They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and I guess that's true for major stuff. Like if someone assasinates your lord, leaving you and 46 of your homies as ronin samurai and then dude takes your girl, too then OBVIOUSLY you devote yourself entirely to plotting and exacting your revenge. Don't even get me started on the merciless vengeance that you can expect if you mess with John Wick's dog. If Hollywood has taught us anything, it's not to anger Keanu Reeves. He's just out here trying to live his life in peace, so he may seem like an easy target, but he WILL end you without even breaking a sweat. There's no sweat in revenge this cold.
But what about the minor annoyances life has to offer? Do they really deserve cold revenge? What about petty lukewarm revenge? Can it be just as delicious? Short answer: YUP. One Twitter user asked:
What is your most memorable story of petty revenge?
Honestly, these don't need a major introduction. It's a parade of pettiness that made several people cackle wickedly. James, whoever you are and wherever your doughnut fingers may be right now, we hope you're happy with yourself, sir. Yours was perhaps the deepest betrayal.
50. Concrete Pumpkin
I have a friend whose pumpkin\fall display at the end of his driveway would be run over by the neighborhood jerk. It happened every year. Friend decided to put a stop to it.
He withdrew money from his savings account so he would have enough to buy the largest pumpkin he could find, along with several large bags of Quikcrete. filled that puppy up and made a real pretty display.
The jack@ss broke the axle of his sh*tty car when he hit that pumpkin and could not drive away. My friend had his car towed away, too.
49. Lunchwars
My coworker throws out her lunch in the garbage can at my desk instead of her own, because she claims she can't stand the smell of old ketchup that's been sitting out for a couple hours. I've asked her several times to stop, but she will then just wait until I get up to go to the bathroom and do it, and hide my garbage can under my desk so she thinks I won't see it. There's no reason for it. The cafeteria offers lids for the ketchup cups, so she could just put the lid on it and throw it away - but she refuses to get lids and insists on leaving her food garbage to stink up my area.
Now, when she does it, I wait until she goes to the bathroom, take out the little plastic container that she had ketchup in, and put it way in the back of her bottom desk drawer. There's 6 in there now, the oldest is over a month old. So far, she hasn't noticed the smell. Gonna keep doing it and see how long it takes her to notice.
- Brunurb1
48. Ring The Alarm
GiphyIn response to an (admittedly pretty good) practical joke, I hid seven battery powered alarm clocks in the perpetrators room. Set them to go off one by one roughly every 40 minutes between 2 and 6 AM. Last one was hid in the ceiling.
47. Pay The IT Guy
Someone owed me $50 and refused to pay, so being in IT I reduced their Mailbox size so they could only hold around 10 e-mails, removed them from distro groups so they missed important group e-mails, and every day for like 3 months I went to their account and checked the little box "Must change password at next login"(We used an elaborate pw scheme).
46. The Austin Powers 20-Point Turn
There's a new truck in my apartment's parking lot. Whoever owns it always parks it taking up multiple spots, ALWAYS. Weird angles, close to the stairs, all over the place (no assigned parking unfortunately). Months of this.
I drive a much smaller car than that, and I'm petty/passive aggressive, I've been waiting for my chance. A few days ago was my shot.
I got home quite late and there were zero spots open in my lot. Big truck is parked across 2 spaces again, but there's juuust enough room on their driver side for me to sneak in there with my little clown car. I carefully pull in, making sure not to touch anything, no damage, no nothing. My passenger side mirror is half and inch from their driver side door. I giggled to myself all the way back to my apartment and set an alarm and waited.
The following morning I wake up before the alarm to loud door slamming and stomping around. I check out my window and I see the double parking culprit walking around both vehicles, taking pictures, texting someone, taking more pictures, I'm shaking with glee. They then swallow their pride, let out a visual sigh, and climb in the passenger side, clamber over the center console, and Austin Powers 20 point turn their butts out of the spot.
I've never been so proud of myself and my sh!tty, petty, passive aggressive ways.
- Here2Lol
45. No Labels
My brother did something to his annoy his then-girlfriend. So she took the labels off all his canned food/tins in the cupboards. Are you opening a tin of beans? Or a tin of tomato sauce? Or cat food?
Kinda hilarious.
44. Don't Mess With My Dogs
I found out my then boyfriend was cheating on me. And he threw my dog across the room when we were discussing what he had done. I moved out immediately. More for hurting my dog than anything. So as I was moving out I took his entire porn collection and microwaved them one by one. It only takes 3 second each. Took me about an hour to go thru them all.
