Redditor Brianna6871 wanted to compare notes on what makes us all... over it, so they asked:
"What has caused you to become bitter?"
Becoming bitter is easy. I try to fight against it.
Loyalty is overrated...
Happy Season 5 GIF by The OfficeGiphy"Being with my company for 8 years then finding out new people that I trained make more than me."
km8907
"If it makes you feel any better, this is very common. Loyalty is overrated. The more you stay, the more they take you for granted. I also made the same mistake."
sensiferum
K.I.T
"Attempting to stay in contact with friends and then realizing they wouldn’t do the same for you once you stop."
Snowgoosey
"I agree. I used (and still do, to some extent) to have the mentality of 'don't make it into a competition, if you care about someone- contact them!'" And I did. But after 10 times of being the one initiating the conversation I just wonder if they'd bother to do the same."
"Each time they say 'I've been meaning to call you!' and they never do. And I'm talking good friends who share history together, not someone I met a month ago at the gym. I still love them of course, but this bugs me and leaves a bitter taste whenever I think of them."
Michelle_Evelyn
Hard Pills
"Expectations. I had these expectations about how life was supposed to go, how I was supposed to be. Life didn't work out that way, and I know it was my own doing by having those expectations, but I'm still bitter about it."
edgarpickle
"I find that going from 'promising and intelligent young person' to 'average middle-aged man' has been a hard pill to swallow that snuck up on me. I will say that having a young child and great partner still gives me lots of joy and hope."
GarconMeansBoyGeorge
Burned Out
"Working in healthcare."
RemoteForeign3300
"Worked a decade in healthcare, seven years in the military and three as a civilian. Every professional I ever met, from the doctor on down to the nursing assistant, was burned out and sick of seeing patients. It was amazing I stayed as long as I did."
BroScience4LYFE
"Yes, I feel like part of me changed drastically because of this. Don't get me wrong, I really like to work in a hospital but sometimes it make me lose faith in humanity."
Yeny356
Life
Angry Aubrey Plaza GIF by Parks and RecreationGiphy"Aging and realizing that good, kind people suffer and die far more often than the sh**heads of the world."
Josephdirte
Aging is a good thing but can be sad. Who doesn't miss the past?
Nothing to do...
I Have No Idea Reaction GIF by MTV Movie & TV AwardsGiphy"After realizing that hard work is not fairly rewarded. Someone else who is lazier and/or less competent can get something that you wanted/deserved, and there's nothing you can do about it."
kofed62181
The End
"The death of my wife."
Pitbull60usa
"I’m with you. My husband died 3 years and 4 days ago at the age of 42. It’s not just that your favourite person and best friend in the world is gone. It’s that everything you thought would be your future is gone too."
"Cancer f**king sucks."
Intelligent-Low6442
"Dude I'm so sorry I couldn't imagine. Just know she wouldn't want you to be bitter at the world. She would want you to be happy, easier said then done but do some s**t for you man maybe take a trip or something."
"Nothing will ever change the pain, but shaking life up might at least mix it up with other emotions. All the love!!"
knowledge-is-power91
The Past
"Realizing my childhood trauma left me unable to form meaningful relationships and now I have to invest a crap ton of money and time to maybe (!) achieve some sort of progress and peace. I envy the people who grew up with loving parents and have the confidence to choose good friends, partners and look at life with hope."
whatdrivesme_insane
Worse and worse...
"The unshakable hopelessness that the world is only getting worse and worse. No matter what we do to try and better ourselves financially will be met with some new corporate bullshi**ery that will knock us back down. I'm losing my motivation to keep pressing forward. I just want to retreat into my apartment and do what makes me happy until I die."
"Working on my masters in education right now, and as much as I want to teach in school, all the horror stories I see all over the place are making me wonder if this is the right choice. It really feels like I'm jumping into a bureaucratic hellhole, but I've invested this much time, money, and energy into this career that I have to see it through."
