Best CF Stories

[CupcakesAndCastles]

Lockdown sucks, what’s the best CF stories you’ve read?

Years ago my db worked in Egypt and he kindly invited family to stay and experience Cairo and the pyramids.
My dad’s cousin asked if he could go and my db said yes. So my dad, cousin and my own teen son booked a flight from Heathrow.
I paid my sons flight.
Dad’s cousin drove the 80 mile journey to Heathrow.
He then split the parking and petrol money into three. So my dad didnt tell me and paid for himself and my son.
Cousin was getting a free week of accommodation in my db’s home and a driver in Cairo!
When I found out I offered to pay my dad but he said no.
Absolute cheek charging at all, but a teenager who didnt have money!

@feelingsomewhatlost

I had a friend who decided to set up an online business selling items that she'd personalised. She asked me to 'help her out' by writing all her facebook and instagram posts in exchange for... a water bottle. Each product was being sold for roughly £15 - £20 each.

God I have one the same. I'm pretty handy with websites so she wanted me to make one for an actor friend, one for friends of a friend of hers business and one for her mlm business.

The actor one she was paid and I had to ask repeatedly (in double figures amounts of time ) for the cash as I'd been promised faithfully and had written it into my budget as it was Xmas and it allowed a few extra treats that had been booked or ordered on the back of it and needed paying. Should have learnt my lesson. I never did get the full amount of it. (about 6 years ago)

Friends business one I never saw a penny but I was forwarded all the 'how do you do this?"" can you edit that? "" can you add that? " questions from business owner. I was too naice to direct them back to her (she wouldn't have a clue) as it wasn't their fault and it was their business.

Third one I was to be sent a sample of the mlm stuff as payment and" so I could see what I wanted to buy" going forward.

DH and I were invited to a picnic outdoorsy wedding where the B+G wanted to keep costs down by asking us to bring our own picnic baskets and they'd provide the drinks. Excellent idea, we were happy to bring our basket as well as a gift off their list (young couple asking for new home bits like microwave, pans, etc). Turns out they'd invited 10 couples to help set up, so we arrived 2 hours before the actual wedding to assemble the pew decorations etc. bit of a pisstake but we assumed there was some miscommunication and we pitched in anyway.

Then Groom turned up panicked that the alcohol for the picnic hadn't arrived and asked DH to pick some up from the local supermarket and that he'd pay him back. DH and I stupidly said ok and spent £250 on drinks as the groom had specified. Got back, gave groom the receipt and he gave it back to DH along with a bottle of wine and said 'you keep that mate, no need to thank me'

We were pissed off but just assumed we'd get it sorted so seethingly sat quietly. As we were leaving we popped over to them to say goodbye and before we could mention the money they pointed us in the direction of a table covered in envelopes, one had our name. Turns out it contained our bill for the wedding which included contributing towards the Bride's gown, their honeymoon and the church/venue payment. They'd asked us for £600 because they estimated everyone's salary and thought DH must be earning enough to be okay with that. They stood and watched while we opened it and then suggested DH could contribute by giving them a few hours free tattooing time. We put the envelope back on the table and left.

@12FreeRangeEggs

Did you tell the baker what had happened? Or ask your colleague about it?

I wouldn't have been able to keep quiet about that one.

TinRoofRusty, how right you are! Had my own experiences with CFs and learned the hard way! Wish I’d had your approach. But for the more timid, like myself, the first time you assert yourself it is hard, but it gets easier with practice!

@Rhodri

I was only 21 at the time. I’d never been out for a large group meal before so had no expectation that they’d want to split the bill when people were obviously ordering different amounts and adding stuff that only they were having. They were still whinging even after we clarified that we’d only eaten our pasta. Nowadays I’m wiser and always order the most expensive items at a group meal.

So now you’re a CF

@Lucieintheskye, my flabber is well and truly gasted

[quote Lardycake4me]@Lucieintheskye, my flabber is well and truly gasted [/quote]
The biscuit has been taken!

@Afint

I would like some ideas for how to deal with a CF friend who never buys a round.

I tend to go out in a group of 5 mum friends. One of them is my best friend and the others I know pretty well and have been friends with for years. However, there is minor strain between myself and them as I bollocked them for something a few years ago (sorry, it’s a bit outing to say what it was but I was absolutely in the right to do it).

