Malicious Compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/beenhollow on 2025-01-07 15:58:09+00:00.

I worked at a gas station during covid. It was terrible for a lot of reasons so I searched for better jobs. I eventually found and interviewed for one on a Friday and got a job offer on the spot. I was scheduled to start Monday, which also happened to be my next gas station shift.

Immediately after the interview I called my gas station manager to tell them about the job offer. Without even asking what I called for, the manager began saying things like "the floor wasn't clean enough, that wasn't stocked enough, XYZ". When I eventually got a word in I told them "There's actually something I wanted to talk to you about" and the manager replied "Well can it wait until Monday?" At that point I was so utterly done with that job that I told the manager,

"Yes. It can wait until Monday."

When Monday came along I showed up at the gas station well before my scheduled shift, to turn in my key before starting my other job. When the manager saw me there early they knew something was up and so came outside to meet me. I told them about the new job and asked if the gas station could increase my wage to match. The manager told me "You know I can't do that," and I said "Okay, then I'm gonna take the other job" before handing over my key. My manager asked "why did you wait until now to tell me?" and I replied "Because you asked me to." The manager didn't say another word to me, but after a pause let out a long groan. Then I got in my car and never looked back.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/tynorex on 2025-01-07 15:03:07+00:00.

Just read the other top post about taking a bank survey repeatedly and it reminded me of my survey story.

About three years ago, my wife and I bought our house. We realized at the time that most of the house maintenance was poorly maintained (renters used to live in the house before us). One of the larger projects that needed to be done was a full driveway replacement, as the original driveway hadn't been refinished or maintained in almost 30 years.

Knowing that we would need to replace the driveway, my wife and I started planning ahead for the eventual project. We decided at the time that we would also like to expand our driveway. We are one of only three houses in my neighborhood to not have a three car garage. so we decided that we would expand our driveway out so that we could at least have a third stall, even if it was outside of our garage.

In order to expand the driveway, we had to get three bids out, bid one was for the driveway people themselves, one was to our underground sprinklers maintenance as the expansion would move our existing lines, and finally, due to our land not being 100% flat, the final bid was to a landscaper to build a retaining wall in order to create a flat enough spot to expand our driveway.

Due to the various companies working on this project, it meant that we had to make sure all three companies could work within the same timelines. The sprinklers were simple enough and not really an issue. The driveway people were great and gave us over a month of wiggle room to make everything work. The problem came from the landscaping company, we made them intimately aware of our timelines and explained the scope of the work, and they assured us multiple times that the deadlines would work.

We had the landscapers scheduled for the first week after the driveway was ripped up, however the landscapers never showed up. We called and rescheduled for the next week, and again the landscapers didn't show up. This happened twice more before it was literally the day before the driveway people were due back to finish the driveway and the landscaping still was not done.

The landscapers finally showed up and I talked to them before I left for work that day, gave them my cell phone and some gatorades before I left and told them if there were any issues to please call me immediately. Got home from work to find 0 progress done on the project. Turns out the second I had left, the landscapers packed up and went to another job.

I actually called the owner and bitched out his team. I have never been so mad about something. The project manager called me back and assured me that they wanted the driveway done first and the landscaping would follow and that he personally would fix anything that was messed up as a result.

Fine. The driveway was poured and the results were to be expected, pretty brutal. About a week later the landscapers finally built their wall and the then added some finishing crap to the driveway, it looked terrible, especially for a brand new driveway. They then sent me my bill for the completed job. I immediately wrote back with pictures and explained that I was not paying for this job until it didn't look like shit and that I expected the landscapers to fix the mess they made.

Well I got ignored, at this point they had started ignoring most of my communications. Until that is, about 3 months passed and the landscaper realized I was serious about not paying for their shoddy work. They reached out to me to figure out what was going on, which is when they finally looked at my email about the terrible work and my refusal to pay. By this point in time, it was Christmas and everything around me was frozen.

The landscaper lamented not having a chance to fix their shoddy work before months had passed and I lamented them ignoring my communications about the project being subpar in the first place. We discussed some ways to "fix" their fuckup and settled on one that would at least make things look nicer, but would reduce my driveway width by about a foot, a solution I didn't like, but would at least mostly fix my issues. I left for work one day and came home to my driveway "fixed". No note, no communications, they just came in and did it one day when they had time. Again, not exactly how I would have wanted it, but it was okay.