I put them back in the case, then back where they belonged. Not sure if the microwave was still usable, did not really care. He was also a manager at a restaurant and would bring home tons of food. They had really nice coolers that the food came in so I called the GM and explained I had moved out and that I wanted to return the boxes. He lost his job. Then I was getting collection calls for him, so I gave them the new girls work and personal number so they could find him. He's her problem now.
Don't mess with my dogs.
43. James Has Doughnut Fingers
GiphyBack in the late 90s I worked at Best Buy and one Saturday a month we had to come in 3 hours before the store opened (so 7am) for a mandatory all store meeting where we watch the video from corporate, give out employee of the month awards, go over department goals, and the like.
Well, there was a guy in our department James who was a pretty crappy worker and showed up to the meeting an hour late and the manager took him aside and fired him. Apparently the manager didn't watch him on his way out of the store and he went into the break room and stuck his finger in every single doughnut they brought in for our break. So literally the only mild positive of getting up at 6 on Saturday was ruined.
20 years later and I still miss that doughnut.
42. Brake Check
GiphyMy friend in high school was such a drama queen but it worked out hilariously sometimes. He was cut off by a driver who had no brake lights and it pissed him off so badly that he followed until a cop was behind, merged around the guy and then brake checked him so the cop would see that he had no brake lights. The holler he let out when the cop pulled the other guy over is still one of the funniest moments of my life.
41. "Broken"
When my wife and brother in law were younger, she got the best petty revenge on him for something they don't even remember. My brother in law did something to irritate my wife back when they were in high school.
My wife turned off the TV, wrote "broken" on a piece of paper taped to the TV, shut off the power strip, and flipped the batteries around in the remote. Took my brother in law several days to figure it out.
- SteevyT
40. Table For One
Went to a restaurant for brunch. Upon receiving my bill I noticed a $3 charge for table linen. As I was leaving I folded up the tablecloth. The waiter said what are you doing? I said, I paid for it I'm taking it home. And I did.
They couldn't very well argue, could they? Even if they called the police, you have a receipt.
39. Tuppence A Bag
I caught my flatmate telling lies about me to some mutual friends. I made plans to move out the next month. In the meantime, she went out of town for a week, and left her car parked in its usual spot in the parking lot. I threw birdseed on it every morning and evening, so when she came home, the birds wouldn't leave her car alone.
It would be amazing if the birds started considering the car their home and protecting it by dive bombing her. Having birds do your bidding is some real super villain type sh!t.
"I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne, Let my armies be the rocks, and the trees, and the birds in the sky."
38. Nesting
GiphyMy college roommate had a bad habit of leaving her things in piles on our bathroom floor until there was almost no space to walk to the bath or toilet. Not just clothes but change, jewelry, decks of playing cards, knitting needles, books, hairpins, scarves, earbud headphones, keys, etc. One day she left $40 scattered with the mess, so I put the money in one of her lesser-used bathroom drawers.
Originally I put it there to protect it from our third roommate and her friends. When I came home the next day and noticed that she was clearing her mess in an effort to find it, I decided not to tell her where the money was until our bathroom floor was spotless.
Afterwards, I decided it would be too awkward to tell her the truth so I left the money wadded up in her hamper as I'd found it on the floor. She was ecstatic when she found it on laundry day. After that her bathroom piles never got quite as big.
My mom tried to so this with me as a kid. "I've hidden 3 crisp 20s in your room. If you clean up and find them, they're yours. "
Well put them somewhere I can reach woman! First time, one was BEHIND my full bookcase, the 2nd was on a shelf I could not reach but had collectables on it that were bought for me, and 3rd was under my bed... Post. Like my bed was picked up and a small bill was slipped under the leg. I was like 8.
The 2nd time mom tried it, I just tore apart my room. Found 2 out of 3 and made my room 10x worse.
There was no third time.
37. Where's My Money?
My friend did some work for a guy who skipped his bill and never paid him. My friend is so petty he did many things...such as;
Placed fake for sale ads with too good a deal like a nice boat for 1000$ and other numerous ads with the guys number.
Our city is big on garage sales. He posted ads like "moving out sale, everything must go, cheap! Will be held inside the house, just walk in or ring the door bell" then put this guys address on the ad.
He also signed him up for numerous "free gym memberships" and responded to things like car dealership ads with this guys phone number.
He did a lot more, that's just what I can remember. I don't know who I feel more sorry for.
