People Talk About Their Powerful Pro Revenge Stories
16. Stolen Thesis Results In Professor's Career Downfall
“For context: Back in 2013 I was a graduate student pursuing my master’s degree. That was my last year in the program (we had 24 months to finish all the work and the dissertation). My advisor was a professor who was very well-known and experienced in my field of work, let’s call her Janet (fake name).
Janet and I had worked together with research since my college days as I became part of an undergraduate research with her. At that point we had been working for about four years and as in any advisor-student relationship, we had our disagreements quite often.
Janet was used to doing her experiments in a certain, archaic, way. I knew there were better uses of our grant money and always tried to push toward a more advanced method, especially correlating data collection and statistics.
However, our relationship was always good. I knew her husband and had been to her house numerous times.
She was a little set on her ways, but we managed to make good progress in our field. Anyhow, by the end of 2013, I presented my dissertation to the department and was approved with flying colors.
My data still wasn’t published in any paper as I wanted to have more analysis in different areas to make a more robust and better paper.
With that said, my dissertation was published, and for all reasons that is my work and my experiments. After I got my MS, I decided to pursue a PhD. While I was still going to work in the same field, I wanted to use different techniques and thus talked with Janet about going to pursue a PhD under a different professor at another university.
She always encouraged me to do better and look for ways to diversify my views.
I went ahead and contacted a professor outside my country at another university to pursue my PhD. I got approved and soon moved away. For the next two years I still kept in contact with Janet, but on the third she stopped responding.
Initially, I thought she had changed her e-mail or something, but didn’t think much of it. Time flew by and in 2017, while reading papers and writing my own. I came across a paper that was strangely similar to my research. Interested in it, I opened it up to read.
To my shock, it was a paper by my ex-advisor. She was up as advisor and another guy, who from his curriculum is her current master’s student. Reading the title I thought “Hey, that’s neat. She continued researching it.”
But boy I was wrong. Reading the paper I got increasingly angry.
That wasn’t a new research. It was MY research! My data was all in that paper, even my graphs and tables. Initially, I thought “Oh well, she’s also an author and if she is citing it, there shouldn’t be a problem”. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
My name was nowhere near that paper as they claimed the research was original.
Now, I was livid. I sent an e-mail to Janet confronting her, which was never replied to. However, I am not a pushover and will never allow people to claim my own work as theirs.
She made a mistake by using my data. I’m a researcher and I keep everything I ever worked on saved in external SSDs encrypted and in my own possession. All were cataloged with date entries and even had my own dissertation to prove my work.
In my country, research is financed by governmental grants. I wrote an e-mail to the Dean of the grant’s institution. Explaining the situation, with proof of everything. I also sent an e-mail to the journal in which that was published contesting their paper and explaining everything.
It didn’t take longer than fifteen days for me to get a follow-up. The institution responsible for the grant was furious. They cut all financial aid for her and her student and made a formal requirement to the university requesting her immediate termination. The journal retracted the paper and is now suing her for plagiarism.
Now, after all these years, I learned that she was indeed fired and hasn’t been able to work in the field ever since. I never met her again and have no intention of ever doing so. Now, my work is published and I’m recognized for my contributions in the field.
Maybe that was a petty thing to do. But I couldn’t allow people to get away with claiming my work as theirs.”
15. Shady Client Won't Pay His Accountant? He's About To Lose Everything
“My buddy is an accountant, he has his own firm. His biggest clients are small to medium-sized businesses.
Well, he had a client who owned 4 different clubs/bars in 2 different cities. The client was always shady, always slow on payment, etc. I was also a customer of one of the bars, they had a poker game that I would play in on Thursdays.
Well, one day I’m at my buddy’s house, having a few beers and he’s complaining about non-payment from a client. I ask who, he doesn’t want to say. But it’s really bugging him because it’s a significant chunk of change. He then says the name, we’ll call him Scott.
I’m like “Wow Scott isn’t paying you?” He then says Scott is saying business is way down and I think that’s odd. I’ve been going to one of Scott’s places and every Thursday is packed. My buddy looks at me and goes “really?” I go “Yea he does this new discount thing, 15% off your tab if you pay cash.” My buddy goes “Really?”
I tell him about my experience at Scott’s bar, and eventually, the topic changes. A few weeks later my buddy calls me up and says “you going to Scott’s bar to play poker?” I said “Yea.” He says “can I join?” I go “Sure.”
He joins, we get a few drinks in us, lose at poker, my house is closer so he decides to crash there.
On the way over he breaks down his theory.
He thinks Scott is vastly under-reporting his revenue, the reason why he suspects Scott is offering a cash discount is cause cash is easier to hide. He says he’s going to do a deep dive on Scott’s finances.
My friend tells me his plan is to go to all 4 of Scott’s establishments, get the prices he charges at each place, piece together how much booze he’s buying, vs how much Scott is saying his revenue equates to. He looks up how much Scott is paying in payroll, rent, bills, etc. Keep in mind he has access to all this info.
And he determines that Scott is basically using his credit card receipts + a little bit of cash to cover his cost of his business including rent, payroll, insurance, liquor, food, etc….however, based on the amount of products he’s selling he’s suspecting Scott is under-reporting his total income by about 35%-40%.
He goes back into Scott’s books even more, and he figures in the last year Scott has been under-reporting his sales by 35%-40% but he’s also been under-reporting his sales by at least 20%-25% for years on end. Simply put there is no way Scott is going through as much product, and as much booze as he’s purchasing, and having the revenue numbers that he’s claiming, he’s under-reporting his sales to his accountant…
Which means he’s also under-reporting his earnings to the IRS. By this point, Scott owes my friend thousands of dollars that he hasn’t paid. He said his total amount owed could buy a brand-new motorcycle. He never gave me an exact number.
My friend decides forget getting repayment from Scott, let’s get repayment from the IRS through the whistleblower program.
He’s estimating Scott’s under-reported his revenue by millions of dollars over the course of years. The whistle-blower fees he’d earn from the IRS far outweigh the amount Scott owes him. The IRS will pay between 15-30% of what they collect.
So, with the assistance of a lawyer my friend gathers all the evidence he has, has Scott’s under-reporting to the IRS, and files a whistleblower report with the IRS.
During this time my friend fires Scott as a client for non-payment. Now this part gets boring cause there’s a lot of legal wrangling and back and forth.
However, eventually, the IRS comes down on Scott, and they come down hard. It’s estimated that Scott under-reported his income to the IRS by about $4.5 million dollars.
Now my friend never told me how much the IRS was able to recoup, but Scott’s businesses are no longer his businesses, and $4.5 million dollars would put the whistleblower reward at $675k-$1.3 million. Keep in mind it’s based on what the IRS collects, not the amount that’s reported.
I’ve asked my friend how much he got in the end, and he simply says “I no longer have a mortgage, and it would have been much cheaper for Scott to just pay me.””
14. Mom Single-Handedly Exposes Fraudulent HOA And Safeguards Neighborhood
“My neighborhood does not have a Homeowner’s Association. At least, not anymore.
When my parents first moved in, my older sibling maybe two years old and with me as a little glowworm, there was an HOA. They took money from the neighborhood in exchange for their services. At first, and for quite a while, my parents just kind of shrugged it off.
The HOA shoveled the snow off the streets in winter and dealt with trash collection, so they were doing something worthwhile, right?
Ha! No. The city controlled the snowplows and garbage trucks, not the HOA. But still, there was the illusion of effort. And besides, one summer they decided to contact a company to plant new trees all over the neighborhood!
The fact that the company was owned by the son of the head of the HOA was totally coincidental.
The trees were the beginning of the end for the HOA.
Why? Well. My grandma on my dad’s side was visiting when they came around to plant the trees.
My grandma, who is a certified master gardener. And so she stared through the windows of our house as the guys planting the trees just dropped the saplings on the grass. Still with their roots inside the bag they came in. No holes dug, no holes cut, just a bagged sapling lying on the grass like a pathetic and sad stick.
The saplings lay there all night. No one came back to actually do their job and plant them.
My (master gardener) grandma mentioned offhand that those saplings were going to die unless they got in the soil.
And something clicked in my mom’s head. She was paying the HOA money, actual money, every month, while both she and my dad worked, taking care of two very little kids, sending us to daycare and preschool and arranging babysitters and feeding us, and the Homeowner’s Association was just going to pull this half-hearted nonsense instead of do what she’s paying them for?