My wife and I went back and forth before ultimately deciding to just pay everything, swear off the landscaper forever and move on. The whole project had taken over six months and we were just done with it all. We paid the bill and moved on. About five months later, just before spring/summer was set to start, the landscaper started spamming my inbox with requests for reviews, this is right when most project biddings go out, so they were looking to boost their online visibility and to get projects for the next year.

I ignored the first 10 or so emails that came through before deciding, maybe I can actually write them a review. And I did. I wrote the exact experience I had with them, highlighted the lack of communication, the unprofessionalism, the frequent missed deadlines, and I even included pictures!

Within a week i received a Google reward because my review had over a thousand views. The owner actually called me after another week and asked what he could do to make things right, which I told him that we were almost a year from the original project, without a time machine, there wasn't much we could do.

All in all the project was kind of a failure, we expanded the driveway, but now it is a very tight squeeze and so people rarely use the third slot. I now mostly just get mad when I see the retaining wall. I did get a ton of Google rewards for my review and I hope it saved a ton of people the headache I went through with the landscaper.

I was content with letting them screw me over and just moving on with a lesson learned, but they were persistent with their email campaign. Maybe don't ask people you screwed over to write you reviews?

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Wakemeup3000 on 2025-01-06 22:29:03+00:00.

One of my banks merged and then closed the branch that was in my town. The closest branch was a 30 minute drive so I did all my banking on line. At some point I had to do something and online wasn't working out so I drove to the closest branch. I stood in line, got to the counter and was told 'You could have done this online.' I got pissed about this comment probably more than I should have but ok let's play.

Me: You know I tried for about 15 minutes and kept getting an error so I waited until this morning, tried again, got the same error and decided to drive a half hour for help.

CSR: You could have called the toll free number for assistance.

Me: Or I could have come here for help.

CSR: Yes but calling might have solved the issue.

Me: Ok let's do this instead. Let's close the accounts and that'll solve the issue.

At this point the manager steps in and tries to sooth things over. Nope. 'You know there's no reason for me to have to spend a hour of my time driving to and from a bank. I could move this money to AA, BB, CC, or DD which are all 6 minutes from my house.'

Manager closes out the accounts, gives me a check, and out I go. Drive back to my town and throw the money in another bank. Then I get an email asking me to take a survey so I did and noted all the above. The next day I signed into my account online and it generated another survey request. I clicked in and took the survey again and copied and pasted the replies to a google doc. That way when I checked my account on line every single day and a new survey request was made every single day I could take it in a minute.

So far I've done it daily for over a month. Whey keep asking for my opinion so who am I not to oblige?

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Hulla_Sarsaparilla on 2025-01-04 20:35:32+00:00.

This was ages ago, one day my car wouldn’t start, and I realised my breakdown cover didn’t include home start.

I looked up online how to add it to my policy and spotted there was a discount for upping my policy going via their website, so I added it on and called them up with my new policy in place so they’d send someone out.

Breakdown person: I see you’ve just upgraded your policy, but that’s not valid to now use immediately for us to send someone out, you need to pay a £££ surcharge for that.

Me: But I didn’t have the right cover so how else could I do it?

Breakdown person: you needed to call us and pay the £££, the online price isn’t for when you’re already broken down

Me: ok, how long do I need to leave it between having paid the premium and having broken down?

Breakdown person: Three days, it’s not valid now, how would you like to pay?

Me: ok, my car is perfectly fine parked up for three days, I’ll call back in three days

Breakdown person: You can’t do that because…. (Mumbles, doesn’t really know why)

Me: Calls back in three days, they sent someone out

Cheeky robbing bastards taking advantage of people being genuinely stranded and having no option but to pay 🤬

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/AJWeddy123 on 2025-01-04 10:21:08+00:00.

I worked in a shared office space and my boss wanted me to inform my coworkers any time I left my station…..even if it was brief. Even for bathroom breaks. I mean, where could I be if not at my desk? At break, at lunch, or on the can. The first two I would have told my coworkers about anyway cuz I’m not a dick.

So then each time I had to take a bathroom break, I’d yell out to my coworkers- “Hey guys- heading down to the bathroom. I’ll be gone anywhere from 3-15 minutes, you know, depending.” It didn’t take long for my boss to turn a blind eye to my jackassery after that. Good times.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/CatlessBoyMom on 2025-01-03 23:25:54+00:00.

This wasn't me, but a friend in high school. Emilina, that we called M.

We had one of those horrendous English teachers. The kind that you wouldn't call the fire department if she burst into flames. Let's call her Miss C.