36. Caught Red Handed -- Er, Mouthed
My friend's Sprite kept getting stolen even though she wrote her name all over the can. Finally after the 5th time it happened she got a habanero, cut it open and rubbed it all over the top of the can and left it in the fridge. We found out who the thief was when that afternoon we hear the office drama queen shriek in her cubicle and run to the water cooler. She never stole anything again.
Had someone steal a sandwich out of my lunchbox but leave me a dollar in its place. Thanks, but I am not a vending machine!
The COO of a company I used to work for was asked to resign because it was discovered he regularly entered the storage closet of the on-site (run by a vendor) cafe and helped himself to whatever he felt like.
Edit: Oh! And when confronted, he tried to lie about it. Dude. There are cameras. You're the COO, you know there are cameras.
35. Salty
I've told this one before, but it makes me happy to retell it.
I had a boss 7-8 years ago whom I hated. She was the fakest and most entitled person I had ever met. One day, she decided that she didn't like the smell of microwave popcorn...so she waved her magic office wand and had it banned.
Fast forward a month or so. I was browsing Amazon and found one of those USB sticks that emits a smell when plugged in...the smell of buttered popcorn. I bought it, plugged it into the back of her computer, and she had the sweet smell of PopSecret in her office for six months. She complained almost every day. It's the sweetest revenge I've ever tasted.
34. Game On
Grounded yet again by my Angry Dad for breathing whilst his ballgame was on, I was stuck in my bedroom bored witless. For something to do I flicked the light switches on and off (pre-mobile era folks, we had to make our own fun...). It was then I discovered that this made a loud buzzing static interference on the TV in the lounge. Cue the next 5 years of petty revenge...
Angry Dad never figured out why we had such a bad TV signal at game time, he never connected it with me being sent to my room and flicking the light switch every few minutes, reveling as he yelled futilely at the static dancing across the TV.
33. Want Fries With That?
GiphyWhen I was in law school I went to a bar with a bunch of law school students and decided I wanted a cig - I went outside and a whole bunch of girls are smoking. I don't like to bum cigarettes, but I had a free small fry coupon from McDonald's. I offered it to the girl if she would give me a cigarette, she said okay. I handed it to her, and then she wouldn't give me a cigarette. She said "You shouldn't be so trusting."
Flash forward a few months, and I'm the head GA for the IT for a division in our university, which includes administration. I went up to replace a computer and saw the same girl - she was waiting in line for a job interview. I went up to the person who was conducting the interviews (I was their IT person too) and told them the story.
She didn't get the job.
32. Tides Turned
We were kids staying at the seaside on holiday with our family. My little sister would always make a pretty sandcastle, and the next day it would have been kicked down and she'd cry. We wanted to find out who was doing it, so one day we stayed behind to spy. We watched as a bunch of jerk older boys came by and kicked her castle down, laughing smugly. So the next night, we covered a big beach rock in sand and decorated it. Like clockwork, the jerk kids came with their smug faces and this time kicked a solid rock with all of their might. The yowl and the look on their faces was the best revenge ever.
31. The Loud Night
In the dorms at my first base, I got a new suitemate (shared bathroom, separate rooms) that worked a different shift and liked to play loud music all night.
I am an --shole, but I always make an effort to be reasonable first. A week after this started, I am coming back to my room and see him unlocking his door and introduce myself as his suitemate. We chat for a bit, and I eventually say that I am cool with music during the night, but would you mind lowering the volume a bit? He just rolls his eyes and walks in his room.
That night was louder than ever, all night.
I am not one to run to authority figures, nah, I get even. And I escalate quickly. And I was not exactly in the greatest of moods right then. My leave had just been approved so I could go visit my dying grandmother, I had the next week off and I was leaving the state.
I took my computer speaker, turned it up about midway, placed it against our shared wall, and set Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper on repeat the entire time I was gone. It ended up being two weeks because I had to attend the funeral.
I came back after and the dorm manager (who I was cool with) told me I was reported for noise violations, but they determined it was not excessively loud. But the speaker being against the wall to his room made the sound pass right through.
Never had an issue with the dude's loud music during the night again.
30. Luck Runs Out
Guy in an El Camino was aggressively tailgating me in the slow lane. On the highway. Traffic was light so he could have passed easily. I'm in a SUV. I see metal debris in the road ahead of me. I know I can clear it and do. He wasn't so lucky. riverrelic
29. Break the Silence
Dated a guy and later found out he had another girlfriend. Messaged the other girlfriend on MySpace (showing my age here) and told her if she wanted to know the truth it would be better to hear it from him, so please call me and I'll call him on three way calling. She did and stayed totally quiet on the call while he tried to set up some sexy time with me for later that week.