So, every time we go out, I buy a round, my best friend buys a round, the most well off of the other three buys a round, another of them usually buys a round...and CF never does. I noticed it about 18 months ago and since then she has not put her hand in her pocket once in a night out. Best friend also noticed and mentioned it to me. We conspired to sort it by not offering to pay for a round early in the evening so that she’d have to. OMG - we tried and tried - disappearing to the toilet only to come back and find that one of the others had paid, sending her to the bar for drinks then having the barman come over to our table for payment because she’d disappeared to talk to someone and not come back to pay for the drinks. She is an absolute CF round avoider master. How do we get her to pay her way without me having to have an awkward conversation with her (which would not go down well as I swear she and the other two are still holding the bollocking I have them once against me - I daren't even mention it to the other two in case they think I’m being a bitch. I’m not! I’m just sick of my friends and I finding every night out for her).

Colleague did this for years. My solution was to call it out at the start by saying so M I know you do not paying for rounds so I will let you buy your own. Rest of my team had open mouths but I notice they all quickly followed my lead.

Someone I slightly knew once rang me out of the blue to ask if he could have access to my bank account, because bookmakers had stopped letting him open accounts under his own name.

A few months later I heard that he had been banned from all the racecourses in the UK for race fixing.

Thanks! I don’t know how I’d get past that if it had been my rellies. Poor OP.

Not sure everything in that story about the computer prize added up...

I once owned a large house with barns, a lake and land.
CF frenemy and her BF insinuated herself into the picture, would come round most days to fish, drink my booze, do photography assignments with her friends in the barn for free and drive their off road vehicles around the land.
When I wasn’t there I gave them free run of the place - she even invited her son’s friends round to use the pool.
Not once did she invite me round to hers or ever bring a bottle.
When I sold the house I was just about to complete had moved everything out but still had a washing machine that needed to be removed so I asked if she could help.
She had a huge pick up truck and said she’d take it to my new house down the road, but didn’t bother to turn up as arranged and later said the washing machine would have fallen off her truck.
Oddly enough, this hadn’t been a problem when she’d used the same truck to load up half a ton of logs I had no use for and happily gave her.
I never spoke to Tara from Normandy again.

@lucieintheskye - WTF have I just read? I felt my blood pressure rising just reading about that astounding display of CFery. What happened afterwards? Did they ever offer to reimburse your husband for the alcohol or realise how jaw-droppingly obnoxious they were? What is your relationship with them, are they family that you can't avoid? Sorry for all the questions. This has to be the most outrageous CFery I have ever, ever heard!

This was apparently really common a couple of generations ago. My parents remember funeral gatecrashers being common

It would probably be a lot easier nowadays. With very basic research you could out where someone lived, worked etc, and gate crash quite a few with a good cover story, if you were of the right age. I wouldn't have the audacity, but if someone of my age had a funeral notice in the local paper, it would be fairly easy to find out which school they went to/if they worked, and claim I knew them from then.

4 years after separating from exH.
Living on a pittance as their Carer.
NO maintenance from him at any point.
I visited with kids (they have Autism and don't like to be with Dad without me around) for 2 days.
I drove them there and back (1.5 hrs each way). I brought essentials (loo roll, soap) with me as he never has anything in the house and lives like a miser. Plus, of course, food:
SO pizzas for Friday eve, a Chinese take away on Sat, and cooked a Sunday Roast before we left. I include him in the portions as I don't want to look mean in front of kids - trying to be 'the bigger person'.
Then I had to drive home, settle them etc (one not feeling well) so I grabbed a yellow sticker £1.98 cheesy pasta bake from the freezer. Got home to a text from him: 'you appear to have taken my dinner: you owe me £1.98'

I had started a new job and received a text out of the blue from a colleague from my old company about a year later. She was wondering if I could pick up a cake for her neighbours ds birthday party. It was from a well known cash and carry that you need a membership for.

She agreed to pick it up from my work and give me the money for it then. I totally went out of my way as I didn’t have a car at the time so had to pick it up after work the day before she was collecting it and bring it to work in the morning - all on the bus. And on top of all of this pay for it when I was absolutely skint at the time.

Well she picked it up as agreed thanked me then said she forgot to bring her purse so would transfer the money to me.

I sent her my bank details but I never received my money or heard from her again. So I ended up paying for a random child’s birthday cake that his parents probably paid for in good faith and I was left with next to no money until pay day.

