Stop Faking Cable Test Results

We take on a hard jobsite reality: being asked to fake cable certification results to close out a project and secure a manufacturer warranty. We explain why that choice is fraud, how it wrecks trust and careers, and what doing it right looks like for technicians, contractors, manufacturers, and customers.

• why faking certification results is fraud and not a shortcut 
• warranty audits and how manufacturers spot red flags 
• real business fallout: rejected systems, retesting costs, back charges, lost customers 
• legal exposure: breach of contract, fraudulent documentation, lawsuits, insurance issues 
• what to do when a boss pressures you: comply vs push back and document 
• practical technician rules: never sign work you did not do, save native test data, protect your name 
• raising the bar: train for quality, clarify certification vs verification vs qualification 
• industry accountability: random audits, native file requirements, third party validation, smarter buying 

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Wednesday nights, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, I do a live stream where you get to ask your favorite RCDD. 
If you find value in this content when you click on that QR code right there, you can schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me. 
Or even buy a Let's Talk Cabling t-shirt. 
If you want to be a part of this project, make sure that you contact me. 
Drop a comment, send a story, send a message.

Transcript

Welcome And What Not To Do

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey Warner Monkeys, welcome to another episode of Let's Talk Cabling. This episode we're talking about faking test results, something you should not be doing. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by apprentices, installers, technicians, project foremen, project managers, estimators, designers, IT personnel, even customers. If you're listening to this show on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind leaving us a five-star rating? Those simple little steps help us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage, and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry. Wednesday nights, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, what are you doing? You know do a live stream on TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, any place I can figure out where to send a live stream to where you get to ask your favorite RCDD, and you know that's me. Your favorite RCD. Questions on installation, design, certification, credentialing. I even do career path questions. But I can hear you now, but check I'm driving my truck on Wednesday nights at 6 p.m. I don't want to get into an action.

unknown 1:34

Breathe in.

