Executives of WorldCom, once the second largest long distance provider in the United States, basically helped themselves to billions of dollars. The news broke on June 25, 2002 and the SEC alleged that the company had improperly accounted for $3.8 billion. That number turned out to be closer to $11 billion and the company was eventually forced to declare bankruptcy, which according to a University of Massachusetts-Boston study, resulted in 33,000 lost jobs and about $180 billion of investor’s money down the drain.