I've had my fair share in the past 5 years, but I had this awesome programmer from Australia work for me for about a year, then suddenly started coming up with excuses:
"We're redoing the wood floors and the fumes got to me, so I had to take a few days off"
6 days later, I get "My power supply died on me and I have to get a whole new computer." I respond with, "Why would you have to get a whole new computer if it was just your power supply?" "Oh, it ruined the motherboard too."
"I didn't realize it's been 2 weeks since I last talked to you"
And many many many more...
I even paid him for a project upfront because he needed the money. He disappeared a few days after that and I never heard from him again. Pretty sad because I did enjoy working with him.