No. No way.
So she showed up to the head of the HOA’s house and basically demanded that the trees get planted properly like she’s apparently paying for them to. The head of the HOA, so excited for someone actually caring about the neighborhood, made their second mistake.
They asked if Mom wanted to join the HOA.
She agreed. The trees were planted, but most didn’t make it. My grandma was right.
First things first, my mom showed up at the next HOA meeting. There were like, five people there. No wonder they asked Mom to join, they desperately needed the people.
So Mom looked at this collection of white people (herself included) who weren’t even paying money to the HOA like the rest of the neighborhood. All the “contractors” the HOA called in were close relatives of other HOA members and weren’t paid by the HOA.
After all, they’re family.
So my mom started digging. She spent pretty much a full summer taking down the HOA before she had to go back to teaching in the fall. With me carted along after her and my sibling old enough to be in school or daycare, she dug through the years of paperwork detailing the HOA’s financial situation.
And she found something… extremely enlightening.
The HOA didn’t actually do anything. Well, they didn’t do anything to benefit the community. Everything they claimed to do was either covered by the individual homeowner or by the city itself. So they were collecting money from all the neighborhood residents under false pretenses, and actually, they weren’t even supposed to be in our neighborhood!
Their association’s zone was a whole different neighborhood!
So what is a working mother of two small children to do while her husband is off at work and she’s off for the summer? She goes door-to-door with pamphlets. Me and my sibling in a stroller as she weaves her way through the neighborhood blocks, pamphlets explaining the situation and how to stop paying for services you’ll never get.
Pamphlets that are, of course, written in both English and Spanish to account for the high amount of Latino and Hispanic people in our neighborhood.
And naturally, she got a lawyer. And an accountant. It put a major dent in her pocket, but if it meant the entire neighborhood wasn’t exploited for funds each month, it was worth every penny.
Another HOA member helped her sift through the documents and data and pass out pamphlets and encourage people to show up to the meetings, but had to back out because of work-related reasons.
My mom rolled up to the courthouse flanked by the lawyer and accountant, her kids safe at home with her husband, and had more than enough evidence to get the Homeowner’s Association out of her neighborhood, expose the fraudsters for the frauds they were, and make sure that no HOA would ever push their luck in our neighborhood.
It’s been almost 19 years, and no one’s even tried making another Homeowner’s Association in our neighborhood.”
Another User Comments:
“This is funny because my mom did almost the same thing!! She was angry with the HOA, joined it, pretty much usurped the jerks in charge and she and our other neighbor became president and vice, went door to door with pamphlets detailing poor decisions and collecting signatures for a re-election.
It started a kind of signature arms race, as the then-president retaliated with petitions of their own, but mom got her way in the end lol.” kelcieam11
13. Wrestling Newsletter Rivalry Escalates Into Career-Ending Smear Campaign
“The internet has evolved quite a lot over the years. Some people may remember Usenet groups, I know I do, used to have a lot of fun reading them. Kind of similar in a way to today’s Reddit in a way…no matter what the subject was, someone would have a usenet newsgroup for it.
But unlike today’s Reddit, it was strictly text. You could download images, but they would take forever to download, and could often be across several different messages…just one of the messages missing, and you wouldn’t get the image. Things then improved, download speeds slowly got faster, and then there was IRC that came about.
IRC saw the same thing…there was a chatroom for anything and everything…and if there wasn’t, you could clearly create it. If you were to try to watch a video over the internet back then, it could take you a couple of hours to download a music video…you get the idea.
This is important for the context of the story.
I was a writer on a couple of wrestling newsletters during the mid to late 90s. We only published our newsletters online…you could have them emailed to you, or go to a website to read them (think we hosted on Geocities or Tripod).
Both wrestling newsletters were independent of each other, and I used different nicknames for each. One was more a review and preview newsletter, where we would post reviews of the most recent shows/events, talk about current feuds, and talk about what we may think will happen in the next big event.
The other newsletter, was a news and rumours newsletter, with a few fun puzzles/competitions thrown in to keep things interesting. At the time, you had a few big-name wrestling news and rumors websites, and a handful of small ones…I was a writer on one of the small ones.
Sometimes we would get news and rumors from the big-name websites, giving them credit where appropriate. Sometimes, we would hear things from people in the business…everyone had their sources of information. And sometimes we would make an educated guess on possible scenarios, based on current trends in the industry.
It did get a bit cut-throat at times, with some newsletters claiming that they broke the news first when it had already been published in other newsletters. And you would even have some newsletters devote all of their time trying to trash the other newsletters for publishing false and misleading information.
It was rumors…we did not always get it right.
Through a couple of readers of my first wrestling newsletter, I learned of a huge surprise in the works for one organization, which could potentially lead to something happening at a big event coming up.
I won’t mention the surprise, but it involved a person from another sport. No other wrestling newsletter had reported it, so I included it as a rumor in the second wrestling newsletter. I was instantly trashed by one of the major wrestling newsletters at the time, publishing a clearly nonsense rumor that would never happen…only for that very same newsletter to publish the exact same rumor two or three days later, and claim to be the first ones to publish it.
This sort of stuff happened all the time, it did not bother me at all.
Anyway, I happened to have a few wrestlers who actually read my first newsletter…no big names as such, but a couple of lesser-known wrestlers in the big organizations. I knew who they were, but refused to reveal their identities back then and refuse to reveal them now.
One of them let me know of an unknown fact from a major match a couple of years earlier (it had to do with an injury that happened during a part of the match). This fact had never been published anywhere else at the time.
I mentioned that I wrote for another wrestling newsletter, that dealt with news and rumors, and asked if I could repeat the information. The wrestler said sure, but not to credit him. So I go ahead and publish the rumor.
Straight away I had another of the smaller wrestling newsletters say that it was nonsense.
They said that it was impossible for the match to have continued, had the injury happened. They then started a smear campaign on the second newsletter, I was getting spam emails constantly, bug attempts originating from the competition, the competition even went so far as claiming that they had the full story of my wife of 10 years doing some inappropriate stuff (don’t ask, they were trying to find anything to smear me with).
There was more sinister and disgusting stuff, but I won’t write it here. Why it got so personal, I do not know, but the funny thing was that at the time, I was a 22-year-old single university student, and if I had a wife of 10 years, I would have had to marry her when I was 12.
But his smear campaign was working, our readership dropped by nearly 50%. It was time to get some revenge, although I had no idea just how far the revenge would end up reaching.
Firstly, I approached one of the bigger wrestling newsletters. They would often run ads at the bottom or rear of their newsletters, for “affiliated” newsletters.
I organized a new affiliation with them, removing an affiliation they had with the competition. Small potatoes. I started promoting the second newsletter heavily on Usenet, in some of the wrestling groups…which ultimately led to an increase in our email subscription base, greater than what it was before his smear campaign.
This negated any effect that his smear campaign had…but I was hungry for more. I wanted to shove it where the sun don’t shine, so I contacted those wrestlers who read my first newsletter. I explained the situation to them, and they were happy to help out.
It took a couple of weeks, but eventually I was able to post a link to a 15-second video (hosted on a Geocities’ webpage, as well as on a wrestling usenet group), where the wrestler at the center of the injury rumor not only confirmed it but gave a shoutout to my second newsletter.
While it validated me and my information, it still didn’t shut the other guy up.
Finally, a break. While the guy used an alias for his newsletter, he did actually mention his name a couple of times, and where in the US he attended university.
Using this information, I was able to get a friend in the US to do some searching for me (attended that very same university), and discovered that the guy had actually completed a journalism degree several years earlier. Further research indicated that he was now working as a reporter for a regional newspaper in the US.
His wrestling newsletter must just be a hobby. So I decided to send all of the information I had, his smear campaign, etc, to the newspaper office. I don’t know what, if anything, it would do…but it was worth a shot. About a month later, I got an email back from the newspaper, thanking me for the information.
They discovered that he was using the newspaper’s system to run the wrestling newsletter, which was against their policy, so they fired him. And because the newspaper was part of a chain of regional newspapers across the US, he was going to struggle to find another journalism job.
The newsletter got shut down as well because without the newspaper’s system to run it, the guy had no way of continuing with the newsletter.