Break And Introducing Weekly Brief

ICT Industry News And Trends

The Anonymous Request To Fake Tests

Why Fake Results Can Ruin Firms

What To Do If Your Boss Asks

Practical Rules For Technicians

How The Industry Stops The Fraud

Final Thoughts And Share Your Story

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Breathe out, because I record them and you can watch them at your convenience. And finally, while this show is free and will always remain free. If you find value in this content when you click on that QR code right there, you can schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me. After hours, of course. Or even buy a Let's Talk Cabling t-shirt. So this week, first off, noticed last week I did not have I did not publish anything last week. I took a break, uh, got some family stuff going on, did not publish a live stream, did not publish a podcast last week. Apologize for that, but sometimes you just gotta do what's best for your family. So I didn't do anything last week. So I took the week off. This week I'm doing a show on faking test results. Why you shouldn't do it as a company? What do you do if you're an installer? How do you handle that if a company asks you to do how to do that? But I'm also in put starting something new with this episode. I'm gonna start doing I'm gonna start doing industry news and I'm gonna call it the the Wire Monkey Weekly Brief. Although I don't know if it's gonna be weekly yet or not, so we'll figure that out. So this week in the ICT industry, the biggest real story is that the market keeps tilting towards denser, hotter, more power-hungry infrastructure. And Beldon announced a partnership with Opticool to help bring the rear door cool heat exchangers together and with the Beldon racks in the cabinets for AI workloads. On the manufacturing front, Levitin made a directly relevant low voltage move by advancing extended distance copper network cabing with its new Paradigm Extended Distance S. You can now push power and data further without fiber. If you can push power and data further without fiber, people are always going to do that. Levitin' Paradigm Extended Distance Location flips the script on the 100 meter rule without actually pretending that it doesn't exist. Instead of taking a standard cable and stretching it past its limits, they've engineered a full system with cables, jacks, and channel design. Listen to this, to deliver one gig out to 225 meters. That's over, I don't know, you do the math. I think it's like 700 feet, 225 times 325. Put it in the comments. Yeah, one gig out to 225 meters with, and listen to this, 100 watts PoE. That means fewer IDFs, fewer switches, fewer headaches, especially in those places like warehouses and parking lots and garages, where the distance has always forced compromises. Pandu's recent releases keep leaning into fiber density and fiber productivity, including its Gen 7 SN connectivity solution. Hammond Manufacturing has opened up a new 55,000 square foot regional distribution center in Calgary because it matters when availability and lead times are starting to matter the most, especially when we start talking about features. And worth keeping an eye on, AEM has rebranded its precision cable test division. They now call it AEM Networks. And this is more than just a logo change. It signals a push to position themselves as a full network validation player, not just a cable tester company. Especially as speeds start to climb and POE loads increase, certification is moving from a did it pass to will it perform? And that shift favors the vendors who can tie copper and fiber and active network validation into one story. For installers and designers, this means tools are evolving right along with the infrastructure, and the companies that can connect the testing to the real world performance are the ones you don't want to watch. On the standard side, the TIA is pushing hard into AI ready facilities with the new ANZI 942 addendum for AI and HPC environments, while also expanding the DE DCE 9000 data center quality initiative. What's that really mean though? The industry is not just talking about faster networks anymore. It's talking about surviving the thermal and the quality control message that comes along with them. On the Bixie front, Bixie on its near calendar is also active. It has an April 30th webinar and an April 30th ICT form, and a May 21st a visual ICT form. So the education pipeline is still definitely going strong. Another big move to pay attention to, Tony Baker from IES is stepping into a new role as manager provider services. He brings decades of field experience with a clear passion of developing the next generation of technicians. As I said, he came from IES and he made it clear that this isn't just a job about change, it's a mission. One he's talking about doing locally, now he's going to scale it up globally. He also gave credit in his Facebook post about to his mentors who helped him. He also gives credit to the mentors and the early influences who shaped him. A reminder that nobody gets here alone and that the best in this industry never forget where they came from. In the ICT People Making Difference spotlight, Technology Worldwide is celebrating its fifth year by going bigger than ever, naming the Ronald McDonald House in Philadelphia as its 2026 Text Giving Recipient after a full community vote. This isn't just a donation, it's a full-scale, boots on the ground effort from across the tech community to upgrade and strengthen the organization's technology infrastructure, helping to support up to 149 families each night who are caring for their children undergoing critical medical treatment. Another volunteer project on the way is the Rotary Camp in Florida, where a team of ICT professionals are stepping up to solve real world problems, unreliable Wi-Fi across a 20-acre nonprofit camp that serves children with serious medical conditions. The current network, which was built on outdated extenders, simply cannot keep up with the demand, basically leaving the staff and the guests very frustrated, as you can imagine. Now a volunteer-driven effort is in motion to design and deploy modern enterprise grade wireless network solutions, bringing to the stable high performance connectivity to critical buildings and shared spaces. If you want to be a part of this project, make sure that you contact me. So today's episode started out of a post from Low Voltage Nations Group on Facebook. Somebody posted, posting anonymously for obvious reasons, I'm working as a sub on a decent sized project in I won't mention the state. The contractor specifically told me to fake fluke cable test search to get the cable job done and for the top-tier cable manufacturing system warranty. Is this a common thing? I want to talk about this for a minute. I got lots of things to say about this because faking test results can get you in a lot of heat, a lot of legal problems. And why is why is faking test results a terrible idea? Let me ask you something. If the project's entire performance, warranty, and reputation depends on the test results, what do you think is going to happen when those test results are fake? The short answer, nothing good. The long answer, it can burn your entire business down. So what's really happening here? Faking, not they were specifically talking about a fluke certification, but we're gonna say any certification. Faking any certification test is not cutting a corner, it's fraud. Plain and simple. You're submitting documentation that you know is false. And you're tying that to a manufacturer warranty in which most companies have a legal agreement. Now, let me ask you, let's start off with this point of view. Why should contractors never do this? Number one, warranty risks. Manufacturers require valid certification results. And if they audit those results and find fake data, and they do audit those results, they do look at those test results as you send them, and they can tell when they've been faked. There's certain things that you can see in test results, certain things that kind of reoccur, you can tell when somebody's been faking them. Well, minimum, you just lost your warranty. The entire system can be rejected. And then the manufacturer can require you to go back to test those cables again. Who do you think is gonna pay for you to test those cables again? If you didn't do it right the first time, guess who eats that cost? I'll give you a hint, it's not the manufacturer. I'll give you another hint, it's not the customer. Another