Cedrico123
Trust Fail
"My ex cheated on me. My job told me a bunch of lies to get me in the door and now I feel mistreated. Housing is a nightmare and landlords just take your application money and give the place to someone else. It feels like everybody is just out for themselves and I can’t trust what anyone says. I’m tired."
exhale358
Oh Humanity
Good Night No GIF by Robert E BlackmonGiphy"People."
JimAbaddon
"The general public has gotten so much worse over the years. I really dislike having to interact."
NCBadAsp
Life can certainly get us down. Even if we try squeezing the lemons into lemonade, you tend to get some pulp in your eye.
Do you have any experiences to share? Let us know in the comments
Redditor Downtown_Put8673 wanted to see who was willing to share stories about one of life's most harrowing experiences. They asked:
"People who had their nudes leaked/sexually exploited, how did it affect your life?"
WARNING!! This piece is intended for mature (over 17) audiences.
Also... if you find yourself victim to this crime or a similar crime... call 911.
I'm hyper vigilant about cameras now. I do scans of rooms. You can't be too careful.
Votes In
Voting Donald Trump GIF by Election 2016Giphy"Realized I can never run for political office, figured that was good and moved on." ~ Pandoras_Fate
No Face
"I never showed my face so when word got around I just had to say they wasn’t mine remember team no face no case." ~ hiddenkittenkitchen
"Oh there's a joke I remember: A Christian Priest and a Rabbi go bathing naked in a remote lake. As they go out again a group with 50 local people appears."
"In shame, the priest covers his private parts and the Rabbi covers his face. Covered, they run in the bushes to put on their clothes. While doing so the Christian Priest asks the Rabbi: 'Why did you cover your face?' The Rabbi replies: 'I don't know about you, but my people recognize me by my face.'" ~ mumpped
Hackers
"Someone stole my husbands phone, broke into it and uploaded all the pictures he had of me onto my husbands own Instagram. So it wasn’t some random strangers seeing these pictures, it was our own friends and family."
"It was so embarrassing, I must have got 50 phone calls that night asking what was going on and why would my husband post all these naked pictures of me 🤦🏻♀️."
"I was pretty embarrassed for awhile and it was awkward running into some of the people I who saw them. But thankfully none of them were to to crazy and now it’s just something we can all laugh about." ~ Shelby2255
The EX
"Haven’t had this done to me personally, but had an employee’s vengeful ex send photos of her doing very explicit things to me. I had to pull her in to my office and tell her. She was mortified. I reassured her she did nothing wrong, he was a fool and that she had nothing to be embarrassed of."
"I think she was worried it would have a professional impact but I never said anything to anyone and it never changed my opinion of her."
"ETA: the ex sent photos to me of her doing very explicit things. I realize now that was a bit confusing." ~ BeeboGodOfWar
Leaked
"My journal wasn’t ‘leaked’ but my gf’s sister and her friends (one was a ex) all knew about it and told my gf. Had no idea how long they knew about it but you do lose a sense of privacy. I found out they knew when I wrote that I a girl I was friends with was hot and my gf phoned me in hysterics but wouldn’t tell me why." ~ Norfsouf
Wow. Some people really suck. Why would you do this to another person? Again... FELONY!
Triggers
"PTSD and dropping out of college... looking at my own face in the mirror is triggering, showering is triggering, changing clothes, even just trying to go to the bathroom (i subconsciously started skin picking bc i was terrified to go to the bathroom)."
"When I’m not having flashbacks I’m stuck with brain fog. I was left unable to comprehend my classes, which led to me dropping out. There probably won’t be an arrest, it’s an international case so it’s out of the FBI’s jurisdiction, no way to say how long it’ll take before there’s some 'resolution.'" ~ dissociatingginger
Being Nude
"Finally a question I can answer... I had an ex send out nudes of me after I broke up with him. We were a gay couple, so you can imagine the pictures he took of me during various times. Anyway, instead of getting mad or pretending it didn't happen, I invited my friends over to makes jokes about it."
"I poked fun at myself, my average member and let them also have at it. I feel like that really cleared the air and I moved on with my life. Being seen nude is really not a big deal, we all basically look the same. I was not going to let that bring me down." ~ Samisoy001
Damn Friends List
"Male here. What I thought was a mutual tinder match-turned-zoom call-phone-sex turned out to be a scammer who threatened to release my half of the video to all my Facebook friends. At the time my FB was fairly public, so they did indeed have access to my friends list, which they showed me."
