rSlash - r/Prorevenge I Tricked a Scammer into Paying Me $5,000?

Episode Date: February 27, 2022

r/Prorevenge In today's episode, OP is in a minor car collision with a dude who turns out to be a total scammer. The scammer drags his feet with the insurance info and tries to trick OP into paying him over $2,000 in bogus repair costs. OP realizes that he's getting scammed, so the turns the tables on the scammer and takes him to court, where the judge awards OP $5,000! Be careful who you scam, scammer! Get Honey for FREE at joinhoney.com/rslash Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to our slash pro revenge, where a scammer gets screwed. Our next Reddit post is from Bigcapper. Okay, so just a little bit of info before I get into the story. I'm a 22 year old guy who works construction. I run a few crews and I'm a foreman because I've been working in this field since I started working summers when I was 14, which is legal in my state. So, that being said, I have a lot of experience and I get paid really well. For my job, I need a truck that can pull a lot of trailers and also get into a lot

of hard to reach job sites, especially in the winter. So I drive a new lifted pickup on F350. About four months ago I got off work one day and I just really didn't feel like making dinners, so I decided to get myself the trusty big-back at McDonald's. Well, after I got my order, I was going to pull out into the parking lot to drive home, and I was looking hard over my left to see how busy the road was. Well, I wasn't paying great attention to what was happening in front of me, and as I was creeping forward, someone who was in front of me was stopped and not paying attention

either. I ended up barely hitting his mirror and scraping his door with my front end. I immediately reversed and hopped out. I made sure the guy was okay and apologized knowing that it was my fault and I asked him if he wanted to call the cops. Let's call the guy Brent. Brent says, nah bro, we're all good. If you just get me your insurance info, I think we can get this

taken care of. I was fine with that as there was no damage done to my drug. And it's not required to call the cops for an accident if it occurs in a private parking lot. This is relevant later. We exchange info and he seems pretty cool. So I tell him to go get the damage bid and I'll just pay in cash so my insurance rates don't go up as long as he's okay with that. He says that's fine and we both just leave, and I feel like a moron, but all in all, Brent seems like a cool dude and I just hope that we can get this sorted out smoothly. About a month goes by and I haven't heard anything from Brent or the shop that I told him to go to.

Honestly, I wasn't too stressed about this, because if he decided not to get it done, then that's on him. Well, he calls me up one day at about noon saying that he can't remember my name, and he wanted to tell the guys at the shop who sent him there because it seemed like we knew each other. I told him my name. He then sends me the bid for the damages, and it comes out to $2,403. This was way more than I imagined, but I said to just get the work done and that I would

take care of the bill afterwards. And that was that. He said that was cool. He hung up, and I went on with my day as usual. Another month goes by, and I don't hear anything until Brink calls me up at work one day. He says, Hey brother, I talked to the shop and they said they can't get me in for another two weeks or so. And they may end up charging me more if they find more damage. I say, okay, sounds good. Just let me know man, I hope it goes smooth for you and I'm sorry for the inconvenience. He seemed to take it well and I'm just really trying to be a good person. He responds with, well after talking to my wife, I'm okay

if you just want to write me a check for 2500 and we'll call it even. This seemed odd to me because why the hell wouldn't someone want their vehicle repairs all paid for. I say, okay man, let's set a time in place to meet and I'll get you paid. He liked the idea and he ended the call by telling me that he would let me know. Yet another month passes by and I hear nothing again. At this point, I'm getting fed up and I just want the situation to stop hanging over my head. He hits me up at 11 p.m. one night and asks me to meet him in town. I found this kind of disrespectful because I was nearly asleep and had to be at work at 5am the next day. Either way, I said that was fine

and I took 2500 in cash and wrote up a quick contract saying this payment would be accepted as payment in full for the damages. And by accepting it, it would release me from any and all liability. This was a pretty fair contract, and I believe that it was just a deal that we'd already made over the phone just in writing. I get to the place that we suggested as a meetup spot. I give him the cash, and he signs the contract without even reading it, and he didn't want a copy. This was a red flag to me,

but I just assumed that he really didn't care about it all that much, so I just sent him a photo of the contract and go back home for some beauty sleep. As you can guess by now, another effing month goes by, with me not thinking about this stupid car accident. Well, I go to check my mail, and I have a notice from this guy's lawyer that he's suing me for not paying after wrecking his car. This pisses me off, but I also knew that I had plenty of text messages and a contract

on my side. I immediately call Brent and he blocks my number. Luckily enough, my girlfriend works for a lawyer, so I update him on what's going on and he says he would love to help me. He lets me know that I saved my butt by writing that contract because any contract worth over $500 has to be held up at any level court in my state. I immediately get to work on my revenge. I remember that on the side of this guy's car, he has a business logo and I took pictures of the damage. So I hop online and get to the better business

