I was looking at or reading a story where a builder got revenge on a non-payer.
It brought to mind a nice little episode of mine many years ago.
As well as doing club breakdown work and moving classics I also ran a 24/7 advert in the Yellow pages.
I got a call one day from a guy who couldn't start, I quoted him the standard fee, about £25 then and went out to him. I thought it a bit suspicious when I saw him with his car, rather than waiting in his house. It was a simple jump start on a 4 pot rear drive thing, Escort, Marina...I can't remember.
Warming and charging it, I gave him my invoice..no extras. ' I've no money ' he said
' I'll take a cheque with a card ' 'Chequebooks in the house ' ' Go and get it, I'll look after the car '...'.I don't live round here ( scroty area ) , I'll post one ' I'd had enough, I knew I wasn't going to get paid...I didn't even know his real name.
I didn't say anything more about payment. ' Pull the bonnet catch and switch off ' said I. ' It doesn't sound right ' ' Sit in the car and keep the clutch depressed for me '.........give him something to do ! Next step, I pulled off the five HT leads and knotted them all together in a big ball which I tucked under the headlight, scribbled 'No money, don't fix ' on a scrap of paper, he couldn't see me from in the car, put the bonnet down and said 'It should be alright now '
Drove away, did a U turn and passed him desparately turning the engine over.
Had my £25 in revenge ...a dish best eaten hot in this case.
Ted
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I did a job for a twit (shall I be polite) on one of those very posh roads near you (sure you know where I mean). The job was simple but he was using a cheap router and he didn't have any security on it. I put a password on it but then it effected the range. 99.99% of any other customers would have simply phoned me up and told me and I would have then given them an option of taking security of at their own risk or getting them a better more appropriate router. He just phoned and started screaming at me calling me all sorts of names under the sun, I tried to remain calm but told him he is the must pompous and rude person I have ever dealt with but I would come back and remove the security at your own risk.
Revenge well it was simple, I still see him occasionally round the local area and even in town every time he sees me he gives me a dirty look, I just smile at him back :D You see that way I win.
Now for a motoring link and I suspect a garage took out their revenge on me but not sure. Took my Corsa in for new front springs a day before I was due to go to Wales. I made it very clear it was front springs. The bit which joins the cup and slightly snapped on both of them.
I went back to the garage two hours later, and see two nearly new rear springs from a Corsa on the floor which looked identical to the ones which Ted fitted for me. My heart sank as it was now 3:00am, I had been charged £150 for two new rear springs I didn't need. I went ballistic with them but they kept insisting the springs were faulty. I then went to the garage floor with them saying I am not insured and said show me what is wrong with them. Nothing. Eventually they agreed they had been a mixed up and told me to come back in two hours time. I came back original rear springs refitted and two new front ones fitted. Finally job done, paid them and they apologised for their mistake and showed me that the two front springs had indeed snapped. They drove the car out of the garage, I started it, back box had gone :( Now it was rotting anyway so I couldn't really complain just drove back and booked into a fast fit the 7:30am the next day. I do always wonder if they broke it on purpose though.
They were lucky I understood about cars and knew the back box was really need replacing as a lot of customers would have gone back and made a big fuss. One doesn't expect a car go in needing new springs and come out needing a new back box.
Back to my job, not really a complaint but had a rich customer who always tried to knock me down after each job. In the end I got so sick of it that I started saying I was too busy until next week or even just ignoring the phone. He then had an emergency had to get another person out who charged him a fortune. A few months passed I was quiet and needed the a job, he phoned so agreed do it. Amazingly ever since he has always been a very good payer and never quibbles about money. He realises nobody else will come out for £25.00 if his network suddenly goes down.
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>> Revenge well it was simple
Go on; give us a clue; what did you do?
The bit which joins the cup and slightly snapped on both of them.
May I say that I do like "slightly snapped"
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Slightly snapped as 3 inches of the remainder coil, and a nice sharp bit remaining waiting to puncture the tyres.
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I complained about work not done during a sevice at a main dealer, 3 months later coolant cap leaking on a 2 year old car. The workshop had very kindly greased the rubber seals. I did get a free replacement from the service manager.
