To ask - what have you unbelievably got away with?

[Mollymoo78]

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?!

Just remembered something worse This could have completely ruined my career.

I was 18+ and studying a foreign language. A relative was a teacher and was taking a group of school kids to that country during the school holidays. They asked if I wanted to go too (they would pay for my accommodation and all the activities, as long as I helped out) so I jumped at the chance. The kids were 12-16 years. I got on really well with about 4 or 5 girls and 1 of the boys and as I was so much younger than the actual teachers we hung out quite a lot and during the free time I would go shopping with them and use my language skills to get them discounts in the shops so they loved me.

Anyway I REALLY fancied the boy. He had his 14th birthday on the trip so I knew exactly how old he was, though he looked a bit older than his age, he was CLEARLY not legal. I lusted after him for the whole trip. I couldn't even, erm, enjoy thinking about him as we were in dormitories in a youth hostel and the showers were communal so there was no privacy at all and I was in a state of sexual frustration for the whole trip.

On the last night I kissed him. He seemed a bit surprised about it and politely turned me down. He said nothing to anyone about it and I got away with it. I feel horrendous about it now because I was in loco parentis and I took advantage of him. Plus the job I do now involves working with children and if anyone ever knew I had done this I would lose my job, possible end up in prison, and no one would ever trust me again working with a child. I occasionally think about this kid (he must be 30 now) and wonder if he ever told anyone about what I did and how he felt about it. I wasn't pretty or thin so I wouldn't have been someone he would have boasted about. I am SO guilty about this time!

My DNephew is a young teenager at the moment. If I ever found out an older (18+) woman had taken advantage of that sweet kid I would break their face.

Wow, Horace, you should go back there & leave again next time you fancy a free holiday

I love all these stories about systems that have cocked up. Companies are so damn sure the computer's always right - and don't how to do it themselves, or they could check once in a while! They deserve their losses for being stupid

I do feel that way about the self-checkouts, too. If Tesco can't get machines that are calibrated to deal with the stock they carry, it's their lookout. Only one store in the Town That Time Forgot has got them, and they're hypersensitive. I know because I tried it out of curiosity after reading Ungoogleable's thread. I ended up buying a mascara I didn't particularly want!

NameChange, I hate to break it to you but he probably doesn't even remember.

So much stuff..

Way back at school, its the early 90s, we all took our Walkmans in, we weren't supposed to because they might get pinched and then parents kick off, yadda yadda..

School were supposed to confiscate and provide child with a receipt for confiscated item, to be exchanged for said item on the next Friday afternoon.

Mine and a friends were confiscated by a teacher who was in my opinion then, a total tosser (And with the benefit of adult hindsight, I still think he was a total tosser, as I now realise did many of his colleagues)...

He banged on about how we couldn't be trusted, he had to take them for our own good, patronising wanker - and then refused to give a receipt for them - I have no idea why, it was school policy - and then sent us both to the headmaster for arguing with him.

So me and said friend waited til lunchtime, collared the little nerd from the year below us who was his particular 'pet' and distracted him whilst he was doing something legit in this teachers office, and pinched our items back.

Come friday of course, he couldn't hand over the items and we went to the headmaster who of course knew he had taken them... he paid out of his own money and I still don't feel sorry that we deprived him of around £80!

On holiday with my Dad.. I must have been 16, we were staying with a friends in a small village somewhere semi rural.

We went to the local pub, where I fell in with a girl of a similar age I knew a little bit and we both then met up with two lads of about 20ish... and went off with them.

To this day, my Dad is unaware that we then got in a car with these two boys who were almost certainly drunk, went to the home of one of them, smoked an impressive quantity of weed, had a lot of stoned sex, walked several miles home in the dark, crashed into her uncles house, smoked all HIS weed... and then back to where my Dad was staying where we ate about a months worth of cake and goodies (our host bought such things from a cash and carry in bulk)...

I was still absolutely wasted when he drove us home that evening and he either didn't notice, or decided to ignore it - but given this was the first time he'd been in charge of a teenage girl in his life (just after my parents split) all on his own... I suspect he just had no clue!

I thought I'd given the game away when I had the screaming ab-dabs when we stopped at a pub for lunch and in walked a Morris side all in black-face. I had to run out of the pub and was violently sick in the beergarden!

Am horrified in hindsight at all the stupid risks we took that night, but more astounded that my Dad was just so clueless! Where the hell did he think I was all night?!!