Now Miss C absolutely HATED any student that "had" anything she thought should be hers. This included relationships. Unfortunately, Miss C was such a cranky rotten person that she had never managed to find a man willing to put up with her. You can probably imagine how she felt about girls that got married while in school. Even worse was when a girl got pregnant before graduation.

So my friend M got married right before senior year started. A shotgun wedding, which meant that when Miss C found out, she was an absolute monster to poor M. Being the diligent student M was she made it through most of senior year ok, but it was obviously hard. One day we were sitting in class and M raised her hand and Miss C just ignored her. After several minutes M stood up and said "Miss C, I need to go to the nurse."

Miss C snapped back "Just stay in your seat" and went right back to her lecture. M sat down quietly for a few more minutes then stood up and said "Miss C, my water just broke, can I go to the nurse now?" At first Miss C didn't believe her, but as soon as she got close enough to see M's skirt and the chair she freaked out yelling at M who meekly left the room and headed to the nurse.

M had a baby girl but didn't finish out our senior year. Miss C "went on leave" for the rest of the year, and didn't return the next fall.

Edit: added Emilina's name.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/condiments4u on 2025-01-01 16:58:04+00:00.

Hi all, happy new years!

In reviewing some of my best memories of the last few years, I remembered an incident of malicious compliance that I found overwhelmingly satisfying and thought it'd be worth sharing. While not as outrageous as some of the stories here, it left me feeling like I stuck it to our corporate overlords a bit.

To set the stage, I moved back to the US to take a job at a pretty big firm where I was also tasked with executive assistant responsibilities. My boss would regularlys send me downstairs to out local bank to pick up and deposit cash. Having newly moved back to the US, I needed to set up a bank account for direct deposits and figured the one downstairs makes sense; also, it made depositing paychecks quicker and easier.

On the day I went to open the account, the manager of the branch sat me down to go through all the paperwork. She was nice enough at first and I got through everything quite quickly. That said, when it came to the signuate portion, I thought I'd have a bit of fun with it and create a silly signature; having just watched a Roman documentary the night before, I made my signature " the Great" (obviously, I used my first name in place of 'condiments'). The manager did non bat an eye at this (assuming she didn't read it), and said she'd process everything and give me a call when my card is ready to collect.

Cut to a little later, I receive a call from the manager saying there's something wrong with the paperwork and I needed to come down to correct it. When I ask what the problem is, she says that I'm not allowed to have a signature like that and I need to redo it using my actual name. I say okay and that I'll be right down.

This kinda pissed me off though, because I've seen wild signatures that hardly resemble letters, yet they were still accepted. I did some quick research and found that legally, a signature can be any mark that I plan on using consistently - it didn't have to be a name, nor even resemble letters! Being bored that day, I decided to press it and print out the laws regarding signatures and bring them with me to the bank. When I met the manager, I told her that I'd actually like to keep the signature as is and provided her with the documents I printed outlining the laws. She did not seem enthused at all and said she'd need a moment to discuss with her superiors. A few minutes later she comes back and says, while I'm correct about the law, they require the signature to match the one on my driver's license, since that's the one currently associated with me. I push back and mention that I wanted to have a new signature, but she was firm on it matching my ID or they wouldn't open my account.

Cue malicious compliance.

I reliazed then that, since the state I moved to was different from the one I lived in before, I had to legally update my license, so I told the manager I'd think it over and get back to her soon. I hurried upstairs and made a DMV appointment for later that week to get a new license.

The day of the DMV appoitment, I brought everything I needed to ensure I walked out with a new license. When it was time for me to provide a signature for the license, I again wrote " the Great", and was again met with pushback. The teller literally said "Sir, this is the DMV and we don't play games like that". Welp, I whiped out the law to show them that I am actually allowed to use this as my signature, and the teller's ego deflated real fast. Long story short, I walked out that day with a shiny new license and my new signature!

I drove directly from the DMV back to the bank and met with the teller. I told her that I will agree to sign the documents using the same signature on my license; I don't think she could have looked any more smug. She took me back to the office and sat me down to resign the documents, and I did so as " the Great". When she say this, she practically started shouting about how I'm wasting their time and either need to get serious or they'll have me escorted out. This is when I slowly removed my brand new ID and slid it across the desk. Her face went blank, and I honestly couldn't tell what she was thinking. She asked me to leave the office for a moment so she could make a call.

10 minutes later, she comes out and says, while my signature does match the one on my license, they are just refusing to do business with me and asked me to leave. Not knowing the legality of that, I said okay and accepted defeat.

