Evaldas Rimasauskas, the man who sent random bills to Facebook and Google, pulled off what many would only dare to dream of: tricking two of the world’s biggest tech giants out of over $100 million. By posing as a legitimate business, crafting convincing emails, and setting up shell companies, Rimasauskas turned corporate bureaucracy into his personal ATM. Some might say he deserves a tip of the hat for exposing just how easily billion-dollar companies could be outsmarted with some cunning and a bit of tech-savvy flair. Of course, whether he “deserved” the money is a matter of perspective, but he certainly gave the term “working smarter, not harder” a whole new meaning!
First of all an “I swear to God I’m not making this up” disclaimer because this is entire true. This exact same idea was used in a one off Judge Dredd story in 200AD during the 1980’s. I do not remember the writer but the artist was the late great Ian Gibson but the plot was pretty much this. A woman funded a lavish, and perfectly legal lifestyle in Mega City 1 by sending giant corporations bills simply stating that they were being billed for being billed. The bill was itemized showing that the company was paying 10 Creds for mailing costs and 90 Creds for the service of being billed. As the amount was so small the companies simply paid, it taking more time and cost to track down what they were paying for.
And it worked flawlessly.
Of course as this was 2000AD there was a twist but not one that need concern us here.