When I was at uni I hated statistics, and when the exam came around I was shouting myself because I knew I would fail. So I left Halls, walked to the local station, phoned police and said I'd been mugged, and then phoned uni and told them I couldn't make exam as had to give statement etc..... I had to spend an afternoon in a police car looking at the down and outs in the bullring in Waterloo (the days before the IMAX) and just didn't identify anyone. Uni were so sympathic and I got to take the exam in August with all retakers so had a whole summer to get my head around. Passed.

I once went to Euston to catch a train, instead of Kings Cross where the train was actually leaving from. I realised six minutes before the train was due to leave, not enough time for the tube or bus, and I had no cash. So I dashed out onto Marylebone Road, hailed an eastbound cab, and asked if he would take me to KX for free. He did, and I caught the train!!!

When I was a teenager I had been grounded for something, can't remember what but probably alcohol related. As part of my punishment I was used as slave labour to strip wallpaper in my parents house (which they weren't living in yet) along with some other cousins, neighbours kids and my sister who were all being paid. I was feeling rebellious so smoked a cigarette inside and pinged the end out the window. A few minutes later we saw smoke and rushed outside to see that the cigarette had set light to some boxes. We managed to get the fire out and thankfully my aunt who lived close by didn't see the flames. Buried the burnt boxes at the bottom of the pile and when they were eventually discovered the builders, who were long gone, got the blame. They don't know it was me to this day!

English a level - unseen piece of writing. Except by utter chance, I had read the book the unseen piece was from the previous week. Got an A.

On holiday Dh got tickets to amazing show. We got all dressed up, dds excited. Arrive show our tickets . They were for night before! We all do daily mail sad faces, Dh insists it was the opera house mistake not ours (hmm). Opera totally booked out. A senior staff member arrived and sweeps us away - to the directors personal box! With wine, nibbles, best seats in house. It so was dhs mistake too!

Many years ago before everything was done on line my first proper job after Uni was the Admissions Officer at the local hospital - basically I had to arrange the theatre lists by sending out a letter to the people who had reached the top of the waiting lists telling them to come in for their operation the following week.
All was going fine until I realised I had double booked one of the lists, luckily only the day patient one which was for minor ops like in growing toe nails, that type of thing - I'd sent for 20 people to come in instead of 10 - I knew I'd be in deep trouble and my boss would totally panic and take it higher rather than helping me sorting it himself - so I decided to try to sort it by ringing round everyone (unheard of in those days - and only landlines, there were no mobiles) and asking if that date was REALLY convenient and maybe they'd prefer a little more time to prepare, and offering them an alternative date of two weeks ahead. It was a lot easier than I'd expected and I managed to reduce the list to 12 (I couldn't get a response from 3 of them) so on the day of the messed up list I sat sweating at my desk waiting for the consultant to come ranting into my office saying he'd got too many people to operate on but nothing happened. Found out a handful hadn't even bothered to turn up so I got away with it!

More recently I found if you self scan a multi pack of water or anything I guess, if the bar code of an individual bottle is facing out, you can scan that and you only pay for the one bottle - did it by mistake the first time and called someone over as the weight was wrong but they just cleared it without checking. Worked a second time too.....

I remembered a couple more!

Y8 music exam and part of it was the teacher would play a short melody on the piano and we would have to write out what the notes were. We got 1 point for the right type of note and 1 point for putting it on the right line. Now musically I am talentless, so if left to it I would have scored nil points. However I happened to be sitting right behind the piano small room and the teacher had written out what melodies she was playing on a sheet which I could very clearly see. I tried not to cheat, I really did, but when she played the first melody and I realised I had NO IDEA what to write down, I looked at the sheet. There were six melodies in total and I made a few deliberate mistakes (right note type, wrong line, etc) and ended up scoring 80%! My music teacher wrote in my report that she was very impressed with me

The other one was when I was older (Y12/13) and was doing my IB maths coursework. I had a lot of crap going on at home and was basically a little shit when it came to doing homework/coursework. My teacher that year was new to teaching, young, and a little naive (she came across like a primary school teacher, which came across a tad patronising to a group of 16/17 year olds). Anyway, I'd made a dozen excuses for not handing in my coursework at various stages e.g first draft. It finally got to the point where I'd run out of excuses, it was the day before they were being sent off to examiners to mark, and I knew I had to buy one more day so I could smash it out that evening and hand it in the next day. So when she asked me where mine was, I put on my very best innocent/confused face and said "I left it on your desk." She frowned and rummaged around her desk obviously not finding it she said "I didn't see anything" - "well I definitely left it there!" it ended up with her apologising profusely to me and asking me to print it off again for her.

