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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask - what have you unbelievably got away with?

281 replies

Mollymoo78 · 22/09/2016 23:56

Normally I get away with nothing, however there was one day not so long ago I had to get something from the server room at work and I accidentally knocked over some strange thing with lights on. It looked like Johnny Five's head and was rather warm. I put it all back and crept but when I got back to my desk they said everyone in the building had lost their connection to the system!! I kept nervously silent while the IT bloke spent the entire morning trying to sort it out, listening to my colleagues moaning about not being able to work. To this day they don't know it was me!

So has anyone else got something they secretly got away with and can't quite believe it?!

OP posts:
Witchend · 23/09/2016 07:18

My best was taking one of the dc to a (fairly expensive) event.
Turned out event was much mote popular than expecting. We were queueing from miles away. I'm sitting there hardly moving wondering of our struggling car os going to overheat when chap on a bike stops by my windows.
He asked if was going to this event and she I said I was he told me to take the next right and it would bring me 5miles along the queue.
Rather skeptically I took it, although it looked as though I'd end up in a field, but it worked.

Arrived and parked and took one look at the queue, which must have had over 1000 people still in in. Told dc we weren't going to get in, and suggested we stopped at a point near one of the gates where we could see some of what was going on. Dc agreed.

We'd been there perhaps 5 minutes when this official came up and asked if I wanted to pay by card, which I said we did.
So he told me that card machine was broken and to go with him. So I did, with about a dozen others.
He took us to the front of another queue and said we could pay there. The people in that queue set up a huge fuss about how long they'd been waiting, so he sighed and told us to go with him, and he let us in free of charge.

As we went through the gate they announced the grounds were full and no one else was coming in.

We felt the luckiest people there!

Magpiemagpie · 23/09/2016 07:43

I rented an apartment from Anthea Turner & Grant Boveys now bankrupt company imagine homes several years ago .
When I left they said that they were taking £250 out of my deposit for some spurious reason however the accounts department messed up and paid back both my deposit which was 6 weeks rent and my last months rent with no deduction for the so called damage
So I got a cheque for around £2500
I got the cheque cleared same day for £10
Not surprised they went under , no one ever chased me for payment

Alabastard · 23/09/2016 08:02

I set fire to a taxi once.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 23/09/2016 08:09

Reading this thread has reminded me of sooo much stuff I got away with. Too tired to make a list, but thanks for the thread. It's put a reminiscent smile on my face. Grin

Saracen · 23/09/2016 08:10

Applied for a civil-service type job, for which I was appropriately qualified. The interview panel seemed to quite like me, so I observed that my experience and skills were greater than those required for the job (they weren't: I was an exact match, no better) and enquired about starting off on the higher payscale, normally reserved for those with three years' more experience than myself. They said they'd consider it.

Then I got the offer letter in the post: they were offering me a rate of pay TWO tiers higher than I deserved. This rate was usually offered to someone with three years' more experience than me plus a PhD. I was wetting myself thinking they were going to give me a job I couldn't handle, but I couldn't say no to that money. Figured I'd just stick it out until they realised I wasn't up to scratch, and then find another job. Fortunately I only was given the post for which I had applied. Nobody but HR ever knew I was getting paid far more than my colleagues doing the same job. I was decidedly mediocre at the job.

I interview well!

acasualobserver · 23/09/2016 08:31

I did a couple of armed blaggings with a sawn off shooter. No-one knows.

Saracen · 23/09/2016 08:35

I transferred to a good American university where it was possible to sit placement tests in a range of subjects upon arrival. These were intended for people who had already done some courses at other universities, which might or might not be up to the current uni's standards. Passing the exam meant receiving credit for the course.

In the month before the tests, I revised a few subjects which I'd done at my previous university. While I was at it, I thought I may as well cram a whole range of science subjects and foreign languages I'd never done before in my life. I skimmed a pile of textbooks and memorised the bits which looked likely to come up in an exam. I'm good at exams, and it was fresh in my mind. I was exempted from loads of courses. This compensated for my failure to get achieve even a single term's credit for ancient Greek, which I HAD actually studied for 18 months!

