"We're not paying"
A month after close, the customers called. "We're not paying. You double-billed us for product we never ordered."
The seller had shipped 2-3x normal volume to top customers right before the QoE. No CRM notes. No demand signals. Just manufactured EBITDA.
Those customers took the next two months of shipments for free. Revenue and working capital got nuked simultaneously.
This is channel stuffing. It cost this buyer $2M.
The warning sign: AR aging stretching from 2-3 weeks to 4-5 weeks.
Full story: redacted