"And also showed me a link to the video. I ended up paying their ransom of 200 USD to a western union account in the Philippines. To their benefit, nothing happened with the video and to this day they have kept their word to not send it to everyone on my FB."
"I have now made my entire FB private so only friends can see anything including my info and friends list. My one friend that I told got a good laugh out of it, because when I told him of my successful zoom-sex he’s like 'wait til you find out it was a scammer lol' and he was right."
"The worst part about it was that when I woke up the following day to their demand texts, I had to get to a dentist appointment. So i was very rushed to turn on my computer, set up a WU account, and send it. And then head off to my dentist like I wasn’t just the victim of a sex crime." ~ germanfinder
Thief
"I had a phone stolen which contained very explicit videos of my very hot girlfriend and me (average looking male). The person who stole the phone was someone we knew, and she made the video public. Turns out no one cared, and the video didn't even get many views. It still affected my girl for a while, and she broke up with me because she blamed me for it, but she came back and nothing happened in the end." ~ Kriskao
Bad Quality
Seth Meyers Whatever GIF by Late Night with Seth MeyersGiphy"I'm sure i have a sextape out there. When I was 22 I had a phone where I recorded myself having sex with my ex-gf and other girls that were okay with it. Someone stole it and I didn't have a passcode in there. The video quality was really crappy back then so i think its fine." ~ alpacameat
The Ex Helper
"So its not something personally experienced but someone about 2 year ago slid into my DMs asking about my ex gf went something like this:"
"Hey man are you X's ex BF?"
"Uhh yea who is asking?"
"Cool I was wondering if you had any pictures of her i can buy off of you?"
"Wtf no f**k off"
"Proceeded to send my ex the screenshots letting her know one of her followers knew me and asked this. She thanked me and i didn't speak to her for another year and a half." ~ Big_Management2375
“lockdown”
"Not me but a classmate was dating another classmate and he was a real piece of crap to her. He ended up pressuring her into sending inappropriate photos to him. (This was circa 2008 or so, when camera flip phones were the peak of cellphone technology and most of us had one as high school students in rural Midwest)."
"Well, since this guy was/is a horrible person, he obviously shared these photos with some of the other equally crappy boys in our class during school, and I’m not sure how but administration found out. They put the entire school on 'lockdown' and did a phone search, confiscating any phones that were on or in our pockets (school policy at the time was no cellphone usage during school hours, had to be turned off, not on silent, and in our cars or lockers)."
"I think they were able to stop it from going school wide but he ended up getting in huge trouble. I felt awful for her, and she was not the type that would do that, but this guy also convinced her she was not skinny enough so she’d eat 1 or 2 saltines for lunch. Happy ending for her: she’s married to an amazing guy now and they have a few kids." ~ shrimpsauce91
Topless
Fight Boxing GIF by Harlem GlobetrottersGiphy"I went to Sandals Jamaica with someone I work with and he released a top less photo if me to everyone in my company." ~ milenpatel
Last order of protection...
"A guy I dated for 6 months ended up stalking me for 10 years, mostly through the internet. Bizarrely (he is an insane person) he would threaten to leak a video we made together to the lawyers who were building a case with me, against him. Essentially threatening to commit an illegal act to the court. Last order of protection- my lawyer asked me to confirm the person in screen shot was me. I was 8 month pregnant, tears streaming down face, 34 years old, literally 15 years after I met this person and the shame was overwhelming." ~ cocofix6
I Hate Him
"My ex-husband sent around my nudes when he was angry with me. I didn't find out until a year later. I was devastated that none of the people who received them told me what he'd done, or even told him how messed up it was. I ended a lot of friendships because of it, which was sad for me, but those friends were toxic and I'm better off. This was 7 years ago and I still have a lot of anxiety about it, because I really don't know and never will know how much those photos got around."
