There's nothing more satisfying than revenge. Here are Reddit's top revenge stories from r/ProRevenge.
You Crank Called The Wrong Guy
“10 years ago a friend of mine crank called me several times in my office over the course of a day. I decided in that moment that 1) this would not stand and 2) rather than entering into a long, protracted quagmire of a prank war, I would use the nuclear option and end it immediately. My friend ‘Mike’ was a well known local bartender (I worked at the same bar as a bouncer) and he was very much enjoying single life at the time, facts which I knew I could take advantage of. Soon a plan began to form: I would have him served with a fake paternity suit while he was working at the bar.
So, I compiled a ton of free online legal documents – not just for the ‘paternity suit’ but also income disclosure forms, statements of parental rights, and suggested visitation schedules pending ‘demonstrable proof of sobriety.’ I filled out all the forms, then smeared what looked like date-received stamps as proof they had been filed and ran copies to make those stamps even more illegible. From there, I crafted a back story to be included in a cover letter from the fictional mother’s fake law firm (The [nearby city] Family Law Center) on letterhead and all. The mother was an Irish exchange student visiting the area the previous summer. She had only been with Mike so she knew the baby (‘Eliza’) was his. The cover letter encouraged Mike to call during regular office hours to discuss arranging a DNA test to affirm paternity (I set up a generic voicemail for the number listed as the office on the letterhead). By the end, the paperwork was somewhere between 20-25 pages.
I enlisted another friend not known by Mike to serve the documents and instructed him to do so ?around 10pm? on a ?Saturday evening?. I told him to keep the interaction very simple. I wasn’t able to be by the back bar because I knew I would be laughing too hard, but based on eyewitness reports it played out like this:
FRIEND: Are you Mike [last name]?
MIKE: Yes
FRIEND: Michael [middle name, last name]?
MIKE: Yes
FRIEND: [drops folder on bar]
MIKE: What’s that?
FRIEND: Paternity suit. You’ve been served [turns around and immediately walks out of the bar]
MIKE: yeah that sounds about right
Mike read through the packet, shakily poured himself several drinks, and then ran over to the bar owner (who was aware of the prank), to ask what to do. He also called the number on the letterhead but sadly did not leave a voicemail. After a solid 10 minutes of intense psychological revenge, the owner finally told Mike he should closely read the last page of the packet. On it, in size 2 font it read ‘Get bent, Mike.’ At which point, Mike ran to the front door and punched me in the chest.
EPILOGUE: Several months later, Mike was on a trip across the country. He had left his car at home with his mom who generously had it washed for him. Mike for some reason kept the paternity suit paperwork in his driver’s side door. During the course of the car wash, his mother found it and read the entire thing then called him sobbing in the middle of the night asking why he hadn’t told her about her Irish granddaughter.”
She Broke Up With Him Through Text, So He Made Her Pay
“This has been 4 years ago, so the sting is gone and my ‘revenge’ has been had.
We dated for 4 years and had what I thought was a great relationship. We were both well-established professionals who both owned homes in the same neighborhood and both with daughters in the home. Her daughter was 11, and mine was 16 when we met.
We had actually planned to get married, build a house, and raise the two together. We planned the house build because she had recently been diagnosed with a neurological disease that would eventually put her in a wheelchair, and need something ADA friendly. During the planning stages, I began doing landscape and construction projects on her home to increase the resale value. All in, I invested roughly $30K USD into the home, running everything through my side construction business for tax, permitting, and resale purposes. We had a contract that ‘payment’ would be made upon the sale of the home. I produced invoices for each and every project, but never pushed for payment because of the prior agreement.
Fast forward 6 months, we’re looking at property to develop and finalizing drawings on the home when I began feeling ill. I couldn’t eat, constantly vomiting and passing blood. I began noticing that my abdomen looked swollen, which was odd because we were both very clean eaters and were in the gym every day. So I went to the doctor and began having tests done.
During this time, she began having small cognitive issues, and the stress of her current position was exacerbating her condition, so she took a $20K per anum cut in pay along with a lesser position inside the company.
After a month or so of different tests, and a biopsy, it came back that I had a golf ball-sized tumor in my stomach, and would need to begin chemotherapy. So I began chemo and radiation treatments, which made me, expectedly so, extremely ill. She was spending time helping around my place on the weekends and staying over more, to the point that they were both at my home, more than theirs.
At this point, I suggested that we go ahead and put one of our houses on the market, and move in together until the new house was built. I have great supplemental insurance as well as a long-term illness plan, so using that coupled with the sale of one of our houses would push us through comfortably, and help ease the financial stress on her.
Shortly after this discussion, she became extremely distant. Her daughter wasn’t coming down and hanging out with mine anymore, she had excuses for not getting together. She quit driving me to treatments and stopped staying over.
