global

Dear Richard,

Judging by the large amount of recent emails that have arrived at our Human Resources department from yourself and your employees, it appears that you and Standard Pharmaceutical Corporation may have been the victims of fraud. The man you are attempting to reach, John Smith, is no longer an employee of Consolidated Global. I’m not sure if you are currently communicating with John via phone, but if you are, be advised that he is not acting as an authorized agent or employee of our company.

Your company is apparently not the only company that Mr. Smith defrauded, and we are still trying to piece the details together on this end, but it appears that Mr. Smith attended a pharmaceutical trade show in Las Vegas a week after he was let go from Consolidated Global. It seems that Mr. Smith had registered for the trade show and pre-paid his travel arrangements and lodging with a company credit card without his supervisor’s approval or knowledge. It also appears that Mr. Smith misrepresented himself as a current employee of Consolidated Global at the trade show, and apparently placed fraudulent purchase orders with at least a dozen companies, including yours.

We have been in contact with quite a few salesmen from other companies that John apparently defrauded at the recent Las Vegas trade show, and all of them tell a similar tale. John arrived at their booth, was immediately interested in their most expensive product lines, claimed to have immediate needs for large numbers of products, and then set up a series of meetings over the course of the week-long trade show, all involving either a meal, cocktails, or various forms of entertainment. Based on the information that we have already gathered, it would seem that John ate over $5,600 worth of food in less than five days, drank over $9,000 worth of alcohol, and racked up over $4,500 in room service and mini-bar charges to the tower suite that we unknowingly paid for.

He also managed to cause $23,000 worth of damage to the hotel’s rooftop pool complex. One anonymous sales representative told us that John insisted on testing some sort of proprietary water gelling agent he was “planning to buy a butt-load of”  in the hotel’s 20-person hot tub. This “test” apparently took place at 4:00 am after the sales rep and his team ran up an $800 bar tab at the Fandango Lounge attempting to close the sale with Mr. Smith. The general manager of the hotel described the scene as “an enormous bowl full of clear JELL-O.” It apparently took the Las Vegas fire department over an hour to free the nice couple from Kansas who were unfortunate enough to be sitting in the hot tub when John applied the gelling agent.

As we have stressed to the hotel manager, the other defrauded companies, and Jim and Jill Meyers from Topeka, our legal department is quite certain that we have no liability with regard to Mr. Smith’s actions at the Las Vegas trade show. We had no knowledge of where Mr. Smith was or what he was doing, he was not an employee of Consolidated Global at the time, and he was certainly not acting on our behalf. Any damages that your company wishes to seek in this matter must be taken up with Mr. Smith directly.

Obviously, we cannot honor any of the fraudulent purchase orders that John signed in Las Vegas, including the ones that he apparently gave to Standard Pharmaceutical. We’re not really sure why Mr. Smith even chose a pharmaceutical trade show. We are a worldwide manufacturer of toilets, and as such, we have absolutely no need for thirty-six “Omegatron centrifuges” or seventeen $280,000 autoclaves. We actually don’t even know what those things are.

Again, if you have been defrauded in any way by Mr. Smith, or incurred any costs associated with this incident (and judging from some of the pictures your salesman Steve Wonowski has sent via email, you have), please take it up with Mr. Smith himself. He may be difficult to track down, however. We have reports that he was last seen early Saturday morning boarding a plane at McCarran International Airport bound for Cabo San Lucas with three sales reps from Pfizer and the entire Friday night shift of waitresses from the Fandango Lounge.

As we have asked the other companies, please let us know if you do learn of Mr. Smith’s whereabouts. His landlord has reported that he vacated his apartment here in Tennessee without notice just prior to the trade show, so we really don’t have any idea where he might end up. After reviewing the company credit card account Mr. Smith used to book his trip to Las Vegas, we also learned that he pre-paid for a week-long limousine rental, and bought over $25,000 in Las Vegas area Groupons. We have reports from some hostesses on the strip that Mr. Smith was selling these discount coupons out of the back of his limo at even further discounted prices, presumably as a way to turn them into cash for himself. It appears that Consolidated Global has unknowingly paid for some great deals on laser lipo, botox, permanent makeup, orthodontics, gym memberships, and cellulite reduction treatments for quite a few Las Vegas area women.

We apologize for any inconvenience while, again, reminding you that Consolidated Global is in no way liable for any losses incurred by Standard Pharmaceutical as a result of these unfortunate circumstances.

Best regards,

Sylvia Gardner

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2012 Marc Schmatjen

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