thing that can happen from faking test results, especially when you get caught, customers are gonna get smarter. And what are they going to do? They're gonna hire third-party testers asking for the the file, the test files in their native format, not in PDFs. And if you get cost, so immediately you're gonna have a loss of trust. You might even have back charges where they're gonna charge you to go back to retest stuff because you fake test results. And you might even you might even have a contract termination. The customer may not longer want to do business with you. And this is going to expose you to a whole bunch of legal exposure. This crosses into the breach of contract, the fraudulent documentation. In extreme cases, you can end up in a lawsuit. You can end up being blacklisted, you might even run into some insurance issues. All big things that could actually cause your company to go out of business. Now you might get away with it once, you might even get away with it twice. But let me remind you, this industry is smaller than you think. And reputation can travel faster than a clean photon going through a fusion splice. So this puts the technician, though, in a really bad position. What do they do when a company says, hey, fake those test results? Man, I tell you, I wish I really had a crystal ball for this. I really do. If your boss tells you, just fake those test results so we can get paid, now what do you do? This is where careers are made or they are quietly destroyed. Kind of really all depends on you and the company you're working for. Option number one, do what you're told. If you do that, you get to keep your job. You get to avoid the confrontation, and the job gets closed out fast, just like the customer wanted. But what are the long-term consequences? You now have your your name is now tied to falsified documentation. And if it gets if it blows up, your name is going to be on those results, and your credibility is going to take a hit. You normalize bad behavior. You just traded your integrity for a paycheck. Second option, push back and do it right. What does this look like? Ask questions. Why are we not testing these properly? Are we fixing failures? Are we just skipping them? Offer solutions. Re-terminate those bad links, retest them properly. Document the conversation if needed. I'm gonna tell you now, always document your conversations, especially in scenarios like this where customers might be asking you to do something that just doesn't feel right. The potential risk, you might actually get labeled as being the difficult person in the company to work with. You might not get the good project, you might not get selected for overtime or for those cool trips. Worst case scenario, well, here's the flip side. You know, you might just lose your job, but you protect your name, you protect future opportunities, you build your reputation as someone who has who does it right and doesn't cut corners. Doing it right, customers will notice. I know a lot of people say, well, customers don't care. Yes, they do care. The right ones care. And if you start doing things the right way, they will follow you from contractor to contractor, and that makes you more valuable. The hard truth is though, no real professional ever regrets doing it right. Plenty regret doing along with something that they knew was wrong. So here's some practical advice for technicians. Never put your names on test results that you didn't actually perform. This is why you should go into the tester and change the field to your name. A lot of technicians forget that step. Keep copies of your real test data. You know, you can keep them on your work computer. You can uh, you know, keep a backup documentation. Know your worth. Good technicians are in demand, especially right now, with all the shortage of technicians are out there. If a company pushes this type of culture, you know what? Maybe it's not a long-term home for you anyway. Do you really want to work? And if they're gonna do that to a customer, to a manufacturer, what do you think they're going to do to you? They're gonna leave you holding the the being on the on the on the in the canoe with the short paddle. So, how do we fix this as an industry? We need a big picture shift. We need we need to make sure that this isn't just a bad contractor problem. This is a culture problem that we all have to fix. And I'm telling you right now, yes, it was a post on on low voltage nation Facebook group, and I don't remember how many posts it had, but I will tell you this. I every class that I teach, well, I don't want to say every class, almost every class that I teach, somebody sooner or later talks about, ah, well, you can you can just go plug the cable next to it and then test out and label as the previous one. That's faking test results. Raise the standard, don't just talk about it. This is how we fix it. Stop treating certification as a checkbox. Teach your technician, teach your customers why does it matter? Certification is gonna guarantee performance, it's gonna guarantee that the cable was installed the way there was supposed to be installed. It's gonna be able to work when they need to send large files across. It's gonna guarantee that network is has longevity. It's gonna be there for the maximum period of time that it can be. And you know what? It's gonna protect you from that liability. So here's what you really need to do. Second thing, train the next generation to be better. It's it's one thing to say you're gonna do the right thing, but sometimes you gotta do the right thing. In fact, people pay attention to what you do more than what they pay attention to what you say. So the new technique to understand what is certification, what is verification, what is qualification? Because the contract may not have called for certification where you're using a certifier. They just might have wanted, just might want to add verification, continuity test results. Make sure your technicians know that. It's your job, no matter what role you play within this company, to teach, to train your replacement. Make it make testing a part of the craft, not an afterthought. Another thing you can do, manufacturers need to really enforce accountability, random audits of submitted test results. I know several manufacturers are already doing this. Manufacturers need to enforce accountability. They need to do random audits of submitted test results. I know a lot of manufacturers that look at every single test record when you give it to them, and they will scrutinize them, looking for exact duplicates of test results with different numbers. Require that the test are the results that are sent are the native files that come from the test results. They come in their specific software formats, like FLW for fluke. So manufacturers need to really enforce accountability. I know a lot of them are already doing this. They already look at every test result and they look for red flags to tell them that test results have been have been faked. And trust me, they do find them. They absolutely will find them. Maybe do random audits of submitted test results. Make sure that as a manufacturer, maybe you need to require that the technician send you the native files that comes out of the test or fluke, that's gonna be a.fldw file. Okay, or maybe even PDFs. Make sure you tie the warranty to the approvals from that verified data. Another thing we can do is we can empower technicians to speak up. You know, make sure that they give them the room, give them the ability to say, hey, this isn't right. Encourage mentorship, reward quality, not just speed. Yes, I understand. We got to get the project done. And I hate when people say, well, sometimes you just gotta do what you just gotta do. That's the worst possible thing, worst possible attitude that you could have. Customers need to get smarter, they need to require third-party validation, um, proper documentation formats, and stop awarding jobs. So here's a good one. Stop this customers to the customers, stop awarding jobs based on the lowest bid alone. So let's close this out. Cables don't lie, physics don't lie, but people do. And when pressure, money, and shortcuts, shortcuts get involved, the question is what kind of professional do you want to be at that moment when everything blows up? Have you ever been put in this situation? I want to hear from you. Drop a comment, send a story, send a message, because the only way we can fix this is by talking about it. So do the right thing, don't fake test results.