"I all but completely dropped out of my favorite hobby, too. I was a competitive bridge player, traveling to dozens of tournaments a year and competing at an elite level. My ex works for the league, and most of the people he sent the photos to were other bridge players and coworkers of his. When I asked the league to help keep him away from me so that I could continue to play, they said this was a personal dispute and they wouldn't get involved."
"That infuriated me because he had sent the photos to coworkers while he was working, and admitted doing so. I wasn't asking them to fire him or relocate him, just to schedule him in places and events that I don't play. It wasn't a big ask at all and they completely blew me off. I let my membership lapse and haven't played competitively since 2017. "
"Bridge used to be my whole life. I'm absolutely, unquestionably better off now, living my best life away from that scene, but I'll always hate that I didn't get out on my own terms. I am mostly emotionally healed, but every time there is a celebrity leak, I get really triggered, and I lose respect for anyone who shares stuff like that." ~ jianantonic
My Scribbles
"Male here. Didn’t have nudes leaked, would’ve preferred it honestly, but had my journal in Apple Notes leaked onto social media. Completely took away my sense of privacy." ~ Vic_FriesFriesFries
Sex Positive
"They ended up on all sorts of sites and I ended up spammed with friend requests from random people from it. People I know have stumbled across the leaked ones and very few judged me for them, they only judged my ex. I'm lucky to have a lot of sex positive people around me so there was no shame for me. My employers also couldn't care less." ~ mzblueberryk
Maybe Vice?
"Got catfished years ago when that crap was new. Videos of me (M) were put up on a gay site. The person that put them up also showed me they put them up. I sent in a notice to have them taken down but I’m sure there are plenty still floating around. Tbh it was a little flattering but I still would prefer for them not to exist. Can’t run for President now I guess." ~ uberjam
Life Change
"Actually helped me in the long run. Got me fired. Which got me to reevaluate my life and get back in school. Happier than I have been in years." ~ notpornforonce
Power
"It did not. Once you show people they have no grasp on you, they can't use anything on you." ~ RevolutionaryHair91
"Probably the only thing we should learn from Jeff Bezos. When a sleazy magazine tried to blackmail him over NSFW texts between him and his mistress, he slammed them in public." ~ Sphereian
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"What minor inconvenience do you wish upon your worst enemy?"
Minor bodily discomforts can be a splendid idea.
Invasion Of The Crack
"Long loose hairs in their underwear and that cringey feeling when it gets in their butt."
– AzureTerrace
Evil Crumbs
"After every meal, you get something stuck in your teeth, and you don’t have any way of getting it out."
– -PlugUgly
When they just can't seem to catch a break, it's like a little present.
Incomplete Meal
"May the Chik-fil-a employee forget to give you Chik-fil-a sauce with your meal (you REALLY wanted it) and may you only realize this after having driven 20 minutes away."
– Uruk-HiThere
No Spot For You
"That every 'available' parking spot at the packed mall/grocery store has a mini car in it."
– Auslan02
A Spider's Journey
"That feeling when you're out walking and inexplicably walk face first into some strands of a spider's web even though you're in a relatively open space."
"You wipe at your face but now you've got the eternal feeling of web strands behind your ear, in your hair, on the nape of your neck."
"You open hand wipe again, chicken claw it, try to trace the line with a single digit. None of it is any good."
"Maybe the spider came away with the bit of web when you walked into it? It could be in your hair right now. Maybe it's laying eggs at this very moment. Maybe one day a distant civilisation will find your perfectly preserved head encased in centuries old gossamer web."
"There it is again. Behind your ear. You don't even raise your hand this time. It's all over. This is your life now."
– HumphreyGo-Kart
Bad tech can do your evil bidding.
STOP
"I hope that every traffic light turns red for them right as they reach it."
– Nintendevotion
No Snooze For The Wicked
"Waking up 30 mins before their alarm clock every morning."
– Ccaster0620
"I'm your worst enemy? This happens to me every day."
– Slight-Ad-1744
Bad Insertion
"Their USB cable is the right way around after 5 tries."
– furstimus
Inaccessible Tune
"Every time they get in their car, their favorite song is going off, they are always in a safe place but their cellphone service won’t work so they can’t play it in their car."
