AIBU to ask what cheeky things you've seen people to do in order to not have to pay

[IronFists234]

First off, this is supposed to be a cheeky fucker thread. This is not a thread laughing at people making attempts to cut back to save money. Just want to make that clear!

This thread is inspired by my friend I went swimming with yesterday. Our local pool does wrist bands that indicate what time you entered, so yellow for 2-4, blue for 4-6, etc...

My friend was very adamant we HAD to go swimming at the 4-6 slot. I didn't question it but found her insistence odd.

It turns out she had blue bands from her last swimming session! She had just kept them and not handed them in

When we entered the pool she shouted "oh don't worry I already have the bands" to the pool employees. So not an outright lie but they assumed she paid!

It's a busy pool as well, so I doubt they notice she hasn't paid

I asked her why she did it and she said she'd paid once and if she could get in for free by keeping the bands, why pay?

any other stories like this?

My father also once said he went to a barbecue where the owner requested everyone bring a 'portion of coal' but I still think that was a joke (or hope)

Bloody hell Scaredycat. That is a whole new level of grabbing.

You’d wonder why she was allowed to get away with it for so long. I’ve noticed that people within public organisations tend not to challenge pisstaking or outright theft dressed up as expenses etc. because (1) they aren’t squeaky clean themselves or (2) they don’t like having difficult conversations in case the recipient of the bad news reacts badly (which they always do. The worse the behaviour, the more pronounced the self righteous fury, in my experience).

I always felt that head felt entitled because she was doing 'a good thing' by turning around what was a pretty bad school. Not sure how successful she even was there tbh but the school is no longer and hasbeen taken over by an academy chain

I feel like I'm nearly outing myself Boop! Yes Jo was presented very much as swooping in to save us, I can easily see a goddess complex happening. That christian academy chain is CF as well. The original owner is now a government advisor on academies and his wife runs the academy. There is a spate of christian academies being forced on communities despite the community's protests.
My previous job, at a very major British tourist attraction, almost all my supervisors were suspended. The give away was that on xmas day they were all in work apparently, on triple time, every xmas day. one or two per shift would have been needed. I don't know how that ended.

I was in a restaurant with a 'help yourself' salad bar that allowed one visit only. I watched in fascination as a young man filled his bowl with salad, then spent some time constructing an ingenious 'extension' to the sides of the salad bowl using sticks of celery, until he had a double-height bowl to fill with more salad.

I have to confess that I used to do this in pizza hut when they had their buffet on. You could have as much pizza as you liked, but only one (tiny) bowl of salad, so I used to use stuff like overlapping cucumber slices etc to create an impressive (if very wobbly!) bowl of salady deliciousness.

I used to leave half of it as well, but regarded it as more of an architectural challenge than anything else. People would cheer as I very carefully and slowly approached my table. It was sooooo worth it!

Can I ask - are you in the NE Scaredy?

I've probably seen you on the bus Scaredy!

I could go on about the shameless abuse of public funds

You hardly need to; anyone with experience of public service has probably seen it too often ... frequently from those who whine loudest about "the cuts"

The talk of company cars reminds me of my late father - probably the meanest man who ever walked the earth - who nevertheless had the habit of offering lifts to just about anyone. It took me a while to work out he was charging most of them for the petrol the company had paid for

When I was a TA we had a new kitchen fitted in an old classroom for breakfast/after school club.
The head got it all priced up,governors agreed to it, work went ahead.
Then someone realised that the kitchen we got wasn't as good as we expected and we had been ripped off,.

After investigations it turned out that the lovely kitchen we had been expecting and paid for had actually been bought,made and fitted.
At the heads house 😳

Did she get in trouble for that? That's misappropriation and what the local head to us was struck off for - how she wasn't prosecuted I've never understood

Most of these people will be the first to complain about cuts and having to do a bit of extra work because of headcount cuts. They'll be the first at party conferences banging the drum about how they need more cash for their sector

Same happens in private sector of course - although where I work expense claims are ruled with an iron rod

Oh yes. He lost his job,wife was a teacher so she went aswell, kid was a student so he had to change schools
he got in a lot of trouble

They admitted they were taking the tree home, was obviously their plan all along sadly :(

Amazing these people are willing to jeopardise so much for ultimately so little - I bet he could have afforded the kitchen no problem but was willing to risk his job, his wife's job and his kids future. Awful

Ex friend volunteered as secretary for a voluntary organisation. She asked them to replace the existing laptop for a new one. Did nothing for them on the grounds she was too busy and then asked to keep the laptop when she left the following year. The icing on the cake was when she complained she only received a bottle of fizz as a thank you for all her ‘hard work’.

it’s ALWAYS well-off people who’re just tight as a duck’s arse

This!

Tight as a ducks ass - this is how they become well off

I used to work with a bloke who was a master miser. I could write pages about his antics but there are few I think worth sharing. He used to time his morning dump with his arrival at work and he did it with clockwork precision. He was very proud of it too, telling everyone how much he was saving on bog roll and as he was on a water meter, the cost of not having to flush his own loo! God help anyone who delayed his entry into the loo and if he got stuck in traffic on the way you could see him waddling up the street cuddling it like a power walker!

