The monthly fee nobody claimed
A small monthly fee nobody claimed turned out to be an orphaned account.
(Illustrative scenario, not a real incident)
Meiling is the accountant at an online dessert shop,a company of thirty people.
Every month, reconciling the books, she would seea few small monthly charges in foreign currency.She asked around, and everyone said:“Must be some other department's.”
Not much money, so no one chased it.
Later the pieces came together:six months earlier, Xiao-An in marketing,to schedule social media posts,had subscribed to a tool with the company card,signed up with a personal email,and authorized the company's fan page inside it.
Then Xiao-An moved to customer service.No one used the tool anymore, but the fee kept coming.
Meiling wanted to cancel it,but no one knew which email the account usedor what the password was.Xiao-An only vaguely remembered:“I think it was connected to the fan page.”
To cancel, you first have to be able to log in.To assess the risk, you first have to know what's connected inside.
I used to think small money meant small matters.Later I learnedbehind every subscription is an account;behind every account is a door.
The company pays the money,but the account sits under one person's name.When that person moves on, it becomes an orphan.
Every subscription charge should map to one owner and one company email. The ones that don't are the ones to deal with first.