Generally speaking, what's the general opinion on 80/20'ing your way into a lateral transfer?

I've done it a couple times, at best I ended up leaving, at worst, HR never actually recorded the transfer so when time came a few years down the road, it was on my resume, but come employment verification time, I (and the firm that had offered me a position) learned that archived employee records had me listed down under my prior role, not the one I had transferred into-and had since that point, used for experience in leveraging new jobs. I lost a job offer because of it.

Now I'm reticent to do any kind of 80/20's without written considerations from the company.