"And if they have the cd, the scratch is only on that song and skips to the very end."
– ParticularWatermelon
A little bit of pain is punishment enough.
Just a little.
Tiny Daggers
"Tiny Invisible splinter between two toes."
– AlgaeWafers
So Full Of It
"Anus inflammation so he can't sh*t and then finds out how full of sh*t he is."
– ddelGuy
Redditors here are definitely highly imaginative, and the forms of punishments were pure evil.
I, however, don't have it in me to come up with such creative tactics to get back at a nemesis.
But how awesome would it be if someone who truly irked me went to Panda Express, and every time they ordered their favorite, Orange Chicken, it's sold out?
Yeah, pretty awesome. Mwa-hahaha (twiddles fingers menacingly).
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Love is crazy. I've finally come to that conclusion. And marriage, you take your life in your hands and just throw caution to the wind in hopes of survival with that step.
When love falls apart, things can get real messy, real fast. And I've always been stunned by people's behavior when love subsides.
More often than not, it's like they become different people. Sometimes people are beset by tragedy and grief and sometimes people smile wide and move on. It's a coin toss.
But my favorite post-divorce personality has to be the sudden supervillain. Oh honey, watch out for them!
Redditor u/hyperyog wanted to hear all the tea from the divorcees out there by asking:
Divorced Redditors, what is the craziest thing you or your former spouse did after divorce?
I once had a friend who burned her ex's house down when he wasn't home. He had started seeing someone almost immediately, so she thought, lemme set their sparks. Yeah, she wasn't well. Whatever happened to just a quick goodbye?
Swiped
dean winters crying GIF by MayhemGiphy"She removed the retaining clips for my windshield wipers, but put the wipers back on the arms. First storm after I got my car back from her, driver side wiper flew off the car on Interstate 40. Good times."
Sicko!
"He wrote suicide notes and put them in my kids backpacks for them/me to find. Then he turned off his phone and went to a coworkers house to play crib and have drinks.. all the while knowing I would be freaking out searching for him thinking he was in danger or worse. Thankfully my kids didn't see the notes and didn't know what was going on. This was just one of the many, many crazy things he did. Two years out and he just recently stopped showing up at my work and driving by my house at night."
A Sad End
"Died of a drug overdose. To be fair, her drug addiction was the reason for the divorce, so maybe that isn't too crazy."
"That's so incredibly difficult to have gone through. I unfortunately know the depths of this kind of pain, and while I'm sure the circumstances surrounding it are different, the loss that still happened is a tragedy. My condolences."
Bye Girl
"Stalked me for 5 years. Would make fake social media profiles to try to follow me (which I would block endlessly) and would try to find where I worked so she could talk to me. This lady cheated on me with 7 different men 2 months after we were married. I kicked her a** to the curb and made her sign the court papers."
"When we had our day in court she cried in the judges office while I just wanted to get this crap done. After, my dad was with me and he threw 50 dollars at her and told her to "change your freaking last name." Good guy Pops. I haven't seen or heard from her in about 5 years, thank goodness."
- Letharos
Take it All!
skin care spinning GIF by Primal Life OrganicsGiphy"I had an ex-boyfriend go through my apartment and take back every gift he had given me that he could find. Then he went in my bedside table and took the condoms. And the vibrator he had given me."
See now, when I'm out... I'm out! I don't want to see you, hear from you or know you. I wish you well in life, but please live it far from me. Anyone agree? Clearly not the people here. Let's continue...
For the Boy
bicycling father and son GIF by NETFLIXGiphy"All I wanted was custody of my son, I gave her everything else except one of our cars. She fought me through 5 hearings, I won. She never came to see him again."
Dangerous Woman
"My ex cheated on me the week my mom died in the hospital. She spent a year and a half trying to get in touch with me. She would call my old work and make fake accounts trying to message me on FB. It was insane. She later sends a certified letter explaining she was sorry that she did what she did and that she aborted our child."
"Wanted me to meet her somewhere so she could apologize face to face. She already married some other guy that she had children with and was still trying to get in touch with me. I never understood her."