She then dropped a bomb. A sentence that will forever be burned into my psyche:
‘I love you, but I can’t see myself taking care of someone this sick in the long-term, and I don’t think we should see each other any longer.’
IN. A. TEXT.
It broke me. I won’t lie. This was the first woman I had ever opened up to and planned a life with since my wife died when my children were 1 and 3. However, I tried to be mature about it. I forced myself to understand her position and to accept what I could not change.
I calmly, the next day, gathered all of her things, packed them neatly, loaded them in my truck, and took them to her house to leave on the back porch while she was at work, in order to avoid any awkward exchanges.
Walking around the back and under the porch cover, I sat down a box, and saw her in her back living room, on the couch doing it with a man that she had introduced to me as a life-long friend. I had dinner and drinks with this man and his girlfriend. We had gone on vacation with them, as well.
I never spoke of the incident with her, and simply sent her a text later, explaining that I would leave her things on my side porch to pick up at her convenience.
I discovered 8 or 9 months later from his now ex-girlfriend, that they had broken up due to him confessing that he had been sleeping with my S.O., dating back to about the time we were finishing drawings on the new home.
Now I’m mad. Revenge time.
At this point, I had finished chemo and radiation for the time being and was feeling healthier. I was going through some much-neglected paperwork when I ran across the file that contained $32,680.00 in unpaid, long overdue invoices, which were promptly sent to my attorney to begin lien proceedings on the home. It turns out that I couldn’t have done this a moment too soon because she was set to put her house on the market.
Coupled with interest over the course of, what was then, 19 months overdue – the invoices were hefty. That, along with the agreement of settling them when the house was sold and attorney fees, left her with roughly $10K after the sale of the home and settling her current mortgage.
She promptly had to back out of the purchase of another home and moved in with her oldest daughter, SIL, and 2 grandchildren. She also had to leave her job and begin receiving disability.
I ran into her a little over a year ago, and she looked as if she had aged 20 years, and was in the wheelchair we had talked about. We chatted cordially but briefly and I excused myself and went on with my day. A few days later, her younger daughter called me and spoke of my running into her mom, and could we hang out sometime. I gave a vague answer, thanked her for calling and again, went on with my day.
The ex then called me a week or so later, and began apologizing for leaving me as she did. Again, cordial but short, I thanked her for calling and hung up. She began texting and this went on for several weeks until one she asked if I could ever see us rekindling what we had, to which I replied:
‘I can’t see myself taking care of someone so sick in the long-term. Remember the box on your back porch? Did you think that (life-long friend) brought that over to you from my house? Good luck to you. Goodbye.’
I sometimes feel guilt over this, but not much, and not often.”
He Speaks For The Trees
“This is juicy so get ready.
Background information: we live in an old and big manor that has been split into 3 attached houses. The houses are about 150 years old and where built around 5 huge giant sequoias which were about 200 years old. In the UK giant sequoias are very rare and the 2 in our garden up the house price by about £60,000. We lived next to 2 really nice neighbors one young couple and one old couple.
The story: unfortunately, our old neighbors passed away, so their child and her family moved in (let’s call her Joe). Joe was instantly a pain in the neck we had been sharing chickens with the previous neighbors and Joe agreed to keep sharing them however on her nights she would constantly forget to put them away so we would have to check them every night anyway. One night her little brats thought it would be funny to open our personal duck pen in the night which leads to a mass slaughter later the chickens went the same way.
About 2 years ago there was a storm and one of her sequoias somehow fell over and died they were distraught (understandably) but from then on, the jealousy started. She would constantly complain about how lucky we were to have 2 sequoias in our garden and how our sequoia was making too much shade in their garden (it wasn’t) anyway we just thought it was Joe being a pain, there were a few dry threats like they will chop it down or maybe the next storm will blow it down.
Until we came back from a holiday to France to find a huge 6-meter stump and nothing else! I mean how the heck do you get rid of a 100ft tree in like 2 weeks. 2 of our old British oak trees had been crushed as well. My mum and sisters where crying my dad were red in the face and we had no evidence Joe had done it. She claimed that there had been a storm and she had to get rid of it. we had a security camera at the front of the house, but you can get in the back if you go through a few fields.
We then were given an £8000 bill for damages to her property and to have the tree chopped up and removed the wood alone would have been worth a small fortune.
We had lost all hope and 2 weeks had passed when my dad came running in from the garden. We had put up a wildlife camera a few months ago and had caught everything, we got a lawyer on the phone and started our revenge. We got a tree surgeon out who said it was an original specimen brought into the UK in 1860 along with the 2 that were in Elvaston castle country park there were 218 around the UK but only 60 now, he also told us to call out an engineer because the roots might be in the foundation so when they rot it could damage the house, turns out we would need to redo the foundations. Then we took Joe to court and sued them for damage to property, trespassing and lots of other smaller claims. The tree would cost 250K to have another sequoia that was 200 years put in and looked after (it’s basically impossible) plus the damage to the foundation which was 200K and the 2 oaks which were another 25k. so with the smaller claims, It went to about £500,000 ($700,000). They had to move out.
