When I was visiting the states at approximately 26 years old.. I got the call one day from my brother that the equivalent of the Philippines FBI was busting our office for having some unlicensed versions of windows (installed by the former head of IT that was now reporting us so he could get a bounty and steal our clients).
As the police raided our office and took out the over 200 computers we had, I had to think quick to save the business. It was late, the banks were already closed and there wasn’t much time for delay as business operations would be starting soon and clients would be very upset if there was a downtime.
I asked my brother and the team to call up all the computer rental companies in Manila and find out how many computers we could rent and how quickly could we get them, to replace the over 200 that we lost.
As the computers were being taken out by the investigations team, new arrivals (the rentals) were coming in by various trucks from all over Manila and being setup by our IT team at the time, simultaneously while they were taking the other computers out of the office.
Once I felt like things were being handled, I went to bed expecting the worst when I woke up. Amazingly, and impressively, the IT team was able to have most of the rented computers setup and operational by time the business day started and only a couple clients suffered downtime. This was a major victory and demonstrated our resilience in the face of crises! I am still amazed to this day.
Unfortunately the saga with the Investigation and Microsoft would end up costing over $200,000 .. between the rental fees, and eventually having to replace all the computers, place an ad in the newspaper apologizing to Microsoft and paying Microsoft a fine.. And when I finally recovered the computers they had taken, they were mostly stripped of anything of value, so I only got the computer shells back. It was a major learning lesson and speaks volumes about hiring people with integrity to head important roles. And also how you can’t predict everything that will happen while you’re trying to build a business.
FUN TIMES WITH THE TAX AUTHORITIES
In addition to a major bust by the Philippines NBI , I had several run-ins with the tax authorities. They would always trump up some non-compliance, heavy penalties and then offer to reduce it for under the table payments. This is how they operated with a lot of businesses in Manila, which explains why many of these third world countries get stuck in a 3rd world country status – corruption is only good for the people at the top of the food chain.