bureau to look up who owns this company, thinking that surely he couldn't own the business because he's such an idiot. I was wrong. This guy owns the company and he also has about 12 one star reviews, all of which are in dispute. According to all those one star reviews, he would tell people that something would cost one thing and then charge them four times more than what he said it would. Sound familiar? Remember when he said the shop was charging him $2,400 for the repairs? Well, now he was suing me for $10,000. That was four times what the shop told him that

it would cost. Unbelievable! He was trying the same sneaky stuff on me. My lawyer takes note of this and we show up to court ready for war. This guy is sleazy. As we get there and get set up he says, you're ready to give me more of Daddy's money with a smirk. I guess he just thought that because I'm young and drive a nice truck I could afford the $2,500 low. His lawyer gets up and starts saying all this BS about me doing a hit and run and Brent barely getting a picture of my license plate. Then he says that I

tried bullying him into taking a deal for only $2,500 when the damage was clearly more than that. There were obvious holes in his story and he really didn't have much to say. Just imagine the smile on my face when my lawyer lays out the printouts of our text messages and the physical copy of the contract signed by Brent. Brent's lawyer went ghostly wide and looks sick. After laying out all the evidence, my lawyer pulled out a little hidden gem, the printouts of all the complaints

we found on the better business bureau and how he was doing the exact same thing to me. That was the final nail all the complaints we found on the Better Business Bureau. And how he was doing the exact same thing to me. That was the final nail in the coffin, and the judge said that he had seen enough. He asked Brent for any final statements, and Brent said, I don't even have the $2,500 anymore. Can I just get that, and then we'll be okay? He literally admitted to the judge that he had received my money and that his story was complete BS.

I thought that his lawyer was gonna strangle him. It was beautiful. The judge ended up ruling in my favor and demanded him to pay my legal fees as well as damages and loss wages because I had to miss work to be in court. The absolute sweetest part was it for this particular day. My crew was on a very high-wage job, and I was tactically the one getting paid before I paid

them out of subcontractors, which means that I was being paid $475 an hour, and this whole ordeal took about 5 hours. So Brent ended up having to pay me almost $5,000. I don't think that I've ever been so happy in my life. Opie, this guy effectively paid you $2,500 to wreck his car and then just drive away. Okay, so this reminds me, this is quite possibly the single dumbest thing I've ever done in my entire life.

I really actually think it's the most idiot like, Dabney, what the f**k were you thinking? The like series of events that I had to do to be this f**king stupid. I look back and think, holy s**t, are you a moron, Dabney? Are you this stupid? Okay, so picture this. Okay, okay. For a while, I lived in Connecticut

and my wife's parents came to visit and they had never been to Connecticut. So one of the things we decided to do while they were there just for like a couple of days was drive to the beach so they could see the beach in Connecticut. So it was raining this day and as you would expect, there was pretty much no one at the beach.

So we drive to this beach and there you would expect, there was pretty much no one at the beach. So we drive to this beach and there's this massive, massive parking lot. I think this parking lot could have probably held like 200, 300 foreign cars like lots and lots of cars. So it's just completely desolate, utterly empty except for one other car. It's for some reason. When there's hundreds and hundreds of spaces available. I, being a dumbass, decide, hey, it'd be kind of funny to park right next to that car, right? So I do it. I park right

next to that one car when there are literally hundreds of other spaces available. We get out, get our umbrella, go to the beach, they see the beach, we walk back to the car. Okay. we walk back to the car. Okay. As we're walking back to the car, I see one other person on the beach walking across the beach also to the two cars. And I mean, it's desolate. There's no one on the beach except for me and my family. This other guy and the two cars. So I know obviously that this other guy is the guy who parked these parked right next to me. I have this really cringed moment where I'm like, man, I was a planning on being here for long. This guy's probably thinking,

wow, that guy is such a douchebag. Why do you park right next to me? What's the point when there's so many other spaces? And as we're walking closer to the car, I realize that we're synced up in such a way that we will both get to our car at the exact same time. Which, you know, because it has to be as awkward as possible, because I made it awkward, so the universe has to punish me by making an extra awkward to ensure that we cross pass at the worst possible time.

