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For two-and-a-half years, Mark Allan James allegedly worked with a network of businesses to buy millions of dollars in deeply discounted computer equipment from Hewlett-Packard under its “Big Deal” incentive program. On paper, the deals looked fantastic, as it would have created new sales and services opportunities for HP. But prosecutors say it was all just a big scam by James to obtain cheap inventory for unauthorized resale.

Earlier this week, federal prosecutors in Houston indicted James, 44, on charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering for the scheme that reportedly cost HP more than $10 million.

HP’s Big Deal program was designed to provide businesses with added incentives if they made large equipment purchases. James allegedly manipulated the program by getting intermediary businesses to book small deals with the promise of repeat future business.

In the indictment announcement, prosecutors said, “[James] recruited individual business owners to pose as persons interested in securing a large volume of computing products…HP applied steep discounts to the products for various business reasons to include the opportunity for future large volume sales, further utilization of HP products in the customer’s technology infrastructure and continued maintenance of existing HP products.”

The intermediaries would pay HP for the equipment through accounts controlled by James’ U.K.-based company, Roamer Media. The equipment would never reach the listed buy. Instead, prosecutors say James was taking possession of the products for unauthorized resale, presumably at below market prices that would net huge profits.

Roamer Media is listed in the United Kingdom as a computer reseller based in Stockport, a suburb of the industrial city of Manchester in Northwest England. It was founded in 2005 and has roughly 2 million pounds ($3 million) in assets.

Prosecutors allege James’ scam was in operation between May 2009 and November 2011. None of the businesses used as intermediaries are listed in the indictment.

James is facing up to 20 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines, if convicted.

While easy to point a finger at James for his alleged misdeeds, questions should be asked about the execution of the HP Big Deal and similar incentive programs. HP is just the latest vendor to fall prey to would-be fraudsters looking to exploit incentive programs. In this case, the question is how were discounts for small, seemingly unrelated deals authorized when the program was designed to incent large sales?

The James case shows IT vendors are often too zealous in pursuit of their sales goals, which allows them to succumb to fraud and abuse.