Side note…I ended up finishing with my newsletters not long after anyway. The first newsletter, as I was just a writer for it, I finished up with it when the owner of the newsletter decided to close it down (he didn’t have the time to devote to it due to work commitments).
The second one, I started off as just a writer/contributor, then took over their competitions, then eventually took over the whole newsletter (the original owner didn’t want to do it anymore). But in the end, I was finishing up at university, I had to move on with my career, so I closed it down.”
12. Backstabbing Colleague Gets A Taste Of Her Own Medicine
“I was hired by a company as an assistant manager, a job I was well qualified for. The owner is rarely on-site as he owns several businesses.
The company is run by a GM, who hired me, but who works mostly second shift and who I therefore would have little daily contact with since I was hired for first shift.
I was assigned to Eva for training. Eva was a manager and had been with the company for five years.
I trained with her for a few days and then I was on my own, though she and I had overlapping shifts and would see each other a few days a week. We were friendly but not close. After a few months I was doing well at my job, and had even gotten some new procedures adopted to help boost sales.
Eva began to act resentful. She would correct me for small things and take any opportunity to remind me that she had trained me. It didn’t matter to me – she wasn’t my boss, I reported to the GM. So I mostly just ignored her.
What I didn’t know, was that Eva was not just tight with the GM but they had worked together at another place for 10 years before this one.
One day at shift end, GM asks to talk. Tells me it’s not working out, says I’m still making mistakes at six months that I shouldn’t be.
I ask for examples. A few of them were petty matters Eva had mentioned, but most of them were just not true. I tried to argue but it was clear that I was set up.
I decided to reach out to the owner since I had nothing to lose.
He was sympathetic but said he relies on GM to run the business and had to support her decision. Then he mentioned that if things hadn’t been so bad between me and Eva, it probably could have been worked out. That’s when I knew she was behind me being fired from a job I needed, really liked, and was making great money…and I vowed to get revenge.
I started searching her online info. In less than an hour I had uncovered gold thanks to one of those pay services – about three months prior, Eva was arrested and charged with DWI (driving while intoxicated) in a neighboring state. The court records showed she had a hearing coming up in a few weeks.
That was enough to get her fired. It affects a professional license she and I had to have as management. Per state law, license holders must report criminal charges to the licensing board, and in the case of a DWI arrest, licenses are typically suspended pending trial.
I called the owner and told him what I discovered. It was news to him. I guess since it was out of state, Eva was keeping it secret. Maybe she was hoping to get let off the charges.
The next day, the owner called and said Eva was fired. He thanked me for telling him about her DWI, apologized for how I was fired, and offered me Eva’s position and salary.
He asked me to come in the next morning to meet with him and to cover Eva’s shift. I accepted.
That alone was sweetly satisfying revenge, but what happened next was the icing on the cake. I got to work extra early, met with the owner and GM and we all agreed to start fresh.
Cool. It was still an hour before opening and I was in the back of the place when I heard the front door chime. When I came out a few minutes later, Eva was there, tears flowing, begging the owner for her job back. She obviously didn’t know I was there, because when she saw me her whole body seized and her shocked expression was priceless.
I walked right by her, staring her down with a grin, and went outside.
Eva came out a minute later and wouldn’t make eye contact. As she walked away I said, “good luck on the 23rd.” That was her court date.”
11. Stole My Credit For Software? Enjoy Your Promotion Being Cancelled
“I was working in a finance company last year. One day, I propose to my manager that since I have a computer programming background, I know that for that manual job XYZ, automation can be done using some new tech and it’ll reduce 500 man hours per week.
He also has some tech background, so he says it hasn’t been done because it can’t be done and behaved with condescension.
I, being bullheaded and with stuff to prove (and CV to build), developed it on my own, in my own time, on my home computer, then compiled it into a binary (single executable file without code) and gave it to him.
He got permission from the IT department to run it on his computer and was utterly sure that it won’t work and he would get to laugh at me, but it did.
Even though the software works, idiot manager took it as an insult somehow and banned me from using it, giving some inane reason that doing it manually was much more effective, which was a bummer because it was working beautifully.
Fast forward a quarter or so, my manager was hard pressed for some brownie points during appraisal, so in “Examples of showing initiative” he used my software, but without mentioning me. Some super senior manager took notice and gave him a promotion and a raise.
Now instead of being a sensible guy and coming clean to get code from me, he calls me into his cabin, behaves rudely, and says that I need to submit the code for that software, I asked him why. You had said we won’t be using it?
He’s like, either you submit the code or you’ll be fired.
I was already fed up with being treated like garbage by this jerk, just because he was somehow jealous. So I said get lost, I won’t submit the code, I know enough law to know that you can’t sue me and I resign.
I came to know later through my colleagues that this is what he must’ve wanted so that he could take the entire credit himself without dispute.
Little did he know, there was a malicious code module hidden in that executable file, which checked for a 1 or 0 on a remote GitHub repository every time it was run, if 1 or no network, do everything as required, but if a 0 is received, that’s emergency signal.
I added that little code because his behavior was very poor to begin with and I didn’t trust him, I was planning to remove it after its official implementation, which never happened. So I went ahead and changed that 1 to 0 after I was let go, to ensure no one used it without my permission.
Although he couldn’t get the code, he did have the executable file and I was also not in the company anymore, so in his arrogance, he called a meeting with his boss, his colleagues, and my whole team, to show them a demo of this awesome software “he had made” (he was using it on his laptop every day without my knowledge).
But today the 1 was 0, so as soon as he pressed Enter, nothing happened, pressed enter again, nada.
Suddenly his laptop was frozen and nothing was working anymore.
It took him a while to realize something fishy was going on and then he took out the laptop battery to switch it off.
By then, all the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files were encrypted and the executable had erased itself out of existence.
I used the same code (without the malicious module), to get a better job at another company, where I’m much more appreciated and the job is also fun.
My previous colleagues at that crummy company keep telling me that they are being forced to go to office. So somehow it was the best decision I had made accidentally.
That foolish boss’s promotion and raise got canceled because he couldn’t produce what he promised. He also got reprimanded for losing a lot of important company data, which he attributed to some unknown bug, which wasn’t believable because no one’s allowed to put anything on those office laptops without security clearance from the IT dept.
He called me one night, inebriated, angry, threatening me that he knows what I did. I feigned ignorance and quoted something like bad things happen to bad people and blocked his number.
But I had to tell someone about this flawless victory over stupidity, without being implicated, so here it is.”
10. Rat Me Out So I Can Face The Consequences? You Better Be Careful About Your Next Moves
“I first got to college my freshman year and met the Dorm Leader (RA at most schools). Like most colleges, the Dorm Leader was the upperclassman who lived in the dorms and monitored the freshman halls. My dorm leader’s name was Julio (fake name btw) and at first, he seemed like a nice dude who minded his own business.
He talked about how he would stay out of everyone’s business if we stayed out of his. Also, he tried to be the “cool dorm leader” and always mentioned to me about how he drank tons of booze his freshman year in the dorms. He gave off the impression he really didn’t care if we ever drank in our dorm rooms but to just keep it on the low if we did.
I really didn’t drink much at all, but I appreciated the fact he seemed pretty normal and didn’t try to rat on kids.
During the last week of October of my freshman year of college, I had one of the hardest weeks of my academic career.
I was a biochemistry major taking some pretty tough classes and had three exams that week. At the end of the week, a friend I had recently made down the hall invited me to his dorm room to watch an upcoming NBA game. As we were watching the game, he had a bottle of booze and gave some to the guys in the dorm.
Being a naive and stupid freshman kid just trying to make some friends, I took one shot and continued to watch the game.
As we’re watching the game, one of the guys in the dorm spills a bottle of soda and rushes to the bathroom to grab some paper towels.
As he walked out of the dorm room, Julio walked by and noticed the bottle of booze. He laughed and said something of the sort of “I remember when I was a freshman haha – just try and keep it down.” We thanked him and told him to have a good night – it seemed like a normal conversation and nothing out of the ordinary.
30 minutes later we heard a knock on the door and two policemen showed up with breathalyzers. They told us they had received a complaint from Julio about underage drinking and a party being thrown in the dorm room. Remember, it was three guys watching a Lakers game on a Thursday night at 8 pm…I ended up getting a Minor in Consumption charge for blowing a .02, had to do twenty hours of community service, a reflection journal, and appear to the judicial affairs center at my college about my supposed drinking problem.