Finally I said "I don't think I can do that, ***** might have a problem with it. Wouldn't you, *****?" She finally chimed in with a nope and a f**k you (to him) and he hung up in a panic. Wished her luck. No idea how it turned out for them, but I blocked his sorry butt and still get a chuckle at the moment of pure fear we heard in the silence before he hung up. CheerFairy
28. That's Not Frosty!
GiphyOn the first snowfall one year, a coworker balled up a snowball and threw it right in my face in front of the whole office. Everyone laughed and he refused to apologize. So on the next workday it snowed, I gathered a backpack of snowballs and disguised myself as a snowman in front of our work building, waiting for him to arrive. When he did and tried to open the front door I had locked, I burst from my snowman disguise and pelted him repeatedly with snowballs! My fingers and penis were frozen from waiting as a snowman but it was definitely worth it. Laundry-Service
27. No Nice Things...
I used to live with a couple of people who didn't like to do their dishes, the kitchen was always a wreck of just their unwashed dishes for weeks at a time. I just started throwing them out little by little because I figured if there weren't any dishes to use there wouldn't be anything for them to leave dirty. flounderjaw
26. The Slums...
Had a crappy landlord once. Refused to fix windows that were broken before I moved in, basically just a hole owned by a slumlord. Took him to small claims court for a number of reasons, ended up getting my next 6 months paid for at my next apartment. There was a small trap door in the closet floor to access shutoff valves for the plumbing, so before I moved out I got scrap meat from a local butcher ( stuff they can't sell) and placed it in the trap door.
A few months later the place gets condemned due to vermin infestation, gets torn down. This was also before cell phones, so a couple times I got my female friend to call his house when I knew he wasn't home. His wife would answer, my friend would ask for him and act nervous and hang up. gramses_0-0
25. Let him go!
My husband, as a small.child in school, was sick and the teacher wouldn't let him go to the bathroom to throw up, so he went to her desk (where she was sitting) and threw up all over that instead. puppypoet
Reminds me of when I was a kid - was feeling sick, asked mom to let me stay home or go to the doctor, typical 'No you're probably faking' response.
On my way out the front door, I bent over to pet the dog, and proceeded to throw up all over the door, the dog, my little brother, and the bottom three stairs.
Guess she knew I wasn't faking! DEAD_P1XL
24. It's All about the Legos.....
My boyfriend collects Lego and Mini-figures, and once we got into a silly fight so when he fell asleep I removed the heads from all of his Lego figures and hid them in a box under his bed until he apologized.
This was about 2/3 years ago and he found it hilarious (and still does) and we put them all back on together, I wouldn't do it again since his collection is about 3 times the size. penguinloveaffair
23. Eye 2 Eye...
GiphyOne time my dog came in my room and jumped on the bed while I was sleeping, waking me up. I scolded her and told her to get down. She slowly hopped off the bed, turned to look at me , sat down, and WHILE MAINTAINING EYE CONTACT scooted her butt across the floor, leaving a nice little poop mark. Looked away, stood up, left. I miss that little gremlin. cap-n-dukes
22. Kharma served!
I had a childhood bully of mine serve me food at McDonald's. It wasn't like actual revenge, but it was somewhat satisfying seeing a kid who was so cruel to me growing up having to serve me. I don't think he recognized me because I was much skinnier and had a beard now, but I definitely recognized him. -eDgAR-
21. Not MY Pop Tarts!
One of my roommates kept stealing my pop tarts so I ordered a little UV fingerprint powder off Amazon and dusted it over the packaging. Next time a pop tart got stolen I checked all of my roommates door knobs for the powder with a black light and found out who was stealing my breakfast.
Alex you still owe me a box of cinnamon frosted pop tarts you fool. ChildLaborForce69
20. Butt lint?
My brother used to leave butt lint on the toilet seat. Like, there would just be a line of grossness in the spot where your buttcrack is on the toilet seat. I was constantly telling him to wipe it off and he never would. Soooo I started using his toothbrush to clean it up and never told him. It went on for like a year. mrfingerbottom_
19. You! NO YOU!!
This one was truly petty. My dad was driving and we came up on a construction truck driving the other way with a crew in back placing cones in the center of the road as they slowly drove. Just preparing for some construction. Dad slows down and offers some criticism of how they're putting the cones down. I don't even remember what, maybe the cones were a bit far into our lane or something. Construction guy isn't having it, conversation gets a bit heated, dude gives Dad a "f**k you."