I walked back up to my office and told y boss that they're not allowing me to open an account. I told him the full story, and he actually found it hilarious. He then said that he'd handle it. Later that day, I received a call from the bank saying that they changed their mind and that they've opened the checking and savings accounts I requested :D

I went to speak with my boss after who said that he had a productive chat with the manager. Knowing how much business he provides the bank, he was happy enough to bluff on my behalf. He essentially told the manager that not allowing me to open an account was directly affecting his business and that if they don't oblige, he'd close his accounts and take his business elsewhere. Apparently that threat hit hard and the manager quickly backtracked saying that they never refused my business, just had to get approval from upper management.

At the end of the day I was victorious, and still use this signture on all official documents. It's a bit silly, but it's my trophy and a good conversation starter.

tl;dr: A bank refused to open an account for me after signing the document with the Great. They said it had to matcht he signture on my ID, so I updated my license with the same signature.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/TimeLuckBug on 2024-12-31 17:17:08+00:00.

When I was a teen and cleaned my hairbrush, my hairballs would land somewhere random when they fell out of my pocket I guess, or just because they were wild teen hairballs and ran off.

My sister was cleaning up and I guess she found one but I had not seen it. She left a note on my door saying “Hello, please contain your hairballs ok? :)”

So I put a massive hairball in a sandwich bag and taped it to her door saying

“I contained it :), Love, —-“

She jokingly screamed but laughed about it

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/JohnGalt314 on 2024-12-30 19:30:54+00:00.

I own and run a residential / light commercial HVAC contracting company. We have a customer, we'll call him Tom, that contacted us for a residential breakdown. Tom told us that he had a home warranty and we informed him that their repayment policy is often different than our billing rates and that, regardless of their payment, he would be individually responsible for the full amount of the bill. The repair was a smallish fix for just $228. Bear in mind that home warranty companies are notoriously stingy with payments, if they pay at all. We won't work directly with them for this reason.

Sure enough, the home warranty company paid only $153 of the invoice, leaving a balance due of $75. Tom wasn't happy about having to pay this bill, so he began paying us $1 per week automatically by check through his online banking platform. Neither I nor my bookkeeper were exactly excited by this (because it takes the same amount of her time to process a $1 check as it does a $1,000 check); but we decided to take our lumps.

Here we are now exactly 76 weeks later, and Mr. Tom has accidentally paid us $1 too much -- so he put a stop payment on the final $1 check. I actually made it a point to look up the stop check payment policy from his bank and saw that he would have had to pay $35 to do this. I honestly have nothing but respect for this amount of spite.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/armaniemaar on 2024-12-30 09:57:10+00:00.

a coworker once told me, “just send me a picture of the event date, and i’ll add it to my calendar.” fair enough, but it got me thinking: why stop there?

so i built a tool that takes any picture of a date—flyers, notes, receipts, even bad handwriting—and instantly turns it into a calendar entry. no typing, no forgetting.

when i sent it to the coworker, they said, “this is overkill.” i replied, “you’re welcome.” now they use it daily.

sometimes, malicious compliance leads to solutions no one asked for but everyone secretly needed.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/armaniemaar on 2024-12-30 08:06:09+00:00.

a client kept “forgetting” to pay, so they’d ask me to resend the invoice every week. after the fifth time, i set a reminder to email it daily until they paid. they finally called, yelling, “why are you spamming me?” i said, “just following your instructions.”

*UPDATE: so a lot of you are asking what happened next. after i sent the invoice 14 times, the client finally called me—voice absolutely dripping with indignation—and said, “why are you spamming me?”

i calmly replied, “oh, i thought you needed it resent. just making sure you’ve got it this time.” there was a pause. the kind of pause where you can hear someone’s soul leave their body for a second. then they mumbled something about “getting the check sorted” and hung up.

the best part? they paid that same day. all 14 invoices were marked as “read” in my email tracker within an hour.

moral of the story: sometimes, the squeaky wheel doesn’t just get the grease—it gets paid.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/lilacbananas23 on 2024-12-30 06:06:50+00:00.

My daughter has a big habit of making messes everywhere she goes. Absolutely zero in the executive function department - it's a pain but I love her all the same.

One day she was in my room with me and had completely destroyed my bed. Comforter in the floor, sheets coming off the corners. I said "I'm going to need you to please make the bed neat before I come back upstairs"

I went downstairs and did whatever I needed to do then headed back up to my room. When I get there I see my bed still looks the way it did when I left except for one thing.

There was a sign on the bed that read "hello! I'm neat!"

