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 went to a coffee shop with a neighbour. We had a sandwich, coffee and a cake, so when the bill came I put half the money in , plus a tip. She pointed out that my cake was 10p more than hers.She took 10p of the bill, halved it, then added 10p back onto my share.

@user1468353179 That has reminded me of a flatmate from years ago. She refused to have a kitty for us to buy shared stuff from (loo roll, milk, washing up liquid etc) in case "someone stole from it". Instead, she insisted that whenever we bought any shared stuff, we should then split the cost 3 ways (there were 3 of us in the house).

So she would buy milk that cost £1, and then come home and ask for "33.3p" from each of us. Since the ".3" wasn't possible, she'd get us to take it in turns to pay the extra 1p. She had a mental note of who's turn it was to pay the extra.

When I was a flight attendant, someone deliberately spilled a very hot, hot chocolate on their sleeping kid's leg to try and claim compensation. They were talking about free flights, etc prior to doing so. Fortunately there were enough witnesses seated around them that they all signed witness statements clearing my crew and I from any responsibility. They were so awful.

The number of people who turn up at charity events with paid entry claiming to be “helpers” around 15 minutes (and therefore feeling entitled to free entry, along with their entire family) before the event starts is astounding. (The genuine helpers having arrived 2-3 hours earlier and bust a gut setting up.) This is NOT ON people!!!!

The mum on our road whose DCs collected a huge bucketful of sweets trick-or-treating from our road, then got DCs to empty their buckets and they went off to the next road over. (Again, not someone badly off and her DCs didn’t seem keen - she actually said it was to get them as many free sweets as possible.)

I’ve got some other corkers, all the same person, but would be totally outing.

just

One of my friends has a neighbour who pushed her kid into a moving car for the same reason, it was their 5th claim and they wonder why children’s services are crawling all over their arse.

How twisted would you have to be to try to injure your own child to get something for free?!

I wouldn't let any of these CFs get away with what they're doing - I'd call them out on it. Definitely going to keep my eye out for that 'pulling a card out before it's authorised' trick. Grrr. Makes me so cross.

I used to work in a shoe concession in a fashion store. The staff had a few scams for stealing shoes or getting for next to nothing:

• bags were checked when you left so they'd wear trainers to work and bring gym clothes. They'd put on a new pair of shoes from the stock room, put the trainers in their bag and managers had no clue
• they'd swap their old shoes into a shoe box and nick the new ones, then hide the box (less smart)
• due to the paper ticket system at the time it was possible to switch out prices for the till staff so they'd get a mate to buy a pair of shoes for cheap. Then get them to return them, say they'd lost the receipt and the staff member would approve a refund at full price

I guess it was a good way to supplement the £3.17 an hour we used to get!

I was shopping in Tesco one evening and needed to buy some garlic, I picked up a bulb only to find some cf had picked off a single clove of the garlic, presumably because they only needed 1 clove of garlic and didn't want to buy a bulb.

I dated someone who used to rent DVDs from Blockbuster. We went in there and he went to choose some DVDs but was told he had the maximum number he could take out. He told the staff member that he had returned them. But later on, he phoned his sister and asked her how the DVDs he'd lied about returning were. The cf had lied and got extra out despite being at the maximum level. I later ditched him as he pretended he was a high flying business man and his behaviour on previous dates was starting to be a big red flag.

I've a few.
A former 'friend' what was adept at swapping sticky sale labels in a lovely little independent department store we used to go to.
When I worked in a bar we occasionally went for an Indian after work. One guy (nick named round dodger) would order loads of food, eat the lot then say it was crap and wouldn't pay. We told him he wasn't welcome to come with us anymore.
We buy clothes from auctions to sell on ebay. Bought a load of returns (littlewoods/very). The amount of evening dresses/wedding guest type dresses that had clearly been worn was ridiculous. Smelling really strongly of perfume, sweat, covered in make up and fake tan. Some people think this doesn't matter but it just puts the price up for everyone else.
The courier never delivered: even when they've sodding signed for it!

I remember when I was a waitress a table of four came in. They each ordered a double gin & tonic with "loads and loads of ice".
Near the end of their drinks they said they all wanted a refund as their drink wasn't "fizzy enough".
Of course it wasnt! It was all I've and gin! Cost the restaurant a bloody fortune.

Friends of ours (who are genuinely lovely people, would help anyone out in a crisis) will sneak their DCs in anywhere in order not to have to pay; I've seen them do it at theme parks, funfairs, cinemas, pretty much everywhere. They'll complain in restaurants if anything's delayed even by a couple of minutes and nine times out of ten their cheek gets them a discount.

DH is the polar opposite and I think he died a little inside when we went to a theme park with them and watched them sneak a child in. We tend to meet them inside places like that now so we don't have to watch.

Garlic one reminds me- went to buy a roll of fruit pastilles in tesco. There were 6 rolls left and someone had taken 1 or 2 out of each and tried to roll it back so it wasn't obvious. I had to go next door to the news agents to get a full roll!