"F**k me? No, f**k you."
Dad proceeds to run over cones for an entire mile. Now I would have thought that they would have just gotten a little flattened but the tire was actually throwing them behind the vehicle and frequently a lot to the left or right. Some were thrown completely off the road, all of them were just all over the place.
He was a narcissist. This isn't even remotely the worst or most petty thing he did, it's just one I was there for. Astazha
18. Want to wear Coffee?
GiphyWhen I worked at a cafe, I had one lady come in every day before work and make nasty comments. She was horrible.
"So are you going to school, or is this pretty much it for you?"
She got decaf on Mondays and Tuesdays, then regular for the rest of the week to get her used to it again before starting over the next week. MadTouretter
17. Porn them Away!
Guys next door to me were playing COD or something super loud at night. I got annoyed and noticed they were on a smart tv that wasn't password protected or anything. I pulled up some gay porn and cast it to their screen. They immediately start freaking out and aren't able to get it off screen.
They finally get up and go to the lobby to play games or whatever.
Lobby also has unsecured smart tv. I can still hear them screaming and carrying on. Cast the same porn to that room too.
They leave the building. AceD3sign3r
16. Hurl and Run....
When I was 8 or 9 a kid pushed me down a hill and ran away. I split my forehead open and was pissed. Later that day I saw him come into the bathroom and go into one of the stalls. So I ran outside and grabbed a huge chunk of ice/snow and ran back into the bathroom and kicked the stall door open and hurled it right into his stupefied face, then also ran away. tweak0
15. Leave the Debris...
It's not really revenge I suppose but my fiancé always has the bed made. Like even if I'm poorly and gone downstairs for juice, come back up and it's made.
So when I'm annoyed with her and leaving the house after I'll make sure to leave the bed unmade and send her a picture. Just so I know it'll annoy her for the rest of the day. SwimnGinger-
14. What Friends are For.
My house was on the left side of a dead end street. There was a house at the very end of the street facing the other way with its drive ways attached to a different street on the other side. My roommate would always park in the front of our house on the street but leave enough room for cars to get past because the land lord of the other house graveled his back yard so he could use our street to get to the house. It had drive ways but they were destroyed and very narrow up a hill, had to be repaired to use them.
He left a note on my roommates car stating she can't park there and he would tow her car if she did. I may of gotten irrationally pissed off by this old man trying to bull a house full of college girls. So I did what any good friend would do.
Called my friend was a civil engineer intern for the city and he got the city to put up guard rails at the end of the street so he could no longer use his back yard as an entrance and had to spend the money to fix is drive ways.
Neighbor 1 and 2 were owned by the same slumlord. They are facing the other street, both with drive ways. The red car is my roommate car and she would try to park far enough over to leave enough room as a courtesy, it was tight because the neighbor had a shed in their backyard limiting the space to get in from the street to the backyard. Serennadi
13. I'm crossing you out!
My mum and her friend had a massive fight, and my mum's friend sent a letter to my mum scolding her and pretty much saying "We're no longer friends" and my mum, as an Ex-Teacher, took out a red pen, corrected all the spelling mistakes and grammatical mistakes, and mailed it right back to her. YourApril27
12. Bullseye!
GiphyOne time this girl at my University started yelling at me because I parked too close to her. She was in her car literally shouting at me the whole time I adjusted the park. When I fixed it she rolled down her window and I did the same. She said "You idiot! You were gonna hit me!" My response was "If I wanted to hit you, I would have."
Like a week later she got into a car accident after rolling through a stop light and lost her license. Karma's a B! Wild__Gringo
11. A Lampoon Vaca....
Family camping trip near the beach in Assateague with 2 couples and our young children. We had a great time until a huge family reunion took all the camping spots around us. Probably 30 adults and 10+ young kids. No problem, we're all on vacation so sure, stay up, drink, party on- whatever. They were another level of loud, arguing, all night long music, fireworks & general craziness. Worse, they put all their children's tent way the hell over on the other side of our two tents.