She made the bed into a creature called neat. I had to laugh. In the end we fixed the bed together.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Amethyst_6 on 2024-12-28 14:13:55+00:00.

My grandpa told a story from when he was young and in military (mandatory for men in Finland). The group he was in had been recently reprimanded on how they shouldn't do anything they were not ordered to do. Soon after, they were tasked to clear out an attic, it was a hot summer day, so it was like a badly warmed sauna up there. My grandpa was ordered to go take the trash to the dumpsters, so he went and did exactly that to the letter.

Instead of coming back he sat down near the dumpsters. Couple of hours later the person in command came looking for him and asked why he was there and didn't come back to clean the attic. Grandpa's answer was simple "I was ordered to take the trash to the dumpster, no one told me to come back". He received no punishment and is still smug about it after almost 70 years

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/whiskeyfur on 2024-12-27 19:44:31+00:00.

Going to keep this one short.

Management, when I was in the navy at a joint command, decided I needed to go into more detail on one of my regular reports. This is coming from my chief who said it was coming from the division officer so apologies in advance. (their words)

So I turned what was a 1 page report into a 40 page report. Yes, I did comply with orders. Yes, I did do exactly what I was told.

A day later my chief pulled me into his office and said, "by directive from our superiors I'm to quote 'read you the riot act'." and then proceeded to turn a page over on his desk that only had three words, "The riot act," on it. He read it aloud, then gave me a pen to sign the bottom of the form acknowledging my receipt of "the riot act".

Seems like I wasn't the only one who disliked the order. But, orders are orders!

Direction came a little later specifying what details the officer actually wanted. Turns out there was a legitimate reason for ask, and it wasn't just for page length. The officer just failed to communicate the reason is all. Whoops!

Edit: Why the title MC^2?

My MC ^ the Chief's MC = A very Energetic headache for the officer.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Crafty-Resident-6741 on 2024-12-26 01:10:41+00:00.

So a few years ago, after marrying my husband, my dad made a joke (in poor taste) that he never got his 40 goats as a dowry for allowing my husband to marry me. We're American and Christian, so dowrys are not a thing for my family.

Anyways, cue malicious compliance. My husband and I like to play a good prank whenever we can for a good laugh and we did. Remember, my dad specifically said he wanted 40 goats. He didn't specify what type of goats or if they had to be alive. As such, my husband and I went onto Amazon and ordered 40 tiny toy goats to take with us to my parents' house that fateful Christmas in 2019. And one night, when my parents went to bed, we strategically began placing goats all over the house: on the kitchen table, on top of the thresholds over door frames, on the bar in their basement, on the mantle, on an end table, on top of bookcases, etc. You name a place and there were goats.

To this day, there are still goats around the house and my stepmom pointed out how one fell and hit her in the head this week.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/traveler49 on 2024-12-25 08:00:36+00:00.

Some time ago I was commuting home and ended up beside a woman who was addicted to conversing with total strangers about anything. I'm the opposite and in self-defense buried my nose in a book. Anytime she said anything I either ignored her or grunted.

We arrived at the last station at the platform where you have to climb a railway bridge to exit. We stood up, she said "Don't tell me we have to cross over the bridge".

So I didn't

No aftermath, except I recall a stunned open-mouthed face as I turned and left.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Shadva on 2024-12-25 06:45:19+00:00.

I used to be a retail manager at a convenience store and as such, I (NOT a morning person) would have to be at work at 5am. Knowing how I myself felt about having to be awake at that hour, I would do my best to be cheerful and make my customers smile by lightly joking a bit and telling them to have a wonderful day as we finished our transactions.

One morning, one of our regulars came in, and I greeted her brightly as she approached the counter. She snarled at me that she hated my cheerful demeanor and that I always told her to have a wonderful day then demanded that I NEVER so much as smile at her again. I apologized for my cheerfulness and told her that I would immediately, and permanently, comply with her wishes. I proceeded to do exactly that.

From that day forward, I'd treat other customers in my normal, cheerful way, but as she'd approach the counter, I'd stop smiling and bantering and drop into my natural Resting Bitch Face. I would complete our transaction, then cheerfully turn to the next person in line and continue my banter.

After about a month of this, the woman came back in at her normal time and complained about how much she hated that I wouldn't banter with her like I did the other customers and how miserable it left her feeling all day. I reminded her of her previous demands and that she was getting exactly what she'd demanded. I also reminded her that I'd said that my lack of banter with her would be permanent.