He was the organiser of rail trips with his mates and once he had to send a letter to get some permits for travel in a foreign country. Of course he used a second class stamp (perfectly fine) but then proceeded to invoice all his mates for the grand total of 9 pence each to cover the cost of the stamp.

The final one which directly involved me was, I once offered to take him car booting (selling) He really enjoyed it, however I was hiding in the car, toes curling after he made a guy write a check out for 4p as he was short on an item he was selling for a £5. The poor guy emptied all his pockets and where any sane person would just say "forget it mate" not my colleague.

Needless to say I never took him again! Unsurprisingly he never got past a first date so never had a girlfriend or got married.

I often wondered why............................................smile

SquirrelTail Sun 19-Nov-17 00:02:08
"ThumbWitchesAbroad, how? I thought they have to pay the person back by the original payment method or that they can only do swap or exchange if you don't have the reciept?"

Yeah, that's what I thought too. Apparently if you claim that you've lost the receipt blah blah some staff agree to the refund. Some don't, of course, but you can see from this entire thread that there are many who would to avoid a scene.

Years ago I worked in the box office of a West End theatre. What many people booking wouldn't have realised is that, at the time, the call center was upstairs and manned by the same people who worked in the evening to "bring the show in".

We could spot CFer's a mile off when booking because they would almost follow a script. The usual gambit was to buy the cheapest seats they could which were in the balcony and restricted view and then when they came in the evening, pretend that they hadn't been informed or in fact been told that they were excellent seats and try and blag an upgrade.

Thing is, we could tell by their demeanor on he phone who was likely to pull this crap and we had the facility when booking the tickets to add a note to the account stating that the customer had repeatedly been informed of the quality of the seats and in fact we would ask the question "so before I book these seats I just need you to confirm that you understand these are restricted views, which means you will not be able to see the full stage and may miss parts of the action?" and we would refuse to book until they confirmed they understood.

It was always most gratifying when said cheeky fucker would roll up having a faux hissy fit, demanding to be moved and we could show the Theatre Manager the note and the would get very short shrift and were made to sit in the seats they had booked.

Sometimes CFers would try and move seats during the interval which, if it were mid week and not busy, we would turn a blind eye to but often times they would try it at the weekend when it was sold out and the ensuing temper tantrums when their cunning plan was utterly foiled could be quite entertaining.

Peoples brass neck never fails to amaze me.

At my dds prom the dcs paid for tickets for food etc and I think the dcs may even have gone to chose the food. They called the teacher out who was busy taking all the crisps and leftovers drinks for her own private use, I mean the odd thing is fair enough but she attempted to take a boxes of crisps .

woodhill
I don't know about your DC school but every school I've worked in teachers have paid their own prom ticket.

My last prom ticket cost me £30.

There’s a big soft play near me where you don’t pay as you go in, rather it gets put on a tab, so you pay the entrance fee, food and drink in one go. There are gates at the exit to stop people walking out.

Witnessed a lady having a screaming meltdown at the gates to let her out. Apparently her food hadn’t been cooked properly in the middle, which hadn’t stopped her scoffing it down, and she wasn’t going to pay for anything. She was literally acting like a toddler, while her three young DCs were getting really upset seeing their mum acting in such a way. Eventually they let her out and she ran off screaming that the staff were ‘fucking cunts’ in front of an entire soft play centre full of kids. I was gobsmacked. Is it really worth losing your dignity like that over a few quid? It was obviously her genius plan to complain and get a free lunch.

At my old work we had the cheapest lady ever on our team. On special occasions such as Christmas and staff birthdays, we’d all bring in buffet food and have a little celebration. She never ever brought in a single thing, yet stuffed her face so much we suspected she had a tapeworm. Like seriously, plate after plate of food. She’d wrap stuff in napkins and fill her bag with handfuls of quality street. Horrible woman. I was too young and shy to call her out at the time sadly.

We have buffets at work for social occasions. There’s one guy who always ‘forgets’ to bring something in or bring in 1 tube of pringles then be first with his plate to stock up going back several times to eat the lovely homemad stuff peiople have made. There’s a woman who also does that who will contribute a small tub of cherry tomatoes. I never take bought stuff in. I always spend hours making lovely stuff which always gets eaten first.

Those that bring along siblings to a party they weren't invited too as they are either too tight to pay for a sitter or want free food and entertainment for all their children.

Another one... Friend bought a footstool from well known furniture shop a few years ago. After a few years wear and tear she replaced it with a new one as still in stock.

She then placed old footstool in new footstools packaging, sealed it as though it hadn’t been opened and returned it full refund of nearly £200. Was very smug about it too!

yellow we have 3DC and I'm on my own most weekends. I often have to take all 3 with me and tell the host ahead of time. If they aren't ok with it we don't go or I ask another parent to watch my child. With our middle one it's not so easy as he has ASD. No one wants to watch him.