I’m not blaming the officer for giving me a ticket, but I was pretty upset that Julio, who always talked about getting intoxicated freshman year in the dorm, called the police right after he essentially gave us the OK for the night.
A few weeks later I saw Julio and straight-up asked him why he decided to rat me out.
Specifically, I asked why he didn’t just tell me to head back to my dorm if he had a problem with the booze instead of calling the police right after our conversation. He responds word for word with “You made a decision and had to suffer the consequences of that decision.”
After that incident, I never really talked to him but he always tried to be buddy-buddy when he saw me in the hallway. Anyway, I eventually leave the dorms and move off campus for my sophomore year. I had decided to rush a fraternity my freshman year and ended up meeting some really nice guys.
I have never been the fraternity type, but I went to a smaller college where fraternities are a lot different than most places.
During the second semester of my sophomore year, my fraternity was taking a new pledge class. One day I received a text from Julio saying “One of the guys pledging your fraternity has been caught dealing booze to another freshman in the dorms. I thought I would let you know.” Turns out Julio was the dorm leader for a freshman pledging my fraternity and ratted him out to judicial affairs as well.
Thinking the term “dealing booze” was the lamest/funniest thing I have ever heard, I sent that to our fraternity GroupMe and everyone laughed about it.
About a week later, that kid pledging our fraternity came up to me asking about the message I received from Julio.
Essentially, a pretty similar thing happened to him like what happened to me. Julio found out he had given another kid in the dorm a bottle of wine and reported it to the police. This kid ended up getting a Minor in Possession and had to speak with judicial affairs….this is where the story gets hilarious.
In his meeting with judicial affairs, the kid pledging our fraternity told the Judicial Affairs guy that his dorm leader (Julio was now a senior at this point) had texted me about the charges pending against him. Apparently, it’s a huge violation to discuss pending charges against a freshman in your dorm with a third party.
The judicial affairs guy told him that if he could prove Julio was discussing this charge with a third party (aka me), he would receive severe sanctions. Basically, if I sent that text to the judicial affairs people, Julio would be in a lot of trouble…so I sent the text that night to the judicial affairs people.
After that, I didn’t hear anything about what happened to Julio and had honestly forgotten about it. However, nearing the end of the school year in my sophomore year, I saw Julio at the dining hall and came up to speak to me. He tells me a story about how he knows I was the one who ratted him to judicial affairs, how he ended up getting fired from his dorm leader position, lost the scholarship his dorm leader job provided him, and overall how terrible his life has been since he got fired. After going through his entire sob story he asked me “Why did you do that?
This could have been handled completely differently. I didn’t have to get fired and I could have kept my scholarship.”
I looked him dead in the eye for what seemed like 30 seconds and said “Julio, you made a decision and had to suffer the consequences of that decision.””
9. Racist Townspeople Try To Frame Immigrant Mom, Karma Hits Hard
“For some background, I live in a predominantly white suburban town in New Jersey and my family is Asian. Although the town is alright for the most part, it is not really a secret that some of the townspeople are pretty racist. One of our neighbors, (let’s call him Anthony) is a retired police captain from another town, but he is friends with my town’s police chief.
My mother is a first-generation immigrant, and although she’s fluent in English, she still has a pretty thick Asian accent.
A couple of years ago, my mom went to visit one of her friends on the other side of town. My mom had parallel parked directly in front of her friend’s house which is at the bottom of a small hill.
As she was leaving, a woman driving a Jeep Wrangler with her children was driving down the small hill, but she was still a decent distance back, so my mom pulled out of her spot. The road they were on was really wide, with enough space to fit 5 cars next to one another, and about 40 feet ahead was a stop sign.
My mom at this point was already in the middle of the road fully out of the parking spot and had gotten about 10 feet when the woman driving the Jeep suddenly came up from behind my mom’s car and cut directly in front of her, crossing a double yellow line to do so.
Because of the angle she cut off my mom at, the Jeep’s rear wheel ended up ripping off my mom’s front bumper. My mom naturally immediately stopped, and the woman got out of her car after straightening it out on the road.
As soon as she stepped out of her car, this woman (we’ll call her Karen) immediately started cursing my mom out at the top of her lungs.
Karen told my mom to call the police, but my mom told her that her phone had died. My mom’s friend and her son, as well as the neighbor, came out of the house after hearing the commotion to see what had happened. The neighbor, an elderly man, asked what happened and Karen yelled “Are you freaking blind?
A freaking accident happened! Go call the police! I need to call my partner.”
The son had taken a law class in college, so he offered to take a bunch of pictures of the scene of the accident and send them to my mom later (this becomes super important later).
The neighbor calls the police, but Karen’s partner arrives at the scene first. When the cop (let’s call him Kenny) finally arrived, he asked my mom what happened, just as my mom had just started saying her side of the story, the cop said “Wait just a minute,” and walked over to the partner.
As it turns out, the partner (we’ll call him Sam) was a cop in the town who was pretty popular with the kids in the middle schools since he would occasionally visit to talk about things like DARE and other things in assemblies. Sam was off duty at the time, so he was able to come over when Karen called him.
As soon as Kenny saw his bud Sam, he immediately went to go talk with him rather than with my mom or with Karen. They discussed for a little while and afterward sent everyone on their way. My mom tried to talk to Kenny before he left, but Kenny just brushed it off and said he got the details he needed and that my mom would be able to get the police report in about a week or two.
When my mom received the police report, she saw that it said that she pulled out without using her blinkers suddenly and hit Karen’s car. On top of that, Karen was expecting my mom’s insurance to pay for the damage done to her rear wheel.
My mom went to my neighbor Anthony to ask what she should do about the report since it was clearly wrong. Anthony was furious and told her that she should go to the police station and ask to see the chief and if they ask why she needs to see him she should tell them that it’s because she wants to file an internal complaint.
That day, my mom takes the photographs sent to her by the son and goes to the police station and asks the person working the front desk to see the chief. The cop says that she could not just walk in and ask for the chief, so my mom responds “Ok, so where should I go to file an internal complaint?” and the cop immediately straightens up and says, “Right here.
Come with me.” He leads her into the back. The Deputy Chief steps into the room and started recording the conversation. Since the chief was out, my mom presented all of the evidence to him instead.
After presenting the evidence to show that it was in fact Karen who hit her instead of the other way around, my mom also says that she would like to file a corruption complaint against both Kenny and Sam.
Kenny clearly did not do his job properly since he did not properly ask the actual people involved in the accident and did not even note the fact that there were 2 passengers in Karen’s car in the report. (Even Karen later admitted to an investigator that Kenny never once spoke to her).
My mom even threw in the racist card for good measure saying maybe Kenny wouldn’t listen to her and brushed her off because of her thick Asian accent. Sam meanwhile had interfered with the investigation despite not being at the scene of the crime during the time of the accident.
The Deputy Chief says he will start an internal investigation and will see if anything needs to be done.
Meanwhile, my mom also filed a claim to her insurance and presented the evidence to them too, and her insurance decided since the accident (in their eyes) was clearly not her fault, they weren’t going to pay Karen a penny and that they would contact Karen’s insurance to pay my mom instead.
A lot of internal bureaucratic investigational nonsense happens including interviews with Karen, my mom’s friend, and the friend’s neighbor. About a month passed and an officer comes to our house to tell my mom that Kenny had been punished (but there was not enough evidence to punish Sam) and he just wanted to know if there were any other concerns she had.
Since Karen seemingly had not done anything to further warrant any action and the damage to the car was paid for, my mom said that there was nothing else.
This is the fun part. Three days after the officer came to our door, a letter came in the mail for a court hearing.
Turns out, Karen decided to file three tickets about my mom just ONE DAY before the statute of limitations. Apparently, in NJ, citizens are allowed to file complaints about other citizens breaking the law (a thing that our family had never heard of before until this happened) and because of how late she filed these complaints, by the time we received them in the mail, we could not even counter complain and the only options were to pay the fine or to go to court.
We assumed that Karen learned about being able to file a complaint from Sam (because no surprise), and that the only reason she was willing to go this far was because she heard my mom had a super thick Asian accent and assumed that my mom wouldn’t know what to do about the tickets and would just pay up.