She continued to come in every morning at her usual time and I continued to banter with the other customers, but would stop even smiling as she'd approach the counter, then turn to the next person in line and continue the banter. She continued to look miserable.

Had she simply asked me to tone it down a bit, or said she just wasn't in the mood for banter that day, I would've adjusted accordingly. Instead, she got exactly what she asked for.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/No_Menu_8682 on 2024-12-25 05:38:54+00:00.

Worked at a midwestern sporting goods chain while in S and junior college. Made nothing, but ha a lot of fun while there.After 2 1/2, almost 3 years there, started to get antsy about my future, and its was summer. I like summer. So I put in 2 weeks notice, as you are told you should do as a young worker. Give 2 weeks on a Thursday or Friday night, next work day is the following Sunday. On Sunday they liked to have unpaid team meeting 30 mins prior to shift start, 45 prior to opening. I show up late as I had ongoing transportation problem which management knew about and blessed off on. The duty manager (Who never liked me anyway because I wasnt serious enough about my part time job...) calls me into the office after the meeting and tells me I'm fired and to leave. Even has security there on standby. I said "Uhhh...what?" She replies "Ever since you put in your notice your attitude has scked and youre always late..." I was the only one in my department that day. Spring/summer weekend days were our most crazy and busiest. I looked out the window, it was a beautiful spring day, not a cloud in the sky. Customers were already lining up outside the doors. I said "Cool...see ya..." and ankled.

I spent the day and a good chunk of the summer hanging out, doing not much of anything, thanks to the $3.5k profit sharing check I got a few months later. Thanks Judy, you knucklehead...

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Tadpole_420 on 2024-12-25 02:34:18+00:00.

So recently, a firm by the name of Aldous & Associates has repeatedly contacted me regarding a gym membership that I had cancelled in the beginning of 2022. I contacted them by phone today, and upon being greeted by an agent, I informed them that I would like to validate this debt. The agent I spoke with told me, “We acknowledge your right to verbally request validation; however, due to our procedures, you must mail us via certified mail to our P.O. Box.”

Hearing this response, I asserted that they must give me the option to request this validation in writing or electronically, as per section F of the FDCPA. I also requested the agent’s license number for collecting debt. The agent placed me on a brief hold and then informed me that he did not, in fact, possess a license and that the firm itself is licensed. He added that he “isn’t an attorney.” This confused me, so I asked him to clarify, “Are you a licensed debt collector?” He stated he did not have a license and that he would need to transfer me to his supervisor.

Once I reached the supervisor, she was very short with me and alleged that they are, in fact, not at all obligated to provide me with the license numbers of the debt collectors I’ve spoken with. She also said they would not comply with my validation request because I need to submit it in writing to their P.O. Box. I informed her that section F of the FDCPA allows me to request this validation through “written or electronic correspondence” and asked for their email address. She refused and stated that if I called back, it would be considered “harassment.” I laughed. What a freaking joke, right? They’re allowed to contact people over and over again, but suddenly, when I assert my rights, they have a problem with me.

Disregarding her, I attempted to call back and found that she had blocked my number through their dialer. I found a simple workaround: WiFi calling apps are incredibly easy to use and free to install. I downloaded five dialer apps and continued to persist, asking them to fulfill my request and validate my debt. They continued to stonewall me, transferring me as soon as my call connected or simply hanging up on me.

To summarize my experience:

I would call them, let them know, “It’s your best friend Corbin,” and they would sound exasperated, once again reiterating that I must send this request in writing and refusing to patch me through to a supervisor. I continued to insist they validate this debt through electronic correspondence. We went back and forth. For hours.

Eventually, they started blocking any new numbers I called from, which caused me to generate new numbers. After around the 20th time they blocked me, I wised up and realized I could simply call back from a private number to overcome the internal block. I continued to insist and persisted for a few hours longer until their call center closed for the night.

My question is: How is it possible for me to harass a debt collector? I have no love for them, of course, because they exist as a parasitic entity harassing elderly consumers and those who don’t know better than to request their debts be validated. (To my understanding, these firms often purchase accounts in bulk and don’t have all the pertinent and necessary documents to legally collect this debt.) However, it makes no sense that they get to negatively impact my credit score while also blocking me from contacting them by phone.

I didn’t swear at them throughout the course of my calls; I was unabashedly facetious due to my perspective that they’re parasitic leeches attempting to collect a debt that I’m pretty sure they can’t prove. How are they allowed to block me from contacting them in regard to this account? I believe they treated me unfairly as soon as I started asking for their license numbers because, from what I can gather, there are several phone agents operating as debt collectors who are completely unlicensed.