- orstius
People Break Down The Creepiest Research Holes They've Ever Fallen Down | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Be Gone
"After years of telling me she wanted a child, that she wanted to be a mom, that her life's dream was to be a stay at home mom, she got pregnant with the first guy she slept with while we were getting divorced and put the kid up for adoption even before it was born. This was a long-standing thing with her, she always wanted something (car, house, dog, cat, marriage, etc) and the second she got it she immediately hated it."
The "Actor"!
"Called me and pretended he had been hit by a car while we were talking. He even tried to voice the crowd that had gathered around his "body." God-awful acting, but pretty funny listening to him try to mimic a woman's voice. Points for trying to be inclusive, I guess."
"I think he was trying to get me to re-live my trauma of being on the phone with a friend who actually HAD been hit by a car while we were talking. Too bad he didn't realize that hearing the real thing is worlds different than hearing a dumba** try to act it out."
Money Blues
"I was sending 600 dollars a month to support my daughter because she's the only thing I give a sh!t about. My ex texts me and tells me I need to be sending 1200 a month because she's broke and can't pay her bills and I should feel guilty about it. She left me for another guy while I was on deployment I told her to go screw herself--call my lawyer."
Pop Off
Tom Hanks Drinking GIF by The Good FilmsGiphy"Took the sodas from the fridge as he walked out the door. Dumfounded."
"character witness"
"My ex stole a car and did 18 months in state prison. Based on what I was able to find online at the time, he approached a car dealership and showed interest in buying a vehicle. They allowed him to take it home for a 24 hour demo. He never returned it."
"They reported it stolen after they attempted multiple times to contact him to return it. They then contacted the state police who put a BOLO out. They found him driving the vehicle on the other side of the state where he thought he wouldn't be found. I found out when I got an unexpected phone call from the sheriff's office."
"I asked why they were calling me about this. They said my ex I told them I would vouch for him as a "character witness." I told the officer over the phone that my ex was a lying sack of crap and shouldn't be trusted. The officer laughed, thanked me for my time and hung up."
- NeonBird
He's Awful
"Completely ignored our three children for the last ten years while living with a woman and her three children. Did I mention, our oldest is HIS from a previous relationship, who I was awarded custody of, and he is her only living biological parent?!"
- nicunta
Pooped!
"Mom's friend was getting divorced, wife was staying in the house, but left so the husband could gather his things, without her there, as he moved out. While packing, he gave the dog a laxative and locked her in the master bedroom. Poor girl had explosive Malamute diarrhea EVERYWHERE."
"She was so upset about her accidents that she tried to dig through the door. That dog was such a good girl, it broke my heart. Luckily, the wife kept the dog and the husband was convicted of animal abuse charges, which helped the wife keep custody of the kids."
Good Dude
Ron Swanson GIF by Parks and RecreationGiphy"Here's a more wholesome and true one. He had Sunday dinners with my mom for many years after our divorce. He never had a real mom (long story), so I didn't mind sharing mine as long as I didn't have to be there."
Where to Begin?
"Laundry list- but my favourite was his sister sent a Facebook message to all of his contacts the day of our separation (including my family). Before we announced anything, her message stated everyone should immediately delete me and if I said anything about why we separated I was lying and not to listen. Basically this created a lot of curious questions and a lot of laughs."
- kriso921
When on Reddit!!
"She would stalk my Reddit account and angrily text me if she didn't like my posts talking about her cheating on me. I came home from seeing my grandmother on her death bed and found she had cheated. She also texted me accusing me of sabotaging her attempts to get a job that requires a security clearance. Apparently it was my fault and not the fact she had already been denied a security clearance for mental instability."
Mom used Me
"My mom went out and got braces put on my teeth, that I didn't really need, knowing my dad would have to pay half for them and wanting to cause him financial heartache. She then proceeded to not take me to the Ortho for the routine care because he wasn't paying his half."
"And I ended up having to pull the braces off my own teeth at age 14 because they were falling off on their own. Ended up rotting several of my adult molars too. It's cost me thousands of dollars and serious self-conscious issues over my smile/lack of teeth as an adult."