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You can imagine the 'fun & games' I had with customers during 14 years of mobile tuning in the S.E. and E. London area's :(
Many times I just said "ok pal - I'll just have to remove the plugs, points & condenser I've just fitted"
Thems were magic words cos the green folding stuff would miraculously appear out of nowhere :)
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I have far too many to mention on this theme!!!!!!! But 2 that stick in my mind are:
1. an old transport manager of mine used to phone us constantly (this was when mobiles first became handheld) on our works mobiles, every 10 minutes he would call and ask where we were. We all got fed up with this so first thing we did was to divert all our phones (about 8 drivers) to each other, this meant he could not work out who exactly he was calling at any one time.
We soon got bored of that and decided it was far better to put all our phones on divert to a massage parlour of dubious repute that traded along the Oxford Rd in Reading. After this he got the message and stopped calling us as much!!!
2. Was delivering 18 packs of thermalite building blocks to a site outside Southampton about 14 years ago, got onto site but fork driver decided he was going to lunch rather then help, he just told me he had laid pallets out for me "over there".
What he had actually done was put a pile that looked more like a bonfire pile out. It was wet, I was getting fed up, so I took 2 pallets, laid them down and made two stacks of thermalite, 9 packs high (think of 9 packs of bricks piled up, and you get the idea) I had a long reach hiab and could just put the top pack on the top at full reach!!!! I have no idea how they got them down, all I do know is that the next 3 times I delivered to the site all the pallets were laid out for me :O)
Plenty more, as a driver I had a lot of time to think up revenge if we were messed about :O) Warehouse security guards were also very good targets.
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Plenty more, as a driver I had a lot of time to think up revenge if we were messed about :O)
Parking your wagon blocking half the parked cars in at 5 to 5 and opening up the curtains seems to concentrate the forklift driver's mind somewhat...
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These last 2 posts have brought back some memories of humourous tales:)
In the early days of cab phones ( fixed to the dashboard), four of us from the firm I worked for at that time got sent into Dover Western Dock for a backload.
It was 1200 bags of 'wet' ( rotten) handball potatoes each, on flat trailers which had to be roped and sheeted after 3 hours hard work, loading them by hand.
We all got finished and parked at the side of the yacht basin and gathered in my cab to see if we had the energy to go over the road to the Pub ( The Admiral?) to get something to eat, when the cab phone rang.
It was the Boss wanting to know if we'd all got loaded, I told him we had and put the phone down.
The conversation turned immediately to the Boss and what an idiot he was to take on handball work when no-one else would and speculation as to the reason he had never got married! All this in explicit lorry driver terms with the humour included, when in a lull in the frivolities we thought we heard something from the phone.
Sure enough IT was talking to us faintly, I picked it up to hear my Boss screaming down the phone that we had to press END after a call if we didn't want him to hear the conversation about him.
At least I think that was what he meant!
And then there was the time five of us from the same firm were coming home from Liverpool docks after delivering corn, and called into Corley services to answer the call of nature. A local owner driver, who always used to pull us to bits on the CB Radio was in a phone box trying to find a backload. This was before cab phones.
We got a length of rope and wound it round and round the phone box, finished it off with a dolly knot to be proud of, and drove off laughing.
He never spoke to us again, but local rumour had it that in true British style everyone kept walking past and pretending not to notice:)
Pat
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These last 2 posts have brought back some memories of humourous tales:) In the early days of cab phones...
Pat's tale has reminded me...I'm struggling for a motoring connection to this one...but...i'm hoping for some leeway, because it's a good one.
Small office in an old Police Station on the outskirts of North London. A Sergeant and an Inspector share the same office. The Sergeant is 'old school' and has become less than dynamic, nice enough chap, but needs a rocket up his rear. The Inspector is at the other end of the spectrum, he's 'going places' and finding it increasingly difficult to put up with the Sergeant's slow pace.
One morning I drove in there for a brew (tenuous motoring connection) and found a distinct atmosphere (I knew them both quite well). Fairly sharply the Sergeant beckoned me out of the office and we had a chat in the back yard...turned out he'd come in the day before, the Inspector wasn't about and he'd had a free and frank exchange in the office with one of his PCs about the merits of the Inspector...and it had been a bit of a rant that had gone on for some time.
The following morning the Inspector summonsed the Sergeant for a meeting and stated as bold as brass: "Mick, if you're going to have a lengthy conversation about 'Inspector Weary', maybe it might be a good idea not to put something heavy down on my answer machine, so that something presses the 'record' button"...and then played back the whole conversation. The dozy twonk had walked in their with his sports bag, plonked it down on the desk and one of the studs underneath had pressed the record button...
