Management kept wondering why labor costs were so high. Apparently, having two employees on payroll who didn’t actually exist will do that. A longtime McDonald’s general manager created two fake employee profiles and then used his administrative access to make sure both of his imaginary workers stayed very busy. At least on paper. The profiles would reportedly be clocked in for tiny amounts of time before their records were manually adjusted to show full 40-hour workweeks. Pay cards were issued to the accounts, and the money kept flowing. One nonexistent employee collected $15,293.85. The other pulled in $12,619.65. Combined total: $27,913.50. Meanwhile, the actual employees were hearing about those pesky high labor costs. You really cannot make that part up. And the elaborate scheme apparently wasn't uncovered by corporate auditors or some sophisticated fraud-detection system. A night-shift worker noticed a name showing as actively clocked in. Nobody knew who the employee was. Nobody had seen them working. Because, according to the investigation, there was no employee. That one observation kicked off a deeper review of payroll records, administrative edits and system activity. Management then compared the digital trail with surveillance footage and traced the changes back to the GM. Months of fake shifts. Nearly $28,000 in payroll losses. Two employees who never showed up late, never called out and apparently never existed in the first place. And the whole thing started falling apart because one real employee looked at the time clock and thought: Who exactly is THAT? The former manager later turned himself in and was booked on a felony theft charge.