This entire process has been grating and frustrating for me, and I may have been vindictive in my persistence, but I don’t think they can consider that harassment. Their entire job description is harassment. The reason I ask is because they mentioned harassment in the initial conversation with the supervisor. Once I told my mom that I had called a debt collector 500 times (probably not 500 exactly, but well over 100-200), she recommended I don’t do that again and simply mail in my request. To me, it’s more about the principle of the matter.

How are they allowed to mess up my credit without validating the debt, and then block me after I demand they comply with section F of the FDCPA, which should entitle me to request they validate it electronically through email? I don’t think this should be considered harassment. To me, that’s a stretch because, from what I’ve seen online, there are restrictions on the number of times they are allowed to contact consumers (e.g., the “777 rule”), but I couldn’t find anything limiting the number of times we are allowed to contact them. I’ll attach a photo of the AI Overview Google pulls up for me.

Important note: I didn’t cuss at them or threaten them. At worst, I spoke to them in a condescending tone as I explained myself over and over and over again. Please advise, as I’m awfully confused. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

TLDR: I requested a debt collector validate my debt electronically and they blocked me: prompting me to download several WiFi calling apps then eventually call from a private number to continue to insist. I did this several hundred times over the course of my day until they closed.

EDIT : I didn’t expect so many responses! Thank you all for your input! Also I had ChatGPT format the text into paragraphs! My bad!!!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Makaisawesome on 2024-12-24 06:29:39+00:00.

So I work at a clothing store on the sales floor. My job is basically to interact with customers to help them get what they're looking for and also, fold, organize and store clothes. Now during my shift, there was this table that was just PACKED with clothes with piles that went super tall. So I decided to start with that table.

And as I was working I noticed that there was a shelf under the table, that was empty, and those shelfs are normally use as storage for excess. And so my plan was to make normal piles and then store the excess in those shelfs. Cuz some of the rules of how thing should look just say that you only need like 2 or 3 items of each size, per pile, and to sort them from biggest size at the bottom, to smallest at the top. And there's also like an unwritten one, where, if the pile ends up small, to then add more until it reaches the bottom of the price sign. So I do that, I make piles that reach the bottom of the sign and then store the rest.

Now, as I was starting to store the excess. One of the managers passes by and asks what I was doing. And so I explain what I already said here, and he doesn't like it, and he tells me to put everything on the table. So I explain to him, why that's a bad idea, because it can make it harder for customers to get their size and easier for then to make a mess accidentally. But he doesn't care and just tells me to put everything back. So I do and just stack them. And the piles end up being very tall. I'm 6'2" and some of the piles reached my chest. But that's what the boss wanted, so I finished and went away to do something else.

Now, for context, our store also has like a baby/toddler area, so obviously, parents sometimes bring their kids to buy clothes for them. Now, after I had left that table to work on something else, a father stood next to the table to wait for his wife and he had his kid on his shoulder. I don't remember why, maybe it was to burp it, or calmed it down, IDK. But now, as the father was swinging from side to side to calm the baby, he accidentally hit the side of the table. And some of the piles that were on that side fell down, behind the father. And as if it was a sign of the universe to show I had the right idea, just as the father was turning around to see that happened, the baby puked and because of the momentum, covered a lot of the shirts that were now on the floor. And so, we had no choice but to throw away those dirty clothes now. And there were a lot. Plus it got expensive, cuz each shirt cost like 10 bucks and there was easily like 10-15 maybe 20 shirts on the floor, so we lost a couple hundred bucks there.

And the worst part is that, the first manager that told me to just stack them, tried to pass the blame unto me. But I explain what happened to another manager and they put the blame back on that first manager and made him pay for the damages.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Affectionate-Leg-260 on 2024-12-24 05:11:51+00:00.

I work in an operation center that is manned 24/7 365. Hurricanes, ice storms, chemical releases were staffed. Out of nowhere the comptroller is afraid that we are skimming hours since we don’t clock in, we just put 12 hours on our time card. Now we have to clock in on the phone app and then use two part authentication to log on to the computer. We have to hit the ground running so to speak, everyone shows up 15 minutes early to understand the situation and be ready to go. After we are relieved we hang around to ensure that everything is understood and running smoothly. Since my schedule is 4/4 I get an extra hour of OT that I was doing for free.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Swiggy1957 on 2024-12-22 10:59:27+00:00.

My folks divorced when I was 8. Dad passed when I was 13. By the time I was 18, mom had been dating for a while.

