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)

I know someone who gets a Subway meal deal, keeps the cup after aving a drink, goes around town and then pops back into Subway for a refill on the way home.

Not so much CF as a genius. My granda takes a pen knife when he goes shopping in Asda so he can cut the stalk off the broccoli. His reasoning is that he doesn’t eat it and if he’s paying by the kg then he wants it removed. 😂

I "stole" from Asda last week. I was returning a toy that I had bought as my SIL has bought him the same thing for Christmas. I took it to the Customer Service counter and handed it and the receipt to the assistant. It scanned through the till as full price, even though she also scanned my receipt. The receipt was lying on the counter and I reached for it to double check what I had paid and she snatched it back, crumpled it up and put it in the bin saying something like "you can only return things once you know." The receipt was for a full weekly shop plus the toy so I might have wanted it back for something else. She crumpled it up and put it in the bin.
I was so annoyed that I said nothing and kept the extra tenner. (I am not a serial returner BTW and have never to my knowledge been served by this woman before.)

I've just remembered someone from uni who would buy something from top shop and pay by cheque knowing full well they had absolutely no money in their bank account. She'd wear it...keep the labels in, return it and get the cash back so she had some money to go drinking with. She was getting her accommodation paid for by her parents and just seemed to free load off the rest of her flatmates for food.

Not sure if this counts (I have told the story before on MN) but I went to a wedding a couple of years ago which seemed the ultimate in CF-ery by the bride and groom.

Wedding venue was at grooms place of work which had dorms available to sleep in; B&G charged guests to sleep in the (free to them) dorms to the tune of £20 per head and £20 per family if camping in the spacious grounds (equipment not provided). They claimed that the money collected was going to ‘a local children’s charity’ but didn’t name it. The groom’s father went round in the morning with a Tupperware collecting £20 from each guest that had stayed in a crappy, free kids dorm inc. from close family members likes brothers and cousins.

I was gobsmaked as neither the couple nor either family had money troubles but they thought it was fine to make £100s off their guests. Going to a charity my arse!!

I hope you didn't get them a present!!

Teeni No that's theft, they are priced to include the stem, if you don't want to pay for the full goods you need to pay for the expensive stem free packaged version.
There was a disabled mother and son couple who were banned from the eateries in the main London museums, always on a scam with meals. Many of the eateries were the same chain, and so often staff had already been conned by them.

Am I a CF? I can't afford coffees out but my friends always want to go for coffees out. Is it bad that I take my keepcup with coffee from the office in it and dont buy coffee? I dont want them buying me coffees either. Is this cheeky?

Also, I deliberately buy more online to get the free shipping and then refund the items I didn't intend to get (clothes only).

I hate hate hate people like this... they're the ones who make our insurance premiums go up, make goods rise in price, make genuine customers find it difficult to complain etc. If there was ever the opportunity, I would grass these people up.

^So would I every single time. Fortunately I don’t know any shameless, tight wad people that do this.

There is difference between tight and CF. Tight affects you, it does not cost anybody else financially. Taking your own coffee, tight nothing wrong with being tight never buying/stealing/tricking to get your coffee means somebody else pays for it, individually or as a group somebody is paying for it in increased costs to cover that CF theft.

Oh my goodness this made me think of me my dearly departed Nana who use to take the small packets of sugar (even though she didn’t have sugar in her tea ‘I’m sweet enough’ she’d say. I’d go to her sugar jar and it was just full of sugar packets.

Lidl did a pop up in town to try food out. Every time a plate of food came out a customer would get a cocktail stick and grab up every last piece before anyone else got s look in. The staff kept putting the food next to him though which was a bit daft! I couldn’t believe how rude he was!

The risk is that online shops will increase the amount they will allow free delivery on if too many people take advantage

The coffee not so much if you're not hogging a massive table for hours

I would say you are being a CF if you are taking your own coffee into a cafe and sitting at their tables drinking it.

DM has an old friend who would keep all of her Pay & Display tickets (early 80s, so no smart tech!) and leave them stuck all the way round the windscreen, windows etc. Then as long as there weren't too many faded ones she'd take a chance on traffic wardens not being bothered to check all of them for a valid one.