Fair enough, both of them thought it was funny....
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I read recently that Aliens are living here right now on planet Earth but they consider us too primitive to make contact with, and reading through this thread I can well believe it.
I come from Bermondsey in S.E. London, the home of Millwall and I've seen & carried various weapons of destruction in times past but I chose not to carry even a heavy torch these days.
It's better to be a coward for 3 minutes - than a dead man all your life.
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Revenge? It`s just blank in this area all the way back to 17yrs old. We had a big Alsation at that point and he was in his prime at around 2yrs old. He was sound in the head too, (apart from engine sounds) unlike some of the dogs you see around on the streets these days.
There were a couple of games that had developed since being a puppy. One was called `swap ends` and upon this being said he ran to the other end of the 30` lounge we used to have in those days. The idea was that you would sort of meet in the middle and sort of `snap` at each other at full tilt (me bent double) the harder you nipped (me under his stomach with my hand) the harder you got nipped back on the re-pass.
The second game was ofter preceded by a glassy eye look in him and involved us skirting each other on the ground. If I got in first i would hold his head on the ground for around 10 seconds - while his tongue hung out and eyes rolled. You had to let go and run for it then and he would get your arm, twist it behind your back while growling and biting as hard as he dare - but always until you yelled out upon which he would let go.
Then followed the `laughing` at each other and sitting around panting - this being a set of games since being a tiny puppy.
He once nipped a kid on the backside who had a habit of throwing stones at him over the fence on his way home from school - a bike mounted Police Officer then turned up and he was out gripping the officers boot while howling like a hound from hell.
The officer probably didn`t realize it was the running bike engine he hated - not him. The same when one of us arrived home in a car. While ever the engine ran he wanted to rip out the tyres.
We had been robbed several times before him, but never after.
He would have been good at revenge. Whenever we had a house visitor we had to isolate him and afterwards he used to pick up the scent from the house and howl to track the visitor down - sniffing at the top of the drive and wanting to set off after him.
Pity he wasn`t there hiding behind the sofa when that thief came in a few years before. All my fathers Second World War medals went.
Edited by oilrag on 01/12/2009 at 17:56
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A relly had a Pyrenean mountain dog.
One night a burglar broke in. This hound from hell gave a gruff woof and lumbered off the bed from where it slept. Said burglar departed back through the fanlight from which he'd entered not realising the adjacent door wasn't locked - you didn't bother with a dog like that.
When asked why he didn't open the door and let the animal pursue burglar, relly replied he didn't want to be on a murder rap - have you ever seen a Pyrenean mountain dog?
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Spaniel here is nuts - wouldn't mess with him, he doesn't tolerate risk takers. His name is Alf as in Awkward Little Fellow......or whatever word you want to start with F.
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I remember a tale told to me by an old breakdown man many years back.
Via a callout from the police he attended a breakdown one Sunday evening the M1 where a punter had a broken fanbelt. The breakdown man had a stock of fanbelts, not the cheapest but from a reputable manufacturer and of top quality. After fitting the fan belt, the punter refused to pay the price for the fanbelt complaining that they were half that price at his local motor factors, so the breakdown man cut the fanbelt off (to save having to dismantle various bits to remove it) and towed the guy off the motorway and left him. A short while later he got another call to go back to him as he was now willing to pay rather than be stranded. When the breakdown man got there he asked for the money first and doubled the price due to the fact that he had to destroy the first one, the motorist paid, got fixed and went sheepishly on his way.
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Keith
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When I first worked for my current employer I drove a "bulk blower" lorry which, as the title suggests, blows the animal feed into the silo or loft.
Had one farmer who was an obnoxious git, you couldn't do anything right for him and both the drivers and our manager detested him. One morning he gave me earache for putting too much feed in one side of the bins... I'd just followed the written instructions (correctly as it turned out) as he wasn't about. I apologised, but he kept on about it and made a couple of snide comments about my English ancestry.
At this particular farm, once you'd filled the two bins you had to put the rest of the feed in the loft, which entailed the farmer going up there to hold the blower pipe. Temptation ovecame me and once he was up there I turned the blower up to maximum speed, which has the effect of making the pipe kick like a pit pony. He couldn't let go as the feed would have gone everywhere. Instead of ten minutes it was done in three, once empty I dropped the tipper body and started undoing my pipes... looked up and saw the farmer coming back down the steps, covered in dust, and shaking like he'd got Parkinsons.