Every night, they would send their kids( with the older kids as minders) to their tents and those kids cried, screamed, fought and beat each other. Some ran to us for help and we went to the adult group to let them know. They couldn't have cared less. When we left three days hence, my husband and our friend took all our leftover cookies, crackers and bread and spread it through their campsite early in the morning. They called it land chumming and it was glorious. Like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Antsy38
10. Frat Down!
Not mine but my parents back when they were dating in high school Maui. My father got recruited in a fraternity and they do hazing and crap which is illegal. He couldn't get out of the group as he was threatened. Whenever there's a meeting, my dad would tell my mom and my mom would call the local authorities she would tip their location in exchange, they would let my dad run 😂 it happened several times and they disbanded because of that 🙏 hibiscusity
9. Hello... Crime Stoppers?
An uncle of mine was a serious drug addict and an all around a**hole. When I was a kid it was pretty common for him to steal from my grandparents, including a lot of things they intended to give me when I was older (a coin collection, things like that). There's a long list of things he did over the course of my life to piss me off, but I'll skip to the petty revenge.
I was browsing the local county website and noticed there was a section for active warrants. I wondered if any familiar names were listed so I browsed it and to my complete lack of surprise, I saw my uncle's name listed for something minor. Then I saw the Crime Stoppers number at the top of the page. I knew where he was living at the time and it was anonymous, so what the hell? I called, described him and told them where he was. They gave me a reference number and told me to call back in two weeks.
For the sake of being thorough, I called a relative from the other side of the family who, funny enough, was not only a cop but also in charge of following up on these things. I told him the situation and he said he'd prioritize it.
Two weeks later I call Crime Stoppers for an update and they said the tip did indeed lead to an arrest and asked which post office I preferred. I was confused but I named one. They gave me an alias, told me to give that name to the clerk and there would be a general delivery envelope with $200 cash inside. That part was unexpected but a sweet bonus for sure.
Easiest $200 I ever made. thelivinlegend
7. The Tailgate Avenger!
This was actually the other week. Me and some "friends" drove 5 1/2 hours to another town to watch our university play another. I was going around to hang out with my friends from home, and on the day of the game the ones I came with all ghosted me. They didn't talk to me, left me on read, would decline my calls, etc. So I didn't get my football tickets.
I reported their car for being parked in a Walmart parking lot for over 24 hours and it got towed, so they had to go get their car back while I drove back with another group of students. Insectshelf3
6. Spooned You!
I had a roommate who used a lot of spoons (he ate a lot of pudding, soup, ice cream, yogurt, etc) and would never wash his dishes. I was tired of washing his dishes so I let them pile up in the sink until we got to the last spoon. This one I washed and hid in my room each time I used it. pbfh33
5. Wet your appetite...
Girl told me (not ask) to buy her a drink in college, not against buying a girl a drink but I like to be friends with them or at least offer them first. I said I didn't know her and she starts cursing me out. So I order two shots, I take mine and hand her one and say I felt bad now. Once she reaches out to grab it, I pull it back towards me and take it. The look on her face was amazing. soupoftheday5
4. The Free Spot.
When I rented, the parking lot was assigned parking. My wife and I both had cars so I had to pay extra for the extra spot. First one was complimentary.
We come home around 1am and some idiot is parked in my spot. Not having it, and not wanted to deal with an overnight parking ban on the street, I park behind him perpendicularly to block him in my spot. My neighboring spot was my caretakers, who was the chillest guy I've ever rented from. Shot him a text explaining and to call me if he needed out before me in the morning. He laughed and said all was good.
After about an hour of watching tv I go out for a smoke. Notice this guys car is running. I watch him frantically at 2am looking around for who's car it is. He sees me and starts yelling about it, not knowing it's mine. Says he just wants to go home and doesn't understand why some people gotta be such a**holes. I tell him maybe the owner of the car was mad cuz you were in his spot. Told him some people pay extra monthly for another spot. He gives up and goes back into his buddies unit. I go to inside and go to bed.
Come out in the morning to go out for a bit, guy is sitting on his buddies doorstep. I wave and get in my car and leave. Made that a**hole sit trapped all night till 9am. The look on his face as I entered my car was priceless. SearsActivewear
3. Monster in Law...
My mother in law has a habit of showing up a day earlier than agreed upon. We've had to cancel plans because of her shenanigans.
When our kids were younger one day my husband made plans with MIL and told her repeatedly that he and I were busy the day before. Two days before the agreed visit she messages saying she's excited to see us "tomorrow," hubby reminds her "Saturday, we're busy tomorrow."
Anyway Friday happens. Hubby goes to a work event and is unable to be contacted most of the day. My plans are cancelled due to one of the kids throwing up. Nap time rolls around, I settle the kids down and go to enjoy some quiet internet time when there's a knock at the door. We don't open the lounge blinds a lot because of nosy apartment neighbors, so I was safe from sight. I checked the peephole in case it was the postie, but nah, my mother in law I'm all her annoying glory.
