Developers feared large chaps carrying baseball bats could come to kneecap their … test account?

Who, Me? Accidents will happen, and every Monday The Register celebrates them – and your escape from the consequences – in a fresh instalment of Who, Me? It’s the reader-contributed column that details the downside of working in tech.

This week, meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Rufus,” who once worked for a midsized UK retail chain that offered credit accounts to its customers.

To test the website that customers used to manage those accounts, and the backend apps, the retailer created test accounts that Rufus and his colleagues could use to run dummy transactions.

Those accounts had names like “Mr Test Account Six” and their address was always listed as the retailer’s HQ where Rufus worked. Transactions made using the test accounts weren’t ever processed as real orders. But each of the accounts did have a real credit limit.

“We had to remember not to order anything expensive,” Rufus wrote, because if the test accounts exceeded their credit limits, they couldn’t make more purchases.

This arrangement mostly worked well until the day a letter landed on Rufus’s desk, addressed to “Mr Test Account Six.” He opened it and learned that the account was in arrears and Mr Six must pay ASAP.

“How we laughed in the office,” Rufus wrote, as he and his colleagues were both pleased that their apps worked and amused that a test account was receiving snail mail.

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In coming weeks, more letters demanding Mr Six pay up arrived, each causing more mirth.

One day, Mr Six’s account inexplicably disappeared from the system.

Rufus learned that ignoring the payment demands meant that Mr Six’s account had been removed from the system. All other delinquent accounts were also removed, and a debt-collection company had arrived on the scene.

A quick primer on how this often works: Debt collection companies buy debt and the right to collect it. A hypothetical telco with $100 million of outstanding debt might sell it to a debt collector for $50 million. The telco quickly gets cash they can’t be bothered chasing any more. The debt collector then goes after the $50 million and has the right to collect the full $100 million. Such companies are therefore notorious for sometimes acting in ways that those who owe money find rather unsettling.

Clearly, Rufus and his colleagues should have taken things more seriously.

That hit home when they realized the debt collection company had Mr Six’s address – in their office.

That little fact meant that the tech team’s amusement turned to fear that burly chaps carrying baseball bats could appear at any moment, demand to meet Mr Six and make life unpleasant until he was produced.

“Thankfully the credit team sorted things out with the debt collection company,” Rufus recalled. “No debt collectors turned up, and we got a new Mr Six account.”

Have test accounts caused trouble at your workplace? If so, click here to send us an email so we can bring them to life in a future edition of Who, Me? ®