Fake hours are quite common in India at flying schools where in order to avoid the expense of actually operating the aircraft, the school will give a discount on verifiable Parker pen time.
Earlier posts have shown how small and interconnected the aviation industry is. Common conversation on meeting a pilot for the first time involves background and previous experience, followed by "You must know so and so"
When I joined my present airline, one of my trainers knew a pilot from my second last employer as he was married to his cousin. He also knew someone I remembered from the early 1990s and had recently had lunch with him. Two other pilots worked for the same company as I did in the mid 1990s, another two had the same last employer as I did.
Many years ago someone was telling me about a pilot going for an interview who was asked about some military time he had logged. The interviewer had been the squadron commander at the time and couldn't remember him.