And we have now paid off the mortgage done a lovely loft and kitchen conversion and have basically done up the house and garden as well as plant a 60-year-old sequoia tree in the back garden. We also had our kitchen counter and table made from the old sequoia. We now have a new lovely family living next to us who we share chickens, ducks and pygmy goats with (there very nice and I make a fortune babysitting their kids)
Many of you wanted to hear about the court case but she didn’t stand a chance and as soon as we revealed the footage to her and her lawyer she gave up. the people who cut the tree down gave us the countertops for free as a sorry (they were truly sorry) the neighbors had a second home so they just sold the house and moved back to their smaller one. we feel bad for the old neighbors but we do visit their graves because they were like family.
Taking Candy From A Pregnant Lady
“A couple things about me that made it really suck to have a food thief:
-I have a lot of food allergies, so I can’t just get lunch at the cafeteria or at a nearby restaurant
-I have a new baby, who I pump for when I’m at work. You know how hungry pregnant people are? Yeah, the caloric requirement for pumping is 100-200 calories higher. I am always hungry.
-Because I have a new baby, half the time I don’t manage to show up at work with a lunch. I either run out of time to pack one, or if I did remember, I leave it on the counter.
My solution to all of this was to leave lots of nonperishable snacks in my office. (And also a lot of candy, because I also have a three year old and therefore work is the only place I can shovel Skittles into my mouth without a little hand extending into my field of vision and a little voice saying ‘pwease?’) Snacks that were specifically free of my allergens. Some of which were specialty foods because of this. The type of specialty food that just doesn’t taste as good as food that contains the allergen, and also costs twice as much. Because I’m not getting a lot of sleep right now. I deserve nice things.
So, because I’m not getting a lot of sleep right now, when I first came back from maternity leave, assembled my snack hoard, and started having things go missing, I genuinely thought I was just losing my mind. Boxes of candy were running out faster than I thought I was eating them. I’d come in in the morning and things wouldn’t be where I’d left them. At one point I brought a bag of chips to work, folded the rim of the bag down so I wasn’t plunging my arm elbow-deep into a grease pit, and then put a bag clip on it when I went home, and when I came in the next morning the bag was unrolled and re-clipped. I went ‘wow, I must be more tired than I thought,’ rolled the bag back down, and the next morning it was unrolled again. Just little things like that, almost every day, that made me go ‘wow, the post-baby brain is worse than I thought!’
And then. And then! Then I got the flu. I got the flu, and I was out for a whole week. Left behind at the office was an almost-full box of Enjoy Life cookies, which are not enjoyable but are free of all major allergens, and are also $5 a box for, like, 12 sad little sand pies with some cinnamon on top. I ate one row of these cookies. And then I was out of the office for a week. For one week, I was not eating any of my snack hoard.
But someone else was. Because I came back to work, opened my box of cookies, and found one. There was one single, solitary cookie left.
And, on further examination, the one box of candy that had been opened was nowhere to be found, and on top of that the thief had done me the courtesy of opening a new box for me, except that they actually followed the ‘push here to open’ instructions instead of just ripping one end of the box open like I do, which they should know well at this point because by this time they’d been stealing from me for two freaking months.
The combination of these two things- the sheer freaking audacity it takes to open a new box so you can continue stealing from someone, on top of the consumption of almost a whole box of specialty cookies that aren’t even GOOD- enraged me enough that, after going to my boss and getting some vague promises about checking if the security cameras in my wing of the building are functional or not (what??) I went straight to Amazon and ordered myself a nanny cam.
Not for my baby. For my snack hoard.
Conveniently, it arrived the day before Valentine’s day. I set it up on top of a file cabinet looking down at my desk. On the desk, I laid out a fantastic spread of bait snacks. I got all my thief’s favorites, and then I took it one step further. I bought myself a Valentine heart, broke the seal to make it more inviting, and left it out on my desk.
The next morning, I came in to some very obvious snack carnage. My thief had slowly been getting more brazen (again, who OPENS a new box of something?? And opens it DIFFERENTLY than the person they are stealing from??) but this was just on another level. Individually wrapped things had been dumped out of their boxes. Bits of packaging had been thrown away. And, yup; they’d eaten some of the Valentine candy.
For shame, office thief! Don’t you know that’s from someone who loves me??
I played back the video. All was quiet throughout most of the evening, and I was just watching the shadows lengthen as the sun slowly set through the hallway window. And then! Shortly before midnight! The night janitor arrived!