What she didn’t count on was the fact that my mom is actually really aggressive with an absolutely massive network of people that she knows.
Within a day, my mom hired a lawyer to fight the case and they immediately asked to change the court from the small court in our town to one of the large courts a couple of towns away.
The logic was that if she fought the case in our town, my mom would be at a disadvantage since her case was essentially going against our town’s beloved police force, but by putting it in a different town, the playing field would be even.
Additionally, while my mom worked from home in her own business, Karen had a full-time job in town, so going to court in a different town would be a huge pain in the backside for her.
The lawyer had prepared a huge amount of evidence against Karen, so there was no way she was actually going to win the case no matter what.
Come the court date, Karen never showed up, so the case was thrown out.
That was a pretty nice win, but what came after was even better. Since my mother and sister have a lot of friends in town, the story of Karen and Sam doing this shady nonsense got out really fast. Soon, half the town had heard about it, and suddenly Karen and Sam went from two favorites in the town because of Sam’s reputation to two of the most underhanded and nasty people.
Sam stopped getting invited to school assemblies and Karen was ostracized in her kids’ school’s PTA. Anthony also ended up talking to the police chief in private and we found out that although Sam was not officially punished, he was severely reprimanded by the Chief.”
8. How I Turned The Tables On The Malicious Tutor
“I’m not one for revenge personally but this is something that happened to me in College (UK college) and it’s something my friends and I love to reminisce over from time to time.
A little background: I originally went to college intending to do Maths and Physics but due to multiple factors didn’t get the grades, so I jumped into IT instead as the course didn’t need grades as high and “there was a need for IT techs in the market.” The class I ended up in had about 5 of us that honestly didn’t need to be there.
We were your ultra-comp nerds and pretty much could answer every question from day one. Some tutors saw this and used us to help the other students who came to the class not knowing jack about computers. Then there was Malicious Tutor.
Our class was rather rowdy, a lot of male teens that most of them were there ’cause, well they didn’t know what they wanted to do in life and this gave them some grades for University or something.
Most of them continued on to other college courses and then went to Uni after. So onto the the actual story.
Me and my small group of friends often sat at the front of the class, often chatted while we worked, and generally liked to have a joke or two.
But we did our work. Things started out with Malicious Tutor telling us in the middle of class that we needed to stop talking and get on with our work. Okay, we were mostly joking then so sure. Maybe we were distracting him. But, as time went on, he would start to snap at us for talking about the work, moving to help each other with stuff we had already done or just knew more about, etc. The time that took the biscuit was about halfway through the first year when on a day we were doing our assignments which were due the next day (Something most of our tutors let us do in class if we had all other work done) and the two of the group that knew the least needed some help finishing off their stuff.
Most of us were working on other classes’ work, the main lecture had been done and the other people in the class were not passing that assignment the first time as none of them were working on it even though the Tutor had said, “use this time to get it in, I don’t want late assignments.” They were instead laughing, joking, generally messing around and playing games on the other side of the room where he couldn’t see their computer screens.
Malicious Tutor turns to us rather angrily, and only to our small group demands that we shut up, sit at our own desks and stop distracting him. We had “Been distracting him” every lesson and were “Problem students.” He wouldn’t listen to any of us about us helping each other or anything else, wouldn’t give the two that needed the help, the help, and being nerdy anxious teens none of us wanted to risk a fail or anything for all the work if we just walked out.
So we complied. After the class, we got to talking. One of the people in our group who we referred to as Griff in college had done another course before this one, and had many more tales of Malicious Tutor. From “Losing assignments” to straight up refusing to help students with one occasion breaking some code in a software assignment and then just shrugging and saying “Dunno sorry” and leaving the student to fix it.
It was here I decided to hatch a plan. A plan that snowballed far quicker than I expected.
That night I jumped on Skype, the Voip of the time, hit up Griff, and started writing down everything that had been happening. The seemingly innocuous harassment, the lack of assistance, the losing of assignments over the years, the specific targeting and ignorance of other people doing exactly what he was complaining about.
Everything we could get our hands on. I then spent the next few days going around with a hand-crafted letter to everyone that I knew had been affected which although everyone thought it might get him “spoken to” but nothing more, still signed it to say that they agree with what was written and that they can corroborate it.
I then sent the letter straight up the ladder, not to his supervisor, or manager or boss but his boss’ boss. This bit wasn’t intentional, but it made it snowball and although I had planned out a whole bunch of stuff to give evidence of his actions, I didn’t need any of it.
Within a few hours of depositing the letter, I was pulled from my class by the head of the department who was assuring me that I wasn’t in trouble and all the usual stuff. I was taken straight to her boss’s boss who said something along the lines of.
“OP, because of how you’ve approached this complaint, we have got to take it very seriously. Did all the people who signed this read it?”
“Yes tutor’s manager, boss’ boss. They did, and I believe other people have made complaints in the past too.”
“Ok OP, if you want we can omit any names and this can be dealt with as an anonymous complaint, but that is up to you.”
“I am fine with my name being used but I can’t say for anyone else who signed the letter.”
“Thank you OP, if we need anything else from you I’ll be in touch.”
I can’t say for certain but I’m sure he then called in every other person on the letter and all of them asked to stay anonymous.
By the next week, the Tutor had disappeared and no one knew why or where he’d gone. Even his colleagues didn’t know exactly what had happened, only that he’d left. We didn’t see him again that year. The Head of the department was also changed, I’m assuming because she hadn’t dealt with the complaints properly but she just got a demotion.
She was a good tutor.
The next year, I was standing near the room where my next lecture was and Malicious Tutor walked down the corridor, making a point to stop in front of me, shake my hand, ask how my studies were going and tell me if I ever need anything I can come straight to him.
Kinda creepy and he never did it to any other students.
I was never put in any of his classes again even though he did lectures on my subjects. I found out before I finished my last year he’d been put on leave, then made to attend a training program and hit with the good ol’ “Last chances” warning probably with attend this program or you’re fired. Moral of the story?
The pen is mightier than the MT’s bork?”
7. Ruthless Lawyer Strips Abusive Ex-Business Partner Of All Assets
“Let’s call him Joe. I have to call him something, the man I ruined, but I can’t call him by his real name, so let’s call him Joe.
Joe was a wife-beater.
I was hired by Joe’s brother-in-law, the brother of the wife that Joe beat. My client was also Joe’s ex-business partner. Aside from the whole ‘you beat up my sister thing,’ my client had another issue with Joe, a serious business issue.
My client took it to court and gave me the case to handle.
Joe and his lawyers fought me long and hard. Joe was confident that his nonsense and outright perjury would carry the day. It had always worked before. His nonsense, and his fists, had won him a good settlement with his ex-wife, free of child support, so maybe he thought that threats and lies would carry the day once more, but he was wrong, and after the trial I had a judgment against him, a big judgment, far bigger than he could pay.
Joe twisted and he turned and he shimmied and shaked, but after a while I’d located and taken all his assets. It was easy, really; Joe had no thought of consequences, and so he didn’t lawyer up until it was too late. If one of my clients ever sues you, you’re in trouble, because my clients lawyer up before they even know your name.
But Joe didn’t lawyer up until the process server threw the papers at his feet, and by then, it was far too late.
I went through Joe’s assets like a meat grinder, and after a while Joe had but one property left, a house, and he clung to that house, for it was rented out, and his sole source of income.
Joe lived in the unfinished basement, and he survived on what the upstairs tenants paid him. He cashed their rent cheques at payday loan places, paying hefty fees, but it was worth it because he knew that I’d garnish any bank account that he opened.
Joe managed to hide his rental place from me for a while because he owned it through a numbered company, but my investigator found him one day and followed him home.
Joe self-repped his way through the next stage, which took a couple of years, while I punctured his corporate veils and his sad efforts at a fraudulent conveyance, but in the end, I had his last house, the house where he lived in the unfinished basement.
Joe stepped out one day, and when he came back the sheriff had changed the locks.
“Can my client at least live in the basement?” Joe’s lawyer said to me, pro bono, because by this point Joe had nothing to pay lawyers. I knew the pro bono guy; he practiced law nearby.
As I was talking to him, I could see Pro Bono guy’s office window across the parking lot from my office tower window.