I went home that night, frantically put together some semblance of coursework and handed it in the next day. She told me that I was 1 mark off going up a grade so I had to run to the library and change a title to get that mark. Handed it back in literally as she was putting them in envelopes to be sent off. When I got my grades back that summer, I had gotten the equivalent of a B grade. I consider that one of my greatest school achievements

lived in a house with a not very nice landlord who also lived there.
There was a gas oven, with an eye level grill.
Landlord kept a huge box of matches nearby. I put matches on top of grill and they all went up in flames.
put them out.
a few days later he was moaning and blaming another flat mate that he had used ALL the matches

i also had my ds holding a 4 pack of loo roll when i did my shopping, paid in cash and only just had enough. Luckily for me that DS was still holding the loo rolls.

My lovely mum used to lend me her little fiat car when I was 17 on condition I didn't go to the pub in it. I, of course, regularly used to drive all my friends to the pub until on one occasion managed to prang it while parking. I lied, told her it had been parked outside a friend's house and someone must have driven into it.
I've walked out of WHSmiths with books under my arm that I tucked there whilst browsing.
Walked out of Accessorise with a handbag on my arm that I'd hung there while looking at jewellery - I actually went up and paid for the jewellery and completely forgot about the bag and the cashier never said anything. Had that bag for years.
I have also walked out of Tesco without paying for an eyeliner - paid for a load of other shopping and just didn't see it until I was loading shopping into my car.
Once returned an expensive pair of trousers to Debenhams that I'd had altered (by them and it had been noted on the receipt) and got a full refund.
Ordered a cabinet online that was very very slightly damaged - they sent us a new one and never took the damaged one away. We use both.

GarlicMist I hope you are right and I haven't scarred him for life!

Ive also done the mascara thing but mine was more like £8. It was in asda and i really dislike asda so didn't go back!

Similar to Doris I bought a large tub of sweets from M&S, amongst other items.

I accidently scanned a sherbet fountain inside the tub and paid something like 40p for the whole £12 tub.

Stiginagrump

You don't sound like an arse, you sound like fun!

Family holiday to Austria with parents and little sister. I was about 11 and she was five.

We went up in a ski lift to dizzying heights. As you know, you park your bum in front of the chairs and they scoop you up, attendant pulls barrier down.

Sister and I went up in our ski lift but the attendants for some reason did not put the barriers down which were above us!!!! My parents were in the ski lift behind us (with their barriers down) shouting and screaming for us to reach up and pull the barriers down!

We couldn't hear them and were none the wiser. We looked down admiring the view, just perched in our chairs with nothing preventing us from falling out.

To this day, my mum mentions it and says it was the worst ten minutes of her life. She still beats herself up for allowing us to ride together.

i had a free meal with my teens when my youngest pulled the card out and interfered with the connection, the waitress was too busy to notice.

I have been back, and eaten there again despite worrying quite a bit about it.

No pearl clutching here. No one appears to have committed crime of the century here (and mostly everyone has tried to atone for any small sin!). I do think i may have possibly interviewed one poster - really you weren't of interest to the investigation (other than possibly helping with enquiries - which almost never happens - but always worth a try!). The real bad guys almost never get away with it in the end and really pleased so many of you appear to have hit their cars (assuming and hoping you all hit expensive cars!).

The big company pay mix ups I think are common - can't verify but was told recently a full audit of a large UK co following a takeover - this revealed a number of people still receiving wages - in one case 13 years after they left. This was stopped but no reclaim attempted!

Lucky for some!

I did receive the wrong pay from a company i temped for but I am sure it is illegal to keep it.
i kept it though. of course.

Okay, I know I will now be accused of being PO and all the rest, but can I remind people that MN is not as anonymous as you may think.

A few years ago, a well know poster admitted to a misdemeanour that her DH had perpetrated at least 10 years earlier (more IIRC). She ended up having to de-register and to remove every single post she had ever made.

Please be careful what you share on here!

I used to get mail and packages for the same house number on the next road to ours (similar road name too so it happened a lot). I just used to repost through the letterbox or leave parcels in the porch. She opened the door one day so I told her what I was doing and why. Then I asked if they may have received our mail in the past? ( why that didn't occur to me until then I don't know why). She said yes but she either burned it or gave it back to the post man. I told her that for a long time I'd reposted her stuff but wouldn't bother again. I was fuming. She was very nonchalant and shrugged her shoulders. It wasn't her job to repost mail. Fair enough. I got my revenge. A desk was delivered and left in my porch for her. I took it in and hid it. When the delivery bloke eventually came to look for it I feigned innocence. Then someone from the store came to "double check". She probably was given another one but I like that I got a fancy desk (I googled it was £250 reduced from £400 in their sale) and she had to be inconvenienced and fucked off. I'm looking at it right now five years later. It looks out of place surrounded by my B&Q and IKEA cack. :o