One day, Mom, her BF and I were sitting around the table cracking jokes and such. Mom said one that was really off-color. I was used to her sense of humor: I had it, too.

I looked over at Mom after she said, "Mom! You're a dirty old lady." She chuckled at that but her boyfriend got pissed.

"That's no way to talk to your mother! You apologize to her right now!"

Cue malicious compliance.

I turned to Mom and said in a very sincere voice, "Mom, I'm sorry you're a dirty old lady."

Before her BF could say anything, she chimed in with, "I'm not sorry!"

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Kingy_79 on 2024-12-22 08:54:37+00:00.

Short but sweet, and a little funny.

I'll start by saying, funny insults in our house is our love language. I (45m) am partially deaf, and a father of 3 (16m, 13f, 12m)

We were wrapping Christmas presents this afternoon. My daughter, 13, wanted to write on my tag. I asked her not to put Deaf Old Fart on it. To her credit she did not. She, however, put Deaf Mother Fucker on it. When I saw that, I laughed and said, "Yep. Your mother." Then proceeded to write Bitch Features on her tag.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Defiant-1- on 2024-12-21 08:02:57+00:00.

Way back when, i worked at a video store (think blockbuster). Great job for a kid going through uni. I also worked work a local IT company doing business call outs / fix issues.

We got some new owners at the video store. Eventually something went wrong with the cash drawers connection to the PC. I offered to look at it, for normal video store pay rates ($15 hr or so back then). I was quickly told, no. We will get a professional.

Fine, no issue.

By now, you know where this is going. They call the local computer store. They say sure we will send our guy around straight away. The computer store calls me, I answer, in front of the new owners, and accept the work.

I turn to them and say, sorry, now it's computer Job rates, $70/hour.

Edit: (fallout) They accepted the rate and i fixed the issue. Going forward, we agreed to pay me directly at a higher rate, but not as much as they paid via the computer store.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Negative-Net-4416 on 2024-12-21 02:14:45+00:00.

I once spent quite a long time fixing a computer for a new client, after the PC had crashed (the old hard drive failed completely). Fortunately, the customer had a basic file backup from perhaps a year or two ago, so we got most of the files back.

However, I had very little info to go on - I didn't know the original version of Windows, no idea what apps they used, or what email client they used. I was met by repeated "I don't know" and "it didn't look like that before". I continued to be patient, calm and understanding - bringing up images on the internet to see if any start menus / apps looked familiar. In the end, I installed the latest and greatest of everything. I got it looking really good, easy to use, and all their apps on the start menu. They started getting pretty moody when we had spent half an hour trying to recover the forgotten email password, apparently the security question wasn't something they'd have ever known. The partial recovery phone number wasn't theirs, until yes, it was their landline. Then they find the password in their book even though "that's not the one I use for my email". Except it is.

Finally, I've invested enough time on this, I've asked all the questions, and squeezed out a few answers. The computer is all good.

However - I get several calls over the next couple of days, asking where some obscure apps have gone. Why did I remove them? Why have I not installed the (dodgy) cleanup utility they paid for? Why have I deleted the email contacts? (they meant autofill, which obviously was empty). Where are the browser passwords?

I go back, and get a lecture on how it's just not good enough. They have been invoiced 'good money' for the computer to be fixed, any frankly it's not fixed. They just want it back the way it was.

TBH, I'd really undercharged for my time anyway, maybe 2 hours instead of the actual 5-6 invested - because no matter how hard I tried, it was never going to be a job they were completely happy with.

Being younger and less experienced, I'd missed some potential red flags: The customer was slightly outside my usual area (they should've been able to find several technicians closer to them). The first phone call had been out of hours. They had been a bit difficult and uncooperative from the start. They had almost expected the job to not be good enough, and during the small talk, they'd already complained about their plumber, and how many times they've had to find a new cleaner for their home because they have been 'let down' several times. They hadn't yet paid the invoice.

Get it back the way it was.

The client popped out of the room for a couple of minutes and I was so fed up by this point. I took the side off of the case, removed the new drive, and reconnected the broken one (still in the case). I picked up my toolbag and met the client in the hallway: All sorted. It's back exactly as it was before. And don't worry, I'll cancel the invoice so there's nothing to pay.

I made a dash for it. I have no idea what happened next, I ignored a few missed calls and then blocked the number. I thought about how I'd reply to any kind of email or online review, but I heard no more.

I like to think that they got someone far less patient, more expensive, and got a worse result.