A Delhi-based sneaker label has alleged that a recently hired customer support (CS) executive generated unauthorised 100 percent discount codes and used them to place orders worth around Rs 2 lakh before quitting within a week.
What the founder claimed
In a post on X, Gully Labs founder Arjun Singh said the employee had joined the company only a few months earlier but exploited backend access during his first week. According to Singh, the discounted orders were shipped to the employee’s friends.
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“We hired a CS person a couple of months ago. Within the first week of joining he made INR 2L of 100% discount orders — sent to his friends and quit in a week,” Singh wrote.
He added that when confronted, the former employee initially agreed to cooperate and returned roughly half of the products. However, the remaining items had already been used.
Singh further alleged that the former staffer later sent legal notices accusing the firm of harassment after the company sought the return of goods or reimbursement.
“Then he started sending legal notices that we were harassing him in response to our notice to return the products or reimburse us,” Singh said.
Following the incident, the brand stated it is tightening backend controls and strengthening permission settings to prevent similar misuse in the future.
The episode triggered sharp debate online, with many users blaming weak internal safeguards rather than focusing solely on employee misconduct.
One user wrote that incidents like these damage early-stage trust culture and force startups to adopt heavy compliance measures even with small teams. Another commented that the key lesson is to always maintain guardrails and avoid blindly trusting internal access.
Several users said the case highlights the importance of role-based permissions, audit trails, and tighter operational controls in fast-growing startups.
