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)

This is more CF but it annoys me when parents collect their kids from my kids' parties and start eyeing up the cake and expecting some of it, or asking for another goodie bag for their kids who aren't at the party.

With the shop lifting cheek, a similar one. Two men pulled up in a box van outside a furniture store local to me at the time. They were both wearing those brown warehouse coats. Carried a very expensive sofa from a display, loaded up and drove away. It was quite some time before the store realised it had actually been stolen.
Similarly a house being totally cleared out while the owners were on holiday, by a fake removal firm. We all saw them, just assumed they were moving. They were people who kept very much to themselves, so no one questioned it. Not quite the theme of the thread I know.

One place that I worked at had a Christmas buffet and there was a whole gaggle of ladies that did the tupperware thing. The legend is that the company now makes them shut their machine down last as one year they cleaned out the buffet before others got there.

At another place it was contracted to have a free hamper and a frozen turkey at christmas, one bloke said that he was doing several colleagues a favour by collecting theirs and disappeared with them, said colleagues complained that they never got their hamper or turkey.

We used to see fence jumpers at the local fireworks display.

The only one that I have taken part in was when we stuffed three friends in the boot of the car to get into a site that was pay per person. Everything was free on the other side of the gate.

My parents join the Maltese National Trust every year as it allows them to visit all the UK National Trust properties too but only costs them about £20 a year.

Every time they visit a property they pretend they live in Malta.

They're pretty wealthy too.

A friend who worked silver service at uni saw the chef take revenge on a repeat offender cheeky fucker who would return a mostly eaten steak and demand another because it wasn’t cooked to their liking. Chef was angry, a bit drunk, hot and sweaty, and took the replacement steak and wiped it under his sweaty armpits and bollocks before cooking it to perfection

The thing is there's always a justification

The shop assistant says it was fine
Everyone else does it
The place was closing in half an hour
They are a big company and can absorb the loss
Etc etc

I worked in a lot of hotel and catering environments when I was young. I have seen chefs do dreadful things to the food!

For those PP who mentioned people abusing public funds to get lots of free lunches, the result of that abuse is now that when I receive foreign officials, who have been on a 12 hour flight, I can only offer the poor things Tesco value instant coffee. If a meeting last hours and I will be hungry, I obviously provide my own snacks, but I can hardly eat whilst my poor visitors starve, so I end up buying them biscuits out of my own pocket.

Doesn't do much good for our reputation either, particularly as they are usually incredibly hospitable when we arrive starving and jet lagged in their countries.

I know someone who used to spit into coffee just because she didn't like the look of them, or they didn't say good morning and weren't friendly enough to her. Any sort of slight to be honest. I thought that was disgusting to be honest, because these people hadn't complained, hadn't actually done anything. It just gave her satisfaction to spit in their coffee. She was fucked up.

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?

She isn't a CF. She's a thief.

I sometimes organise small business events at our local hotel. We have to police the buffet from the 'speed awareness' workshop attendees. Sometimes they get quite stroppy when we tell them to go away as our attendees have paid for this! They are like a flock of locusts and will clear everything in minutes if we don't stop them. Why do people think a buffet must be available to everyone?

That’s not good to hear, Eunamechange.

I bet the people who filled their boots with free lunches back in the day are complaining the loudest, though!

they should change the colour of the bands every week or so to catch people out.

I once worked with two guys, well paid Head of Departments, who shared tea and coffee expenses. They shared a tea bag, they took it in turns to use it first week by week.

My parents old neighbour used to get stuff fixed around the house then complain the problem hadn't been solved when it was fine, they'd come back, he'd complain again and tell them not to come back he'd find someone else and not pay.

Eventually he ended up not being to get any workmen to do anything at his house, so word obviously does get around eventually.

Back in the day I was friends with some girls who worked in a high street clothes shop. After closing on a Saturday they would take their pick of the clothes, shoes, bags etc to wear clubbing that night. Everything would be put back in the shop on Monday morning with a quick wipe down with a baby wipe if there were obvious marks or "stains", bleurgh!!

Not so much CF, as blatent thievery, but our local big super market had to get rid of the in store letter box. People were opening packets of padded envelopes, slipping a cd or dvd in, and then posting it to themselves from inside the store.

I was helping at a catering college event where the students gave the parents who attended samples of their food. One couple of parents took tons of food from each student. They then approached me and asked if they could take any leftovers at the end of the event. I explained there probably would not be any and if there were then it was up to each student. They seemed quite cross about this. Later in the evening I found them in the catering storeroom, which was out of bounds for visitors.They had a carrier bag of ingredients that they had taken from the shelves, including a large tin of coco powder and a bag of sugar. I made them put all the ingredients back. They tried to argue that as it was a free food event, all food in the building was up for grabs.

I was at a theme park a few weeks back. A member of staff there told me that they have to check tickets particularly carefully at the moment as one section of their clientele has taken to printing their own (although not terribly well apparently). Some people are just thieving tossers.

I sometimes work at an annual charity fair. Not big national charity but small local one. We charge £2 for an adult ticket and I'm always astounded by the number of people who try to get in without paying the entrance fee. Either by nonchalantly wandering through the gate or a favourite is an entire family rocking up claiming to be helping out a stall holder inside. One year one of the venue tea room staff came out to tell me that people were pretending to go in the tearoom for a drink and walking straight through into the fair, bypassing the entrance gate. How fucking mean can you get?

I'm absolutely at the tales of people who shout and scream in shops/restaurants when they don't get their own way! My god,do people really behave like this?! Have they no self-respect?

I had a work colleague who would never buy a drink in nights out. She would get herself involved of round groups of around eight people, let everyone else get their drinks in and then leave. Every single time in the roughly ten times I went out with her, and presumably every other time too. No shame. It infuriated me!

I was in Frankie and Bennys ages ago and a man and woman sat at the next table.
He ordered steak and chips, ate most of it then called the waitress over and said the steak wasn't cooked to his specifications.
She brought him another. Then he complained that his chips were cold and needed more to go with the steak . Got more chips.
Then complained that he had finished his beer while waiting for the food and demanded a refill.
The waitress was perfectly polite to him the whole time and agreed with him thst he wouldn't gave to pay for the extra food .
When he got the bill he asked for the manager and said he wasn't paying because of sloppy service and that the waitress was rude and ignorant to him.
At this point I stuck my nose in and told the manager the truth.
He paid and hot banned.
Thing that got me was he was laughing and telling his partner exactly what he was doing , we could all hear him

Not really cheeky, but:
I have an annual pass which entitles me to free parking and entry to some attractions and theme parks and also discounts on purchases at the shops and food places. Being a bit forgetful (very), I only ever remember that I'm entitled to the free parking. It's often the staff on tills who remind me as they see the lanyard and ask for my pass at checkouts.
Went to one of the theme parks in September with a friend who had a return ticket. When we went to get our lunch, she said that we'd pay for our own food separately and I went ahead of her in the queue. Got served, and shown my pass for discount after prompting from staff member. Friend was chatting with her server about the day and mentioned she was visiting with me. Her server noticed my pass and said to her "Your friend has a pass?" friend confirmed and her server added the pass discount to her order.