I silently deadbolt the door, sneak to the back door and check the locks. Then I snuggled into my bed with my kids, to keep them calm in case the knocking woke then. I checked the peephole after an hour and saw her sulking on the front step clearly trying to reach hubby in the phone.
Except I had messaged him "your mum is here, I'm ignoring her." So he knew why she was calling and ignored her completely. She finally left just before the kids woke from their nap.
The next day when she arrived she asked what I did the day before and I said "nothing. I was home all day." maybebabyg
2. Shovel It!
GiphyBack when I lived in DC, one winter we had ~2ft of snow in a single storm. All the area near me was street parking. Decide to go to the store to pick up some new groceries and start to shovel out my car. couple minute drive to the store, so I hope to be out and back before I can lose the spot. a couple minutes after I start, a lady in one of those Infinity SUVs pulls up and idles 20 ft down the road from me as I shovel. After 15 mins of her idling and several thousand pounds of snow moved, its obvious she is going to take the spot the second I leave.
I decide after all that hard work, I had better eat and warm up before thinking about going to the store and head inside. Drak_is_Right
1. Gotcha!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!
I called the bakery I used to work at and asked for my boss/owner who verbally berated me for six months for a super complex cake order. After wasting about 30 minutes of her time, I told her I wanted custom lettering on the cake. I then told her I wanted it to say "I reported you to the IRS for payroll tax fraud :)".
They sold their business about three months ago. thesixwalkingfarts
This is amazing. c_girl_108
Complex cake order? sanveers7
There are surprisingly a lot of moving parts to a catered cake order. You have to find space in your delivery schedule, you have to calculate the materials cost to engineer the structure of the cake so the tier below isn't crushed in transit or just sitting around. You have to make sure there is a two person team.
I ordered a custom french cake known for its many layers with a heavier chocolate and large macaron on top of it. I ordered custom decorations and specific fruit layers (which can ruin the wafer layers if not done properly). At my former employer, you had to coordinate with the american bakers, french bakers, the cookie decorators, the engineer/chocolatier to make a cake like this. thesixwalkingfarts
Companies are typically in business for profit, and very few have the goal of keeping the customer's interests in mind.
But some corporations go even further to get more out of their customer in exchange for their "quality services" and as a result, the line between general business and scam becomes blurred.
Redditor jwwin asked:
"What is a predatory business that shouldn't be legal, but is?"
Students paying an exorbitant amount in tuition in order to seek higher learning should be warned there are additional expenses to cover for.
A Textbook Example
"College textbooks, they will release an 'updated' edition every semester but the information doesn't change. And then after you spent a fortune on the books the places that buy textbooks will give you like 5% of what you paid for the book."
– teethalarm
A "Double Whammy"
"Former Prof here. I talked with a book rep about this once and learned a lot. It is a bit complicated but worth understanding. Book publishers rely on large quantity sales to make any money on a book because the cost of production is so high up front (author, editors, printing, etc.). So, for a book to be profitable, it has to sell a lot of copies to spread the cost of production across all the books. A paperback in the fiction section might sell 100,000 or more. A textbook might sell as few as 1,000. So, the publisher needs everyone to buy the book to break even."
"Now add colleges into the mix. Somewhere in the 1980s (give or take), colleges saw publishers selling books and making larger profits on them than the college bookstore was making per book. So they got the bright idea to start buying used texts and reselling them. Before that, a text would come out and 97% (making the number up but it was close to that) of the students would buy the book in year one, 85% in year two, 75% in year three, 60% in year four and 50% in year five. A $50 dollar book would cost $25 to make (again, making the numbers up), sell to the bookstore for $40 ($15 publisher profit), and be sold to the student for $50 ($10 bookstore profit). Across the five years, the producer would make a profit."
"Then, college bookstores began offering students $25 for a used book and selling it for $40 ($15 profit - $5 higher than that of a new book). Students would then prefer the $40 used book over the $50 new book. But that cut the publisher's sales from 97% to 50% in the first year. Because they could not sell as many books they had to do two things: (1) raise the initial price of the text to cover the production cost in 1-2 years rather than 4-5 years, and (2) cut the cycle down from 4-5 years to 1-2 years to ensure that they got sales of the book. That is a double whammy. Texts that used to cost $50 now cost $300 or more. And they have a new version out every 18 months or so. Students refuse to pay that price and that cuts the sales numbers even further forcing the price up again. And, with new editions out so frequently, it is harder to sell them back to the bookstore."
