Years ago, in the days when samples weren't regulated and the independent pharmacy was commonplace, sample diversion was commonplace.
Doctors whose offices were adjacent to the pharmacy would trade samples for rent or other supplies. I remember a friend of mine telling me a story of one office, where they would assign sample space for each rep. My friend just detailed a new drug and the doc said leave some, I'll try it. A few days later, the nurse calls and says doc is all upset that he didn't leave any samples. My friend comes back and sees that his samples were placed in the right spot, but some other rep covered them up with his samples.
As he's clearing out his samples, doc walks by and the rep tells him what happened. He asks doc what he wants to do with the other reps' samples. Get 'em outta here, he says, if the rep doesn't know where to leave his samples, I don't wanna use them. So my friend tosses them in a bag, and gives them to the pharmacy adjacent to the doc's office, saying doc told me to bring these to you.
A few days later, my friend gets a check for a few bucks from the pharmacy. He takes it by his next time through and asks what it's for ... pharmacist says, well, I always pay doc for the samples he brings over here.
Or, as my old boss told me once, when he was a rep many, many years ago, he saw some gift item at one of his pharmacy customers. Asked the pharmacist how much it was, and it was more than he could afford. Pharmacist says, wait, what samples do you have, we'll just trade ... like I do with all the other reps, and proceeds to bring out a notebook/ledger with signatures and balances from reps he knows. My old boss thought that he really didn't like the paper trail idea ...