“Ask the purchaser,” I said, “it’s out of my hands,” and it was. I told Joe’s lawyer that the new owner (a nominee, one of my client’s employees) wouldn’t let him back into his crummy basement apartment.
Joe, a man who had owned this and that here and there and all over town had just lost the last thing he owned on earth. Except for his truck. He still had his truck left.
Joe’s truck was this big gas-guzzling beast that he drove around in.
It was too old and too frail to be worth seizing, so I let Joe keep it, and I was glad I did that because now the truck was where Joe slept. Until he made a mistake, and lost his truck, too. He lost his truck the day I got a phone call from the tenants at the house that Joe used to own.
“He came back, and parked his truck across the driveway, ” the tenant said, adding that Joe had gone crazy. He’d parked his truck there in a rage, out of spite, and then walked into town, saying he’d be back later that day to sleep in his truck.
“Can you get around the truck?” I asked. The tenant could not. The driveway was blocked. I called one of the tow truck guys that I used to defend back in my criminal lawyer days, and in a couple of hours that truck was gone, and parked somewhere else, somewhere special, in accordance with my specific instructions.
“My guy wants his truck back,” the pro bono lawyer said the next day when he called me.
“Not happening,” I said. I stood in my office fifteen floors above the parking lot, and looked down where I imagined my pro bono counterpart was standing in his office, facing the same lot.
“But you have no right to the truck,” he said.
“He has no right to block a man’s driveway,” I replied. It was terrible, really, standing up high, pronouncing words that took away a man’s final asset, the last thing he owned on earth.
I imagined that this must be what a higher power feels like before he strips a man of everything.
“Are you really gonna make me go to court over this?” said Pro Bono guy.
“Do what you gotta do,” I said, and Pro Bono guy said his client was coming in the next day to sign an affidavit, and then they were going to court to get the truck back.
But I was unconcerned.
The next day was bright and the sun was shining and it was nine a.m. as I looked out the window, and sipped my coffee. My phone rang. I picked up. It was Pro Bono man.
“Why didn’t you tell me that Joe’s truck was parked right outside my office?” His voice was tight, and I could tell that he must have been shaking with anger.
“Is that so?” I said, staring out at Joe’s truck parked fifteen stories below me. “How careless of my bailiff to leave the truck where your client could easily take it back. I really must speak to him.”
“Very funny. My client’s going to sue–”
“No he isn’t. He’s going to get in that truck and drive away, right now. I told my tow guy to fill up the tank, and he gave it an oil change too, gratis. Tell your client to get in his truck and drive off, and that if I ever see that truck again, I’ll seize it, to satisfy the rest of my client’s judgment.” Pro Bono guy tried to argue, but I was firm.
Then I put the phone down, and picked up my coffee.
A few minutes later Joe walked out of his lawyer’s office and over to his truck. As he walked I saw that there was no longer a bounce to his step. The joy had gone out of him.
Joe wasn’t the first guy I ruined and he won’t be the last, but he is the only one whose final ruin I witnessed from on high, from my office, and it was one of the most powerful experiences of my life, watching a man walk to his truck, knowing that I had stripped him of everything else he had, and that he owed his possession of his last asset, his truck, to my mercy.
Joe drove away, his big gas-guzzling ancient truck spilling clouds of smoke from the exhaust. I was pretty sure I’d never hear from him again, and I never did.”
6. Steal My Bonus And Fire Me? Enjoy Losing Your Jobs And Clients
“When I was in my early 20s trying to make it in the world and just starting out I reported to a senior sales team as a junior salesperson.
Really it was a support role and I knew my place – watch, stay quiet, learn, and help them.
I reported to a lady who was ‘mid-level’ and the senior guy who was head of sales. I was green, and while I was seeking mentorship and periodically asking for advice to improve how I was able to support them they mistook it for incompetence.
It was simple things like learning what format each of them preferred their daily reports in, and tasks they had to do.
I also had an issue because the senior guy basically took my first bonus at the 3-month mark. It was a tiny amount to him but a lot for young me.
I didn’t officially complain but asked him about how he was able to keep my bonus when it was obvious it tracked back to my efforts on the data. He didn’t like that and didn’t pay me.
I was doing a good job – I’m fully aware of my skills.
But with the explanation “It’s just not working out” they let me go a few weeks later. I spent a couple of months getting a new job which turned out to be an amazing smaller firm where I was appreciated, mentored correctly, and thrived. The new firm was very successful.
(They brought me into a room, the two of them, and let me go. SHE was the one who said it’s just not working out, and he said “so we’re letting you go” – even to my question as to why – since from the beginning I had been doing well.)
About 2 years later after I’d become a vital but still junior part of the smaller company, my former firm closed up in the region and put everyone out of work.
So I saw through the glass while walking by the boardroom one day that the senior guy who took my bonus was being interviewed for a job at my current firm.
My current superiors didn’t see me walk by but my old boss and I made eye contact.
Now, in a small sales team at a small firm it’s important to have a nice working relationship and trust. It’s also a lot of selfish salespeople who are there to make money and don’t like being ripped off.
So later that afternoon I quietly mentioned to the one boss “I saw X in the office today when I walked by – I used to work for him that jerk took my bonus one time”.
It was all I needed to say because the last thing my current boss needed was a person who’d do that on our team.
Then times got tough and I know that man spent 2 years looking for work.
6 or 7 years later I was at a new company in a more senior role and the one lady who I originally reported to called me and was selling at a new firm and she was calling to ask if I’d be interested in purchasing from her.
I didn’t know she had started working there.
The firm she was with was selling something that was very basic – and interchangeable to competing firms. She’d gone from selling important things to selling a ‘nothing’ product after the original firm closed.
She acted all happy and nice to me – and recalled the great job I did when we worked together.
I also know she didn’t want to be talking to me but her call log said she had to call.
I told her thanks and send me along an official quote and proposal. (several hours of work for her).
In the industry we were in she was paid not only on new sales but a ‘net sales’ measurement – meaning she had to retain clients as well as bring in new ones.
I had a LOT of commitment at the firm she was now at. While she spent her afternoon drafting a proposal I spent a couple of hours pulling all my business from that company and subbing it for a competitor up the street.
She emailed me a full proposal and mentioned she was excited to be working with me again and supporting my business.
She had no idea yet that I’d just pulled everything and she would never receive a bonus this year because of the size of the amount I pulled.
The next day she emailed me quite upset and had CC’d her boss who I’ve known for years and had a good working relationship with.
I replied-to-all and thanked her and said I’d decided to go with a competitor because “It just won’t work out as I find your approach to business dealings to be insincere”.
Her boss emailed me back directly and asked what happened and I replied that I just don’t think she is a sincere person.
My business to their firm was worth more than her job and she didn’t last more than a month there after that.”
5. Steal My Parking Spot? Lose Your Job And Go To Jail
“I am a professional driver. As such, on the roads in the US, there are different truck stops throughout the country that have a “Pay to Park” system, usually about 10-20% of the lot marked off as “Reserved”, with each space running from $15-$25. The truck stop where this took place had parking for $17, which is relatively cheap, for a guaranteed spot.
The spots are reserved for 24 hours, starting at 4 PM local time, and extending to 3 PM the following afternoon.
I knew that I would have a late-night delivery, so I came to the truck stop around 3:30, and paid for a reserved spot. I told the manager on duty that I had a delivery up the road that night, and would be back once delivery was completed, but should still be able to clear out the spot by the next afternoon (today).
She told me that this was ok, and she would mark the spot as sold when I left, that way, if someone else came in trying to reserve that spot, she could consult her notes, and deny the sale.
11:15 PM rolls around, I take off for my delivery.
I don’t get out of that facility until 2:30 AM the next morning (this morning). So, I groggily drive back to the truck stop to reclaim my paid-for spot, only to find that the reserved parking spaces are ALL full. I call the manager on duty, and after giving her my info, inform her that all the spots are full, and that someone has parked in a spot and hasn’t paid for it.
She sends her other employee out to start checking trucks. The culprit was from a company that is known for their bright orange trailers, and he was a company driver. The other employee starts banging on his door to inform him that he is parked illegally, and he has to move.
Meanwhile, I can see the commotion from my mirror, with my vantage point in the fuel island; where I had been instructed to temporarily park.
The driver answers the door with a bottle of Heineken in one hand, and some sort of smoking implement in another.