The behaviour of some at fetes is indeed surprising. I used to run a big one and (perhaps foolishly) charged less for charity stallholders than business ones. This had to change when absolutely everybody insisted they were a charity - even the burger van man tried it. I wouldn't have minded, but anyone who made an effort could easily clear £3-400 on the day and they argued over a tenner

It works the other way too, though. I once called a waitress over to say she'd made a mistake on the bill and she very rudely denied it; I tried her manager and he aggressively denied it too. So I paid and left, never mentioning that actually I'd been trying to tell them they'd undercharged me

A pp reminded me of my own CF blockbuster story. I went to hire a DVD and was told I had a late fee to pay. I hadn't rented anything for over a month and it was whilst staying with a fella I was seeing. I had stayed the one night so I'd returned the DVD before going home the next day so I knew it went back in plenty of time. The clerk told me it was Reservoir dogs, a movie I'd not even seen. Contesting it, I found that it had been hired a couple of weeks before in my boyfriends hometown. Turns out he'd been using my membership number regularly to hire DVDs so he didn't have to pay his own late fees he still owed. I had to pay up because I had no way to prove it wasn't me.

I was at a two day literary festival this year and had bought tix to two different talks on different days. Now I’m deaf so need to be right at the front so I can follow the person speaking. Because of this, the friend I was with and I got there an hour early, first in the queue and waited. 15 minutes to go and two women came along. One of them walked with a stick. She spoke to an organiser and came back and without even acknowledging our existence Pushed in the queue in front is us. It became obvious that she wasn’t using the stick either, it was for show. We walked in and this woman was insisting on having the best seat. Another lady who was in a wheelchair was put at the end of a table but this madam made a fuss about having the best seat.

So. Next day, second event, we queued for half an hour again. When we got in, the same woman was there, demanding not just a seat in the front row, but the very best seat in the front row.

This sort of thing boils my piss. It’s damaging to all disabled people and of course it’s always the rude and pushy people who do it.

I saw a woman in the supermarket plunge her whole hand into the tub of olives on the salad counter and then walk around eating them. Disgusting cow.

That’s foul

@Escapepeas Ew. That's why we gave up buying Morrisons salad bar salads years ago. I don't know if it was a 'different country different standards' thing but there was always someone fingering all the food, ignoring the rings. They'd be picking up cucumber pieces and feeling them (presumably to see if they were fresh), or sniffing the chicken pieces and putting them back, and nibbling on other bits. I don't think I ever saw a filthy fingerer buying them but they'd always walk away eating bits!

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?

**tongs, not rings.

NeedsAsockamnesty, oh my God, what the hell?! Was there an injury?

I know someone who's nearly thirty who near Halloween wanted to have free sweets instead of using his own money at the shop. He said if someone wants to give something away free he should get in on it.

I said it's for children and people would think it's stingy if he did it but he didn't feel embarrassed as long as he got the free snacks/sweets out of it. I thought he shouldn't do it because some people would loathe it and it would inevitably be met with hostility by some no so nice nice neighbours and be a bit cringey...

I was thinking what if in return the people send their kids to knock on his door and he gives them no sweets back or just ignores them knocking after just going and getting sweets for himself from their house? He said he'd talk about famine abroad or give them one mint sweet from a pack each and other things like this.

The other thing is I think the trick or treating is about socialising a bit as well, you know, people having a five to ten minute chat at each others doors and the like, usually with people they're at least acquainted with. You can't just turn up, ask for free snacks/food which you know they have there and then immediately turn on your heel and walk off at random once you've got what you want.

The thing is it sounds like a long running joke but this was all completely shameless on his part. But he is a bit of a user, will do anything for money.

A group of us were invited to a friends dc Christening.

Another friend sent an email to a group of us attending and said if we all chipped in £20 each she would arrange a special gift from us all.
We all agreed and I paid her £20.

She then messaged me separately and asked if I could order part of the gift as she was too busy (!) and she would pay me back.

I ordered the gift which was £40 so I've paid £60 in total.

She hasn't paid me back despite me asking and it's been months

My parents had a wedding anniversary party in a big hotel, myself and brother paid for a big £100 black forest gateau. Was beautiful. Cake was cut for all guests but because it was so big half was left over.
Went looking for cake at the end of the night and found it in the hotel kitchen, all sliced up and set on plates with food wrap ready to be served for meals the next day.
My brother made them put it all back together and into the box.

I used to work for a small but asset-rich publicly quoted company. (This is relevant as directors' salaries and shares held were disclosed in the annual report.)

The company was taken over, meaning a huge windfall for directors and shareholders. My direct-line manager director came into the office, giddy with having concluded the deal, to borrow cash from us (as he was too important to carry cash or go to the ATM) for drinks and cigars. He took €50 from Andy, and the rest of us rummaged for tenners. Andy was in his 60s, an unambitious man who had got a tiny percentage annual increase over his 40 year service, and was probably on about €35k a year.

I didn't care about my tenner, but I know Andy never saw his €50 again.

Director was on €240k plus bonus, and got €112k from the shares. Pig.