It hadn't occurred to most of my fellow students to prepare for these exams. Many of them didn't receive credit for subjects they had done before. They shrugged and accepted that because their previous universities hadn't been as challenging as this one, they'd have to repeat some courses.

Justwanttoweeinpeace · 23/09/2016 08:40

I managed to a scratch someone's car quite significantly. Not enough to ruin the door, but it wasn't pretty.

I apologised profusely, swapped details and waited to hear from them.

I'm still waiting a year later. Looking back, I'm pretty confident they had no insurance.

witchofzog · 23/09/2016 08:41

I got caught truanting from school with 2 friends when I was 15. The head teacher called their parents in turn and they were grounded forever. I told the head teacher I wanted to tell my parents myself as I thought they would respect me more for it. I then forged a letter from my mum the next day to express her assurances I was being punished and got away with it scott free Grin

CatThiefKeith · 23/09/2016 08:46

I fell in the massive Christmas one Christmas Eve aged about 19 and completely annihilated it. I very carefully hung all the baubles back on it but when I got up in the morning it was leaning precariously and all the decorations were on one side.

Fortunately my dad was even more pissed than I was and got the blame. He couldn't even remember getting home so still has no idea. Sorry dad. Blush

AnyFucker · 23/09/2016 08:55

Funny thread Grin

TwinkleTwinkleLittleBat · 23/09/2016 08:55

TimelyTess I did exactly the same thing in M&S as you. Put things in the net basket and wandered absently out of the store into the shopping precinct. My blood ran cold when I realised the basket was still on my arm. Dashed back, but no-one even noticed. I was shaking Confused

Another time I was stopped by security leaving Asda with a trolley load of shopping. The guard went through the receipt and all the shopping, it was horrible Blush but of course I'd paid for every single item. I don't know why they singled me out Confused I was dithering about by the birthday cards for a while...and put the ones I'd chosen by my handbag rather than in the trolley so they wouldn't get squashed. Maybe they'd been watching me.

1wokeuplikethis · 23/09/2016 09:03

I once got on the tube without swiping my Oyster card. Just rode for free both ways.

No idea how I did it. I was 20 and felt very, very smug.

It's like Fort Knox down there. I'm surprised MI5 didn't recruit me immediately.

ManaFleet · 23/09/2016 09:03

Whensitmyturn Genius!

CoolToned · 23/09/2016 09:09

Many many exams in the past. I'd procrastinate, spend my time chatting/blogging/whateveritwasIwasinto, cram for a few hours, and pass. Even a big, career-making exam my classmates studied for for three months minimum, I got away by studying for two weeks. Either I was a very good test taker, or I was very lucky.

However, that luck seems to have left me this time though.

mommybunny · 23/09/2016 09:13

DH and I just got a 6 pint bottle of milk yesterday at Sainsburys without paying - there were problems with the self-serve checkout and the poor customer assistant had to approve every single item and something in a rather large shop was missed (really shouldn't have done self-service...). We didn't realise till we looked at the receipt after we'd left.

I also dinged a car while I was getting out of a tight parking spot, and panicked and sped off instead of stopping to leave my details. I drove a long distance out of my way to "shake" anyone who might have been tailing me. I was really ashamed afterward because my DD was in the car with me, and to assuage my guilt I told my DH as soon as we got home - I knew there was a risk that someone would see me and report my number plate and the police could turn up. That never happened, which is almost a bad thing because DD could have learned a valuable lesson from that (not to mention myself ...).

FinallyHere · 23/09/2016 09:16

Bit of a serious one, I'm afraid. I was very fairly given a ticket for speeding quite close to our house. The speed limit enforcement people usually wait for business on a different road out of the village, and were on 'my' road as a on-off. They filled out the ticket as if i had been caught in their 'usual' location.

Went to the local police station to show my licence and insurance. When they cautioned me '...if you do not mention now something you later rely on in evidence' i said it was fair enough, i had been caught speeding and didn't want to waste their time but could not in all conscience plead guilty to speeding in 'usual' road when two of their officers were witness to the fact that i had in fact been speeding in 'actual' road at that time.