He never said a word, just walked back to the farmhouse; but I've never been there since!
Edited by Harleyman on 01/12/2009 at 19:24
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If he knew the price of belts maybe he should have replaced it before letting it get to such a state that it snaps. I inspect mine every time I open the bonnet (well quick glance) and noticed my dads had lots most its width. He was due to go on the motorway on a 200 mile round trip, if I hadn't noticed it most certainly would have snapped.
He dosn't even have break down cover either :( a bit silly when its 13 years old and 85k.
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Spaniel here is nuts - wouldn't mess with him he doesn't tolerate risk takers. His name is Alf as in Awkward Little Fellow......or whatever word you want to start with F.
You didn't need to explain the last bit to us. We may be daft, but not thick.....................OOOH...AAAAR!
Best...MD
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Revenge? It`s just blank in this area all the way back to 17yrs old. We had a big Alsation at that point and he was in his prime at around 2yrs old. Then followed the `laughing` at each other and sitting around panting - this being a set of games since being a tiny puppy.
Pity he wasn`t there hiding behind the sofa when that thief came in a fewyears before. All my fathers Second World War medals went.
Now that is a Dog to love. He sounds/sounded wonderful.
Very best regards............Martin D.
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Now if you want revenge stories and a willingness to fight the banks you need to give respect to this man and his tractor and muck spreader ...... ( tenuous motoring link )
tinyurl.com/yzud8ac
He eventually won his case .
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A bit tenuous although a small motorcycle was involved.
A youthful Hawkeye at boarding school was mercilessly chased round a rugby field by an older boy on a motorcycle. Eventually H was brought down by a smart blow to his ankle by the passing bike footpeg. Laughter and jeers as the bike accelerated away spraying H with bits of field.
Nursing the swollen ankle later in the Sanatorium, H was grilled by Matron. H remained tight-lipped; sneaking on another boy was frowned upon even though the keeping of a motorcycle on School premises was against the rules.
Some weeks later, still limping, H located the bike at the back of a disused shed, pulled off the fuel pipe at the carb. end and rammed a torpedo-shaped piece of KitKat foil into the carb. fuel inlet. Even though the fuel pipe was transparent, the makeshift plug was invisible. H later still had the satisfaction of seeing the lifeless bike being loaded into a van and the owner was discovered rusticated (sent home) for a couple of weeks.
Edited by Hawkeye {P} on 03/12/2009 at 10:21
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Well I became a snitch one day due to extremely bad driving.
On the M8 Eastbound one rush hour morning, travelling between Livingston and Edinburgh, slow moving traffic and this was not good enough for a boy racer in a Scooby.
He constantly changed lanes making drivers brake fiercely, on several occasions he used the hard shoulder and sliproads to cut people up.
I phoned 999, gave the registration and explained that it was not an emergency as yet, if they had someone in the area please keep an eye out for because I could see his driving could cause an accident.
As we came off the slip road at Hermiston Gait I could see the Scooby driving extremely careful with a Police Discovery behind it. Just as they passed the layby prior to the Gogar, the police pulled him in.
Now I have no idea if that was as a result of my call or whether the police had witnessed him themselves but it gave me a bit of satisfaction. In fact, to quote another thread just now, if I had a windscreen mounted camera I would have gladly have shown them the evidence of this numpty!
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I was having a 'driver assessment' by a retired BIB for a small job I had.
White van man was carving up the traffic and rapidly catching me at way over the speed limit. I'd hugged the kerb and slowed to give him plenty of space. The assessor asked why and I'd directed him to the mirrors.
The assessor made a note of the offending vehicle's registration as it passed with the comment it would be mentioned to his old mates in the pub.
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You're lucky you didn't get 3 points for using a mobile while driving! I am not saying you did anything wrong but the police have a habbit of doing things like that :(
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who said anything about using a mobile phone whilst driving?
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who said anything about using a mobile phone whilst driving?
BobbyG did - "I phoned 999....."
You're lucky you didn't get 3 points for using a mobile while driving!
You are allowed to use a mobile without a hands free kit to make calls to the emergency services.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 03/12/2009 at 13:50
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