Bye, Bye Business
My parents knew a couple who quit their jobs and went on to open their own business. Said friends became very successful over the years, had a few children around my age, and were just rolling in money. The parents were easily clearing a few million each year.
Then, one day when I was in college, their book keeper died. Because they had grown so successful, they didn’t just want to entrust anyone with keeping financial records, so they called upon their eldest daughter to do it.
Well, the daughter starts borrowing money from the business to make improvements to her house, take vacations, buy clothes, shoes, purses, etc, but never actually got around to paying any of it back. When 2009 rolled around, suddenly, there was no money in the bank.
The immediate excuse was ‘none of our customers have been paying us’, but that was, of course, a total lie. In the end, the whole business went under. All of that wealth was totally destroyed and all the family members put on unemployment. It’s 5 years later now and still very sad. Story credit: Reddit / Cygnus_X