This was about 20 years ago but still gets me.

Sorry, Carer to my children (ASD) not exH in case of confusion

I have been reading through these, of and on, all day. I don't want to miss any of them!
Thank you to the poster who linked to the old thread about the Wishing Well poem - that was hilarious.

I have come across a few (minor) CFs in my time:
a) the colleague who cadged multiple cigarettes EVERY day and 'repaid' with a small jar of very old, very stuck together sweets.
b) the mother who, during school holidays, sent her son to our house every day, ostensibly to play with our boys. He would, on most days, arrive at breakfast time, be here for lunch and go home for his tea. We were both teachers and used to joke that we were the local area's unofficial holiday club.
c) my lovely friend X. We retired at the same time and, before Covid, met for lunch and the cinema every 2 months or so. I got into the habit of paying for the food part of our meal with vouchers bought with supermarket rewards. The drinks were not covered by the vouchers - and we split the deficit between us. Sometimes we ordered more food than my vouchers covered and so each had more cash to pay at reckoning up time. X always queries her contribution at these times, even though she is getting £15 of food for free. I love her company though so suck it up.
d) DSis - a lifetime's worth of CF anecdotes, the latest of which is the unused still-in-its-packaging curtain pole that I had offered her for her new flat. When I took it to her and asked, "Where will you put it?" she replied, "On Ebay probably."

@WhereverIGoddamnLike

Yes I told the baker everything - she told me that at some point someone in the bridal party had suggested that the favours / cupcakes hadn’t been fully delivered in the first place! These were the days when venues didn’t have cctv to verify. In fact it wasn’t until the baker had gone back to the bridal party with my story that she was truly off the hook. I never mentioned anything to my CF colleague. Wonder whether the bride had it out with her...

[quote Besiegedbykillersquirrels]@lucieintheskye - WTF have I just read? I felt my blood pressure rising just reading about that astounding display of CFery. What happened afterwards? Did they ever offer to reimburse your husband for the alcohol or realise how jaw-droppingly obnoxious they were? What is your relationship with them, are they family that you can't avoid? Sorry for all the questions. This has to be the most outrageous CFery I have ever, ever heard![/quote]
I can only apologise for any ill health I have contributed towards!

We never got the money back but the wedding groupchat we'd been added to was rather interesting the next day with lots of people complaining about the bills. The bride's best friend/lost puppy was trying to stand up for her by saying they were young and didn't know how weddings work... Bride and Groom claimed 'they did what felt right' and a few weeks after the wedding asked everyone to have their bills paid by X date!

Definitely not family, I was friends with the bride when we were at school and DH had tattooed the groom a couple of times. We weren't best of friends but I knew a lot of mutual friends would be at the wedding so I was happy to go. We went NC after the wedding but got an invitation through the post to both of their baby showers (for one baby!) with a gift allocated for us to buy them!

I have so many CF stories about her, but I'm concerned about your health!

I have so many CF stories about her, but I'm concerned about your health! @Lucieintheskye

My health can take it, promise 🙂

That is unbelievable, did anyone actually pay them?

@Lucieintheskye - shitting hell. The CFs that keep on CFing! How do people go through life like this?! Honestly, did nobody tell them that that's not how weddings work? I couldn't let a friend/daughter or whatever of mine go through with that. I bet they don't get invited to many events though, on account of their fucking hideous rudeness.
I hope he asks your husband to tattoo him and your husband inks "I'm a knob" on his face.

Not only did they deprive the hard working waitresses of their tip

That's a bit ridiculous. The waitresses are paid by their employer.

A group of us went to dinner and when the bill came, one person realised she didn't have her purse. She genuinely looked mortified, so I think she really had forgotten it. While she went to the car to look for it, everyone decided to cover it between us. I put in my share of her bit and the next few minutes were everyone else sitting there looking at each other and saying the bill was still short. It was getting uncomfortable so I just put in the remainder plus some for tips. When she came back, she was told by someone else the bill had been paid and not to worry, to which she thanked everyone profusely. What annoyed me was the two people sitting next to me said "that's ok" like they had paid for some of her share.

@truthisalie

Not only did they deprive the hard working waitresses of their tip

That's a bit ridiculous. The waitresses are paid by their employer.

The employer doesn’t pay their tip though, probably just the minimum wage.

The tip would have been taken into account when the bill was calculated and split equally. They should have paid their fair share just like everyone else.