I decided to roll down the window to hear the commotion, and I hear the employee tell the driver to either move, or he will get the towing company and police involved. This driver is flat-out irate that someone had the audacity to tell him where he can and cannot park, so he slams the door on the employee, threatening him.
Employee calls the police and tow company, and the police show up first.
I had worked for this company before, so I know their policies, and more importantly, what they can and cannot have in their trucks. Booze is not allowed in the cab. Any illegal substances; also not allowed. The coup de Grace; a pew-pew, of any kind, absolutely not allowed, and especially not allowed loaded. This driver had all that, and some other not-so-legal substances in his cab, so he was hauled away in cuffs.
His truck was hauled away on a wrecker.
I made a call after the commotion died down to the company safety director, and informed them that their rig will be in an impound lot, and their driver is going to jail over the not-so-legal stuff he had in his truck.
She thanked me, and said that he will definitely lose his job, especially over the booze and the other not-so-legal stuff. I guess he played the “screw around and find out” card, and it bit him in his career.”
4. Want To Be Publicly Racist? I'm Sure Your Boss Would Love To Find Out About Your Online Activity
“A few years ago, on my Reddit account, I mentioned that I was in an interracial relationship. A Redditor reached out to me and told me I was a race traitor and unfaithful to my race.
I was like, “Um…what the heck, bro?”
I looked at his account; it was 6 years old…which told me his username was likely something he used a lot. So I started googling his username@gmail, username@yahoo, etc., etc., and I found a match with Hotmail…a guy by the name of, let’s say, Jeff was selling some NFL game tickets and had posted his email.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same person.
However, in the post, he mentioned a city in America and that he was a fan of a particular football team. I went through the Reddit user post history
He posted quite a bit in the respective city subreddit; he mentioned going to NFL games, and in another post, he also said he was born in Canada.
So through the ad for the NFL ticket, I figured out his real name. I found his biography on his employer’s website; he was a senior-level manager, so they had a bio for him.
In that bio, they mentioned he was born in Canada, was a fan of said NFL team, and loved living in the city.
I also found his LinkedIn page during this time. So I sent him a connect request on Linkedin, which he accepted. I figured he would because he had 500+ connections.
So here’s what we know.
- His username matches his email handle
- He likes the NFL team
- He lives in a said city that he posts in said city’s subreddit
- He was born in Canada
I then…found his social media page. His social media page was public, and he posted what I would describe as semi-racist material. Also, his Reddit page was significantly more racist.
Based on the numerous connecting factors, I determined, so I create a report. I included screenshots and links and summarized my findings in that report. Now, based on this person’s position in his company, he likely had a significant role in deciding who this company employs.
Also, his company clearly stated they were an equal opportunity employer. So I called their HR department, I found the number, and I called them, and I asked them, “Would you be concerned if a senior level manager in your organization was a proud racist and degraded your equal opportunity employment policies?”
They were concerned.
So I told them I had done an investigation into one of their senior level managers and described he was racist and I had put together all my evidence and findings in a report and could email it over to them.
I emailed them the report.
A few weeks later I called to get an update and I was told they appreciated my report, however they would have to comment on the status of their decision and make public statements in regard. Basically, “Thanks for letting us know, but we aren’t going to tell you anything.”
That’s fine.
So I waited another month, and I kept checking his LinkedIn page. Then one day, I saw a LinkedIn post from him in which he said he is looking for a new opportunity and if anyone had any positions open.
So I messaged him on Reddit and I told him “Hey Bro, heard you got fired. Just want you to know I’m the reason why.”
He threatened to find out who I was, hunt me down, and harm me. So I reported him to Reddit admins who promptly perma banned him.
Now, he really should have learned his lesson…because guess what…he didn’t connect the dots, he didn’t know I could see ALL HIS LINKEDIN activity, he didn’t know who I was, he simply acted in rage.
So I put his newest message in his “folder” and added it to the report…because you see I can be an incredibly vindictive person.
I checked his LinkedIn…once a week.
Good news
He got another job.
Bad news, their HR department was also quite easy to get ahold of and discuss their new hire’s online racist, threatening behavior.
However, let’s just say I had a lovely conversation with this HR representative. She was a woman and based on how she sounded and her name I suspect she was a woman of color…
So yea…
I’m not sure what happened after this, because a few weeks later his internet history was cleaned up, and his LinkedIn page was deleted. However, this company listed their senior management which was what his position was…I never saw his name listed.
What I suspect happened is after his HR reviewed my evidence they terminated his employment with them.
I would have totally gone after him a third time…but he got smart the 2nd time around.”
3. I'm Not Important Enough To Discuss My Issues With? You'll Regret Saying That
“I am a typical simple guy who just likes relaxing and was born with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth.
I am the black sheep of my family and a middle child to boot (double whammy) but I at least have a little brain and some luck which I kind of use on a day-to-day basis. Due to my parents’ connections, I managed to get into lucrative schools in my country, did my military service was promoted Upward to Captain and later on was shipped off to college out of country.
I have never been too close with many people apart from my circle of friends and I prefer it that way.
After College, I was employed in government (you guessed it, Family Connections) and after a few years was able to use my “name” to get ahead and meet people who helped me set up several businesses in my area (A coastal City) where this story happens.
The money I used was generally allowances, a small inheritance from my late grandma, some investments, a fund that was started when I was a baby, and funds gifted to me by family basically as an attempt not to leave me broke enough to embarrass them even though I am a simple low maintenance fellow lol.
My Businesses are booming since the coastal area we live in attracts a lot of tourists (Local and International) and of course some locals who wish to mingle with the tourists to get green cards, pen-pals, spouses, and such. (typical coastal city I guess).
The incident:
As a proprietor of my businesses, I have most if not all of my staff on salary since it’s the best way for them to gain benefits and is easier for me as a business owner tax-wise (Tipping is more of a gift typically since we do not have a tipping culture) and I have my staff on Comprehensive Medical Insurance which has additional dental and optical on top of the National governmental healthcare medical scheme (Our government hospitals provide all services free but wait times for elective surgeries are exhausting).
We also have a mandatory legal requirement to provide employees with retirement benefit savings, a minimum of 21 working days leave (I give 30) and my businesses offer paid overtime, unhindered medical leave for surgery and serious conditions which can be extended as well as allowances to seek treatment such as chemo or dialysis.
One of my female employees (an older lady who is brilliant and had moved up the ranks to manager and was adored by all) was booked for a hysterectomy since (as she told me) she was at risk of cervical cancer as her mother had passed from it a few years back and since she already had 4 kids it was the most logical step.
She did her due diligence and found a private hospital that was in our system where she could have the procedure done. On the planned date she applied for leave days which we obviously rejected since this fell under the scope of medical leave. She went on to have the procedure successfully and had a quick recovery time.
The bill was to be catered for by the company insurance and we had made sure to get all the necessary pre-authorizations.
A few months later she came to work looking distraught and in all honestly, we thought that she had been told that she had gotten cancer since she had asked for a day off to go for review and tests but what happened was much worse.
She had been given a bill by the hospital since the insurance had refused to pay for it citing that it was not in the scope of cover. We were livid since we had made sure everything was in order. I sent my accounts manager to go have a talk with the insurance people as we tried to calm her down.
The manager came back super angry and told me that basically after showing them the evidence the insurance people just told him to buzz off.
I decided to personally go visit that office and get a clear understanding of what was happening. They kept me waiting for an hour and even after that had the audacity to inform me the director from the head office who was in the area had declined to meet me because he was quote-unquote “Busy”.
I was livid so I decided to go to their Head office in the capital city, a 2-hour flight. The head office was no help and informed me that they had revised their policy and that it was not covered. I asked when the policy was revised, they informed me a month prior.
I informed them the surgery was done 5 months prior and we had all the documentation. They claimed that it was 12 months retrospective. I inquired why I was not informed of it since this was big news and I have held policies with them and they told me that they had informed their “Large clients” and would inform the other clients when their insurances were due for renewal. I demanded to speak to their boss, Company Vice President since the CEO was not around and they boldly told me he had no time for me and frankly that (in verbatim) “We are a large company and have no time to argue semantics with low-end clients.
If you don’t like it, you can frankly leave and find a new insurance company.”