"That's why you see so many 'course packs' now - where a professor will pick a few pages from a book to give to the students. I went from having nearly every student purchasing a text in my early career to having zero students with a text late in my career. Your professor probably dislikes the state of affairs as much as you do. I cut down what books I would select because I could not justify students paying that much for what they were getting. I would also recommend students look for older editions on Amazon and the like which got me in trouble with my administration because I was not supporting the bookstore. But, it was difficult to teach from a text that no one had or had access to. The University's desire to generate revenue from texts truly was killing the chicken because it was not producing enough eggs."
"So look for an older edition on Chegg, Amazon, or the like and match it up with what your professor is teaching from the new edition. You are right, it probably has not changed. Be careful for the problems at the end of the chapter - that is often where the changes are."
– BewnieBound
These businesses parade as services but they are notorious for taking more than what you're willing to pay for.
For A Future Owner
"Rent to Own (furniture, appliances, TVs, video game systems, etc.) The mark up on the interest over time ends up costing 4 times the purchase - or more."
– PartyAlarmed3796
"Well the trick is to not pay (seems to be what a lot of people do)."
– Expensive_Ad2695
"Which is why those places are so expensive and why they're actually kinda necessary for some people."
"They're taking a pretty big risk on people with no credit, and if a person with shi*ty credit needs a refrigerator or other necessary appliance, there's usually nobody else willing to work with them. Also, most of them report to credit agencies so you can build your credit through them."
"I'm not a fan by any means and I hate that people are buying video game systems and couches through them, but I still think they're filling a need."
– Pitiful-Pension-6535
Money Sucker
"Payday loan companies – they're like financial vampires, sucking the life out of people with high-interest rates."
– neonliolia
"And yet most of them are owned by major banks... hmmmm."
"Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank, JP Morgan/Chase collectively all own the largest payday lender companies."
– Bramtyre
"In Canada, there is an effort to turn Canada Post into a kind of bank that offers basic banking services to the most vulnerable. Not sure what happened to that, but it was an alternative to check cashing and payday loan rackets."
– hobbitlover
Greedy Event Vendor
"Ticket Master."
– LTVOLT
"Agreed. We went to a preseason hockey game the other week. Tickets were $5 each but there was around $8 of Ticketmaster fees for each one and you had to use their app to get in the door because the barcodes change like every 30 seconds or something. It's ridiculous."
– darfus1895
Where can citizens turn to receive genuine care without drying up their financial resources?
Big Pharma
"Health Insurance and over priced perscription drugs."
"Wife is type 1 diabetic. Her pump is over $1000 a month WITH 50% coverage. $177 for just the sensor pack. We have the best coverage we can afford."
– Dukeboys_
"US pays the middle man for health care coverage. The middle man and the health care provider come up with "health packages" you can buy into, just in case you get sick. It's just sick how they funnel money from the middle class into this."
– dcoolidge
"Healthcare insurance industry. They can straight up reject claims you should be covered for and make you jump through near endless hoops to get them to pay for the service that is part of your plan."
– ColdHardPocketChange
All Out To Get Ya
"Homeopathic 'medicine' sellers."
"Psychics"
"Domain search engine registration scams (fake emails or physical mail that shows up saying 'your domain search registration is about to expire' and look exactly like warnings that your domain name is about to expire)"
"Fake homeowner warranty/car warranty scams loaded with so many limitations and exclusions they’ll basically never pay out."
"Multilevel marketing systems like Amway."
– 4wqrewtety
Losing Sight Of Kids' Well-Being
"From my experience working in group homes for youth are awful. The owners only want money and the more kids in care the more money."
– OddReputation3765
Going Nowhere Fast
"Car insurance."
"You get penalized for using it. Even just once in some cases."
– Effective_Sundae_839
"1000% agree. I was rear ended by a hit and run driver while i was stopped at a stop sign. Literally came to a stop for 3 seconds max and got destroyed. Car insurance wanted to give me 4k and shut me up. It’s called the nuisance fee. I eventually lawyered up and got 25k out of it. But like wtf. B*tch that’s what we PAY FOR, following renewal of my policy it increased hundreds of dollars a month and that was even after i switched to a different company. 'A claim is a claim regardless who is at fault.'”
– HitBackZach
Businesses taking advantage of their customers should be a crime, yet here we are.
What companies can you think of that legally continue to look after their own profitable interests above providing a decent service?