Oh, and the DM of another family friend once came to a local pub that had started doing a lunchtime buffet roast - she went all the way round the tables picking up sausages, slices of roast beef, potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, one for her plate, one for her handbag Turned out she'd put an empty Tupperware in there in preparation.

I used to have a friend who would ask me to pay for things costing small amounts of money despite having his own money literally in his pocket when we were out to avoid paying for anything, ever because he thought I had rich parents and would never pay me back anything. I asked him to on one occasion and he said "If you ask me like that you won't get anything" so I dropped him. Oh and he also tricked me into walking out of a shop carrying items he had stolen so if we got caught he'd get off clear but I wouldn't. He did many other things like this and I'm so glad he's not in my life anymore.

There is a regular man I see in my local Co-Op who steals loads of food from there. I've seen him do this five times in the past six months or so. He's in his mid-thirties. Thing is, he steals about five to ten food items at a time, dropping them into his coat or empty bags but he himself is very thin.

my dearly departed Nana who use to take the small packets of sugar

See I don’t see anything wrong with that. The price of the coffee includes the sugar. Helping yourself to handfuls is wrong, taking the ones on your cup is fine.

I think if you're taking up a space of a paying customer then you are being cheeky. You're using their utilities/facilities (heating, lighting, furniture ect).

I used to do nightclub promotion and there would be people at the door who'd stand there refusing to leave trying to persuade you to let them in without them having to pay £1 or they'd go in, come back out saying there were no girls to chat up in there and demanding their £1 back.

Not so much as ‘not paying’ but certainly rippin people off - as a teenager I worked in a posh hotel that did lots of weddings. During wedding breakfasts tables were normally laid out with a bottle of white, bottle of red and bottle of bubbly on each table (already paid for as part of wedding package). No bottle openers were laid out. As there was normally a cash bar as well guests were generally reluctant to open said wine as it was a bit ambiguous as to whether they would have to pay or not. At the end of the meal bottles were cleared away and stored behind the bar, only to be given to guests if they specifically asked for ‘the wine that had been on the table’.

If, at the end of the wedding, b and g asked to take left over wine home they would normally be given about 10% of what was actually left. I marked a bottle in May once and it was still being put out for weddings by the end of August. This hotel is still being run under the same management - if you’re having a wedding at a naice hotel in Devon check your wine!

Thanks @Scaredycat3000, sometimes I feel weird about it. I really try and suggest to go for a walk other things but people LOVE buying coffees! Nah @whoareyou123 it's takeaway coffees, I just don't wait in the line, we chat on the way there and back. If it's a time when I would sit at the cafe then I definitely buy.

Taking your own coffee in to a cafe and sitting down to drink it is CF.

As many have mentioned, those who clear their plates at eating establishments and then kick up an almighty fuss so they get something free/the cost reduced.
I once asked a table doing this why they hadn't reported the 'disgusting' food when I checked back a few minutes after food served. I was told they don't like making a fuss - while shouting all this, demanding the drink bill be removed (almost as much as the meal) and threatening Trip Advisor if I didn't.
Got over ruled by the general manager who comped the whole meal, and threw in desserts. And that's exactly why people do it, he who shouts the loudest gets the most and threaten TA and you can guarantee you'll get something out of it. Not when I'm in charge
Hate people like this, they make what is generally a fun job utter shit sometimes. Staff bollocked for poor food/service when it hasn't happened just so someone can get a freebee.

When I was working in PC world we noticed that numerous boxed laptops and tvs that were tagged and on the shop floor had gone missing.

The exit doors had a security guard and alarms.The front door had a member of staff who'd greet people on entering. But it didn't have alarms. On checking the camera they discovered a team of guys were working together. One would come in the store and ask the front door employee for help, one would walk to the front door with laptop or TV and another would walk up to the door outside to make them open so the other could walk out.

They did it five times in one afternoon and no one noticed even though the customer service desk was also right at the door.

Obviously thieves but I couldn't believe their front.