The Computerland Scandal and Apple Computer 

MeriselFab lost millions charged as returns after the acquisition of Computerland Stores from Vanstar Corporation. 

Pleasanton CA - In 1995, Pete Bennett was hired to work at Computerland Corporate to update the reporting system for returns, and sales etc. It was his first corporate customer working at a rate which helped retire debt from closing his computer store earlier that year. 

The project was to consolidate hundreds of reports into a core set of management reports. In the room was a firm making requests were outside consultants pouring over accounting problems.  

The problems were ominious with monthly losses in the millions but oddly pegged to returns.  The return authorizations lacked origins, paperwork and were shoved through from Vanstar which operated distribution to the stores for transactional fee for each item.  

Most of the funds went to Apple Computer for product never shipped.  The employees invested heavely numerous company offers on stock offers. 

One day the reports reached the consultants then Mersil was forced to restate earnings as the real value of Computerland was grossly overvalued.  

 

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