- Bmorehon
Burned
Angela Bassett Burn GIFGiphy"My ex-wife told me I could leave my stuff in our house while I found somewhere else to stay. I assumed this was a good-will effort to keep things as amicable as possible between us. When I went to get my stuff she had burned it all. So that was rough."
EVIL VILLAIN!
"My divorce was pretty amicable… but a previous boyfriend took one of each pair of my patterned socks so I had no matching pairs."
"This is what i would do to my wife if we were ever on the outs. Maybe mail one back every few weeks or something."
See, I blame Alanis Morissette and her "Jagged Little Pill" album. All I'm going to say is... the secret song. I think she gave people ideas. (I love that song) Y'all, seek therapy if you can't shake people. When it's done, let it be done.
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I got ten calls today alone. So that counts as a slow day. Usually they taper off as the week winds down. Does anyone know anything about this EDU education opportunity? I could care less. I don't have the energy to fight with them but I could be inspired.
Meow...
cat lady meow GIF by America's Funniest Home VideosGiphyI once meowed at a scam caller. They asked me to repeat myself, so I meowed at them again. Then they meowed back and I didn't know what to do so I hung up.
A New Number
I tell them the phone is about to go dead and to call my other line. I give them the state attorney general's office phone number.
I've done a similar gag with giving them the Federal Trade Commission's 800# scam reporting hotline. There's one scam that calls me a lot, where they ask for the phone number on the back of your credit card for some reason.
One lady actually had the audacity to come back from having me on hold and said, "Sorry sir, that's the number for the FTC. I need the number for your bank."
Scamming the Scam
Just act like you're also a scam call.
One time I did a conference call with 2 tech support scammers and I just stayed silent. It was incredibly funny.
Broken Words
I put on my mother's broken English accent and make them talk as slowly as possible, and repeat themselves by rewording things I say I don't understand. They stay on a lot longer than you'd expect.
This is why education is so important. With that, I mean, spend some time with your elderly and less IT literate family members and friends.
No need to form a classroom, just show them what to look for and teach them some of the warning signs.
Or if you want to have some fun, do what James Veitch does. Reply to that scam email, play along during the scam call, have some fun with them and waste their time. Because for every minute they spend wasting time on you, is a minute they cannot exploit the vulnerable.
Wrong Number
GIF by Achievement HunterGiphyAct naive and worried about whatever they are telling you. Whenever they then ask you to provide your social security, bank account number or whatever, just keep repeating the same number.
Mix up numbers, and be like, oh wait, was that a 5? I think that should be a 9... or was that one 7 and then 5? Hold on, let me see if I can find that darn card.
Ok, I'm definitely taking notes and bookmarking this thread. I like the meowing thing. Maybe I should just strike up a conversation about my life? Then they'd need a drink and hang up first. Hmmm...
Confused
Confused Hanna Barbera GIF by Warner ArchiveGiphyA friend pretends to have dementia and be hard of hearing. The dementia excites them because they smell a payday and will stay on the phone forever, constantly repeating their spiel while trying to get a credit card number.
Hold Please
Act busy at work and keep getting interrupted and having to put them on hold. I frequently get cussed out and its very satisfying. My record is 35 mins.
I need to try this, I'm a veterinarian receptionist, so I can think of MANY ways to make a scammer uncomfortable.
Let's Chat
Sometimes I talk them for a while, maybe 20-30 minutes. Nothing like Kitboga but just if I'm bored or driving somewhere.
One time I got a call and had nothing better to do, so I thought I'd play along. "Hello sir, we're calling from whatever, how are you today?" "I'm pretty good, just chillin' casually watching some porn." Click
It seems to be super effective.
Mommy...
GiphyPretend you're a child and that your mommy isn't home. I did it once. I don't let them finish, I just kept telling stories about my teddy bear and eventually they dropped the call.
All good ideas. Of course, maybe I could get a gig as a caller and take them down from the inside. Better to know your enemy. Let me get some sleep, it'll be a long day phone ringing tomorrow.
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