Eventually, a letter turned up from their head office, to confirm that they would not be taking the matter any further. Iv'e used cruise control to keep to 30 in both roads ever since, so that their purpose has been fulfilled.

GabsAlot · 23/09/2016 09:17

i used to get on the train at waterloo without buying a ticket-i was 16

these were the days of no barriers and not alot of inspectors-got quite a few journeys for nothing

of coursei always pay now

PoisonWitch · 23/09/2016 09:25

I got caught smoking at school age 12 which meant a letter home and an SLT detention. I told my parents I was just holding it for someone else and they said I had to do the detention anyway. I was sure they didn't believe me as it was such a stupid lie.

I reminded them of this years later and apparently not only did they believe me but mum had written a letter to school defending my innocence Blush Poor Mum never believed all the terrible lies about her angelic daughter.

I got away with murder as a teen at home and school by being polite and smiley then doing whatever I pleased.

Niggit · 23/09/2016 09:31

Loving this thread! Grin

Many years ago I managed to do a lot of damage to the driver's side front wing of our Fiat Uno reversing out of a car parking space in town. The car was still driveable, so I went home fretting about what I was going to tell DH, who at that time worked within walking distance of our house.
He came home for lunch and announced that he was going to take the car to work that afternoon as he needed to bring some stuff home. Somehow he managed to get into the car, drive to work, park it and go into the building without noticing Confused
At the end of the day the secretary left before him. A few minutes later she came back into the office saying she was terribly sorry, but she'd reversed into his car and made a real mess of the driver's side front wing - she hadn't felt the impact, but she must have hit it...
His company work insurance paid for the whole repair. I did own up, eventually - but only after the company had gone bust. I don't THINK it was anything to do with the car. Halo

Wafflenose · 23/09/2016 09:34

I reversed into someone's brand new Rolls Royce once. It was very late, I had been working all day and was tired. I went and found them, gave my details and so on... and never heard from them again! Confused

wasonthelist · 23/09/2016 09:35

Shoplifting minor items totally by mistake twice - mortified when I realised. For one I went straight back and paid (without mentioning the fact I'd actually removed the item from the shop) in the other case it wasn't practical as I was several miles away before I realised, travelling for work and not due back in the area for a week (it was a kit kat).

wasonthelist · 23/09/2016 09:36

I reversed into someone's brand new Rolls Royce once. It was very late, I had been working all day and was tired. I went and found them, gave my details and so on... and never heard from them again!
£50 says they were criminals anyway :)

RB68 · 23/09/2016 09:37

A few things

As the eldest child I got alot of freedom at around 15 for parties and so on - and was actually quite responsible - worked out lifts and getting home and whilst younger didn't drink much. As I got older my sister 2 yrs younger joined in - far less responsible according to my parents and at 18 I got away with being completely rat faced so long as I was seen to be "assisting" my sister and stayed close to her to the alcohol smell came from her!!! She still gets pissed off about it now nearly 30 yrs later ha ha ha.

A more recent win - eating at a Pizza Chain had some vouchers for £40 and it was my Birthday. So we were starters, mains and desserts and a few drinks....just before coffee the lights flicked and emergency lighting came on, many apologies couldn't have coffee etc so just had dessert and went to pay. We saw them faffing at the till and discussing and then they came over, couldn't process vouchers, ever so sorry but deducted value anyway and here are the vouchers to use again... oh and two more vouchers for bogof main meals, and a deduction to the bill left for the inconvenience etc. We paid £14 for 3 of us with full on meal and drinks. Left a large tip. As my Hubby says - I do like a little win!!

I also like the family railcard as it feels like a win every time even though technically I am not getting away with anything

Wafflenose · 23/09/2016 09:38

They were rather posh guests at a mutual friend's party. I was one of the musicians, and had been rehearsing and playing for 12 hours, stumbled into my car at midnight and didn't take enough care. I have no idea what happened with the Rolls Royce, but would love to know!