The Revenge:
If I had been initially annoyed, I was full-blown mad. I was livid and filled with rage. In all my years I may have experienced some disrespect and I accepted it so as not to cause problems but this time it went too far, I decided in the heat of the moment to switch everything and be done with them.
I flew back home and just plain went to the hospital and settled the bill in full and took the receipt to my employee who initially insisted that she would do anything to pay me back but I refused since it was no way her fault and I’ll be darned if she pays for something that was way out of her control.
I had a few days to cool down and talked with my directors. The words still etched on my mind, I asked how long it would take us to switch to another insurance. They went ahead and checked out a few large rivals of the insurance we had and discovered that if we switched it would take 6 months for the new insurance to provide full coverage.
The firm we picked, who I’ll call new insurance, offered us a way better deal than the one we had and not only comprehensive coverage, Dental and optical they also included mental health coverage, Physiotherapy and occupational therapy coverage, Rehabilitative services, mobility device acquisition (prosthetics and wheelchairs for some of the disabled employees), smart cards for direct payment on outpatient visits (kind of like a debit card) and a dedicated team of relationship managers, Death and funeral benefits and an expanded coverage area plus up to 6 dependents plus spouse cover.
It would cost me a little more but I didn’t really care.
The people who dealt with us from our previous insurance who I’ll call old insurance, seemed unfazed that I was pulling my company from them since they thought it was just a small business.
They looked puzzled when I came in with several people and a few boxes of documents. What they failed to realize was that apart from that one business which is a restaurant, I have 3 popular bars, a cab company, a hotel resort, a cleaning service chain, a building and residential guard service, and several rental buildings in the town and around the country.
Their shock was compounded when they were informed by the lawyer just who I am and the shock, awe, confusion, and panic when they heard my family name was an extremely satisfying sight. Cue the pleading and attempted negotiations and apologies. It was so big that the news reached their Head office which sent not only their director, the one who was apparently too big to see me, but also their Chief Legal Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and President of the company.
I somehow also earned a personalized call from their CEO who was abroad. No amount of sweet talking was changing my mind and by the end of six weeks, we had completely removed ourselves from the old insurance. It was now a waiting game to the beginning of the new insurance cover and we really really hoped that no one would become unwell by that time but we were ready just in case.
In that waiting time and after the new insurance commenced, I talked to my friends and my family on one of my holiday visits (my older brother’s kids adore me and my family kind of realized they were jerks to me and are trying to re-enter my life) and thought that was that.
Aftermath:
My friends and family took my word and also pulled their businesses from the insurance to other insurances. The company took such a huge hit and when the global crisis came around and was a big deal they were barely floating. They went into receivership soon after and were acquired by the insurance I had moved to which happened to be their greatest rivals.
The directors and CEO were given their golden parachutes and resigned and most of their employees were luckily retained apart from the senior executives (including the ones who told my manager to buzz off).
In a cruel twist of Irony, the building they were operating on in our town was sold and if you guessed I purchased it you would be absolutely correct.
I decided to remodel the inside and turn it into a business rental space. All in all, it was a bit of a sweet payback and wherever they are I hope those disrespectful guys learned that everyone is human and they are not above anyone and remember that Karma is a cold and heartless witch….”
2. Prank My Office? Enjoy Your Impossible Final Exam
“I spent about 10 years teaching high school humanities at a small private school. For my first two years, I didn’t have a classroom, just a small office I would bring what I needed for each class on a cart and go from room to room, depending on which teacher had a prep at any given time.
This was incredibly inconvenient and, not being the most organized of teachers to begin with, made things difficult to keep track of.
There was a group of 11th-grade boys who decided to make things a little more difficult for me. They were good kids, we got along well, I coached several of them on the school soccer team, but they decided that since my office would often be empty, it was a great place to prank.
It was never anything too serious, things falling over when I opened the door, or things disappearing for a day and then turning up in a different place the next day. Nothing was ever damaged, and I could never prove who it was, even though I knew.
My school had mandatory final exams in each academic course. I didn’t really think they were necessary, so I would generally make them pretty easy with a lot of preparation. I would give out study sheets and play review games for a couple of weeks before the test, and there was no reason the students wouldn’t do well on them.
I had the approval of admin to do this as they weren’t particularly fond of the final exam rule either, it was as school board policy.
A few nights before the offending boys had their exam, I had a brainwave. I created a second exam.
Gone were the multiple-choice questions and obvious things from the review sheets. In their place came detailed questions about concepts that were briefly mentioned in class. Essay question after essay question. Ambiguous questions with no clear answers. Definitions of words that there was no way they knew.
It took a couple of hours, but I laughed the whole time.
When the test came, I had the special exams at the bottom of the pile and handed them out to each of the four or five boys. I told my vice-principal what was happening and he insisted on being present.
I started the timer and watched as the boys flipped over their papers.
It was all I could do to keep a straight face. Eyes went wide. Heads were shaking. Panic was setting in, especially as they saw all their classmates flying through their exams. One of the boys raised their hand.
“Sorry, no questions during the final. You should be prepared based on your study sheets.” I let them go for about five or ten minutes of terror before I gathered the fake tests and gave them the real ones.
They all passed with flying colors and never pranked my office again.
It was glorious.”
1. Stepdad Tricks Me Out Of Laptop, I Retaliate By Getting His "Broken" Car
“13 years ago I was in my late teens, living on my own and really struggling to live financially.
One of the few possessions I had was an old laptop.
My laptop had stopped working properly and while I’m fairly proficient in using a computer, I had no idea about fixing them. I did a bit of searching on the internet but couldn’t get it working so I asked my stepdad to take a look.
He has a quick look and says it’s messed up but he’ll take it off my hands if I don’t want it so I said sure. If it’s broken then it’s no good to me.
10 minutes later I walk in the room and he’s using it.
I asked if he fixed it and he says “yeah, thanks for the laptop”.
I was obviously upset, my mum says she wasn’t getting involved and his only response was that he did a quick internet search to find the fix and I could have done the same.
I was broke and he took one of my only possessions even though he had a PC and a laptop already.
A few months later I was visiting my mum and stepdad when I had an idea.
While I am useless with computers, I’m very competent with mechanics.
Specifically Audis and my stepdad had a 2001 Audi A3.
Before coming in the house I went under his car and unplugged the oil level sensor and a vac line for the turbo.
Later on that day he went to go to the shop or something, when he started the car it threw up oil warning lights on the dash and wouldn’t boost so he turned it off and had a look of concern on his face.
I went out to ask him what’s up and he said that something had gone majorly wrong. He says something along the lines of catastrophic turbo failure or engine failure. He’s already spent quite a bit on repairs and didn’t want to spend any more money on it so spoke to my mum about just cutting his losses and scrapping it.
I asked how much it’s worth at the scrap yard and he says £100 so I ever so graciously offer £120 to take it off his hands to maybe part it out which he accepts. He signed over the logbook (title) and wrote me a receipt of purchase and handed the keys over.
I walked outside, lifted the bonnet, pretended to look at my phone for a minute, went under the car and plugged the vac line and oil sensor back in, fired it straight up, and drove around the block. When I got back I gave him the thumbs up and said it’s all fine now.
His mouth was wide open and he was mega upset and my reply was “you could have found the solution too with a quick internet search”.
He tried arguing that it wasn’t fair and if it’s working then I can’t just take his car but I just said he didn’t have a problem tricking me out of my laptop and that he’s already signed the car over to me so tough luck.
My mum kinda laughed and said she’s not getting involved and that it was his own fault. I still have the car to this day and it’s practically in showroom condition and runs sweet.”
Another User Comments:
“You absolutely, positively owned his butt. Well done, he totally deserved it!!!!
How can a parent be this crappy of a person to their kid?” SimonSpooner
OP Replies:
“The problem is he married my mum when I was 18 or so and he was 26. My mum was in her 40s so he’s closer to my age. In all honesty, he’s actually a really great guy and to this day we’re very close friends and get on like a house on fire.
I chalk it up to him only being in his 20s and just being a jerk on occasion. We still laugh about it to this day. It’s such a nice car that he says it’s his biggest regret losing it and he keeps offering to buy it back as it’s rare to find one this age in this condition (because I spent so much time and money over the last decade keeping it in amazing condition) and my response is always “oh no, I’d never sell a car this nice” hahaha.” thekungfupanda