So as we're walking to the car, I think to myself, wouldn't it be ironic if I opened my door and like dinged the side of this guy's car by accident. That'd be really cringy, wouldn't it? And so as I'm walking suddenly that thought is in my brain and I can't stop thinking that thought and I go up to the car and I, I unlock the car and the other guy is unlocking his car and I open the door and despite the fact that I am intentionally trying not to somehow the fact that I am intentionally trying not to. Somehow my brain just like, duh, don't hit the car. Do you mean hit the car? And I open the door and I ding the side of this guy's car with the car door. And the guy says, watch it. Which fair. Yeah, I should watch it. But it's like, how? How? Brain, what is wrong with you? Why? Why did you decide to

park next to the car? There's a million other cars. Why did you ding this guy's car? Like, I've opened car doors millions of times without hitting the car door next to me. So why did it have to be this time? With the guy right here, when I could have parked anywhere else in front of my wife and my in-laws. Like, why? Why? The answer is obviously because I'm an idiot, because I'm a complete, idiot Idiotic cringy moron who deserves to be ridiculed for this. What's so frustrating to me about this story? Is that all three things had to happen for it to be a cringy moment? One, I had to decide to park next to this guy, which I did. Two, we had to perfectly synchronize so that we were both at the car at the exact same time.

Otherwise, he would have just left before I got there, or I would have dinged the car and then just driven away and he would have never known. But no, we synced up perfectly. And 3, despite trying not to open the car door and ding the car, I would have had to still do it anyways by accident. And yet, in some sort of cosmic twist, all three things happened in perfect sequence. Okay, so random guy out there who lived in Connecticut like eight years ago, if some stupid effing moron hit your car with his car door in the middle of a completely empty parking

lot by the beach while it was raining, then that's me. And I want you to know that I'm an idiot and I'm very very sorry and I don't know why I did that. Today's episode is sponsored by Honey. I don't know about you, but I do literally 100% of my shopping online. Because of COVID, I pretty much have to shop online because yeah, I don't want to catch COVID and die. But on top of that, I read stories for a living, so I can't afford to sound like this for three weeks straight. Don't you hate it when you get to checkout and you don't have a code to put in that little promo code box?

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Get honey for free at joinhoney.com r slash that's join honey dot com slash r slash our next reddit post is from chuck it buckets UPS mashed a nearly new MacBook that I sent through them I asked them nicely to pay me back for it and they screwed around blaming me blaming my packaging saying that it was impossible they damaged it etc. I was able to prove that my packaging was flawless, and get a statement from the Apple shop that I took it to to say that it was damaged because it was dropped or thrown around. I could also prove that it worked when I sent it. UPS wasn't interested and they screwed around for weeks, sending me from pillar to post, even threatening to make me pay interest on custom charges which I was not liable for because the laptop was smashed on arrival and thus worthless at import.

I took them to small claims. They hired a lawyer who sent me letters saying they contested it and they would go for full fees if I lost. I went for it anyway. I did lost up at university so I knew the basics and I thought my case was pretty clear cuts. I won. I won my costbacks plus extra plus interest. The UPS ignored the court order and didn't pay. Now this laptop was originally being sent to my beloved mother-in-law. She asked me to help her with the problem because UPS was also seriously harassing her for the customs fees. However, very unexpectedly, before I could resolve it, she passed away.

This was the last thing that she ever asked me to do for her. I love that woman, more than pretty much any human on this planet. She was my mother, my best friend, and my mentor. Taking down UPS was now my own personal vendetta. I researched my options, and I could have taken the usual legal routes to reclaim my money, but no, F them. I don't care about the money anymore. I want revenge. I want drama. I want karmic justice. I went to the high court, and I got a rid of control. I, of course, added on more fees and more interest. I then hired the most aggressive bailiff firm in London.

I trusted that the awful processes and attitude of UPS meant that they would ignore the letters and they'd actually get a visit. And they did. The bailiffs rock up at UPS headquarters and explain the situation. The UPS refuses to pay, so the bailiffs aren't listing goods. Security tries to make them leave, and the office manager tries to bully them out. Obviously, the bailiffs aren't intimidated by this, and they just start doing their job. I wasn't allowed to see the body cam footage, but they did send me a detailed report.

Here's an excerpt from the final copy. Calls were then made to the accounts manager who arrived in a hurry. Since they continued to refuse payment, the agent again explained the removal process and the cost involved, and they called the office for approval to begin removals. The agent then began to seize assets. The finance director then arrived on the scene. He was not at all happy about the attendance, but he ultimately agreed to pay a voluntary payment in full from his personal account in order to stop the removal. I know that it's a drop in the ocean to UPS, but I got more than double what I originally asked for to replace the laptop. They would have

had to pay even more on top and fees to the bailiff. I think that it cost them at least three times more than the original claim in the end. But mostly, I just enjoy the mental image of the flustered finance director and his impotent rage, having to pay his own money to stop all those movers from taking desktop computers, fancy pot plans, and things out of their swanky head office lobby. That was our slash pro revenge, and if you liked this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.