And went right ahead and took a 12-minute break in my office, sitting in my chair, eating my food.
I started taking screenshots. I got him shoveling candy into his mouth with full palm-to-lips intensity. Pouring things out onto the desk to pick his favorite flavors. Not even bothering to put them back where he found them. And yes. Eating my freaking Valentine’s candy.
Screenshots went directly to my boss in an email. I went directly to my boss’s door to hover and grin and ask if he’d read my email. And I got assurances of a strongly worded email to the cleaning company and the barring of this particular employee from our place of business.
I was also, tactfully, asked to please take my unauthorized spy camera home, which I did.
I thought this was over, until the girl who works the concession stand dropped by to thank me. Apparently the food thief would start his shift just as she was closing down for the night, and would try to get free coffee in that ‘creepy guy’ way. And then one of the reception staff came by with the same sentiments. I’d never met the guy face to face, but apparently, as a woman, it was not a fun experience to have. I’d shown my screenshots to a few coworkers and word had spread fast. I worked an earlier shift, so I didn’t recognize him, but people who’s shifts overlapped with his did.
I hadn’t told my husband about what I’d done because, when I came home raging about the blatant theft that had gone on while I’d had the flu, his only response had been ‘you really shouldn’t be leaving food at work, then.’ But, when I came home with the nanny cam and explained where and why I’d gotten it, his reaction surprised me.
‘You know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you stand up for yourself. I’m proud of you.'”
She Treated Him Like A Wallet
“I’ve really liked this girl for a while that I met at a lifeguard certification course, and I talked to her while I was there and we (I thought) ended up hitting it off. We exchanged numbers and social media and all that and we messaged for a few weeks before I asked her out to a movie, which she accepted.
We’d been going on casual dates, nothing too serious and we weren’t hanging out at my place or her place even though I’d hinted at the idea, for a few weeks before one of her friends (someone that was also at the life guarding course that I met and kept in contact with because he was cool) sends me this screenshot of one of their convos:
Friend: Aren’t you and [my name] going out?
Her: Not really but as long as he keeps paying for everything I’ll let him take me out more haha. Girls gotta eat.
Friend: Aw why you gotta do him like that?
Her: shrugging emoji
He said he felt bad for me because I was nice and that she does this often to other dudes!
After seeing this, I asked her to go on a nice date with me to a hibachi grill restaurant. $20-$40 dollar plates and premium desserts are served here. I got the most expensive thing they had and so did she. We both got fancy ice cream and multiple refills on drinks. I complimented her a lot and smiled consistently, before getting up to go to the bathroom and leaving. (I was also her ride)
About 45 minutes after I get furious texts from her saying that she had to have her mom come down and pay for it because she didn’t have the money on her and that we were done. I know it’s not a lot and it sucks because I thought she was actually into me but it felt pretty nice leaving her that way.”
Teacher Revenge
“I spent about 10 years teaching high school humanities at a small private school. For my first two years, I didn’t have a classroom, just a small office I would bring what I needed for each class on a cart and go from room to room, depending on which teacher had a prep at any given time. This was incredibly inconvenient and, not being the most organized of teachers to begin with, made things difficult to keep track of.
There were a group of 11th grade boys who decided to make things a little more difficult for me. They were good kids, we got along well, I coached several of them on the school soccer team, but they decided that since my office would often be empty, it was a great place to prank. It was never anything too serious, things falling over when I opened the door, or things disappearing for a day and then turning up in a different place the next day. Nothing was ever damaged, and I could never prove who it was, even though I knew.
My school had mandatory final exams in each academic course. I didn’t really think they were necessary, so I would generally make them pretty easy with a lot of preparation. I would give out study sheets and play review games for a couple of weeks before the test, and there was no reason the students wouldn’t do well on them. I had approval of admin to do this as they weren’t particularly fond of the final exam rule either, it was as school board policy.
A few nights before the offending boys had their exam, I had a brainwave. I created a second exam. Gone were the multiple choice questions and obvious things from the review sheets. In their place came detailed questions about concepts that were briefly mentioned in class. Essay question after essay question. Ambiguous questions with no clear answers. Definitions of words that there was no way they knew. It took a couple of hours, but I laughed the whole time.
When the test came, I had the special exams at the bottom of the pile and handed them out to each of the four or five boys. I told my vice-principal what was happening and he insisted on being present. I started the timer and watched as the boys flipped over their papers.
It was all I could do to keep a straight face. Eyes went wide. Heads were shaking. Panic was setting in, especially as they saw all their classmates flying through their exams. One of the boys raised their hand. ‘Sorry, no questions during the final. You should be prepared based on your study sheets.’ I let them go for about five or ten minutes of terror before I gathered the fake tests and gave them the real ones.
They all passed with flying colours and never pranked my office again. It was glorious.”
