He’s The Best Actor Of The Bunch

Editors' Choice, Haunted House, Liars/Scammers, Tennessee, USA | Right | October 14, 2013

(It’s mid-September. I’m helping my parents with their haunted house by working in the concessions stand. For the past few years, a customer has gone through and come back out blackened and bruised,, and sues us, claiming one of our actors hit him. Due to lack of evidence he has never won a case, but the trials themselves drain away anywhere from $500-$1000 of our income. We banned him the year before, but this year he comes back and we’re sure it’s to try his scam again. The cashier is new and doesn’t know his face, so she goes ahead and sells him a ticket. After that he walks up to the stand where my coworker and I are.)

Customer: “Man, just starting the season, and you guys are already this busy? I bet you’ll be rich before the year is over.”

Coworker: “Yeah… I get a feeling not as much as we should, since you’re here.”

Customer: “Aw, come on; I can’t help it that your employees are all brutes and bullies. Anyway, I’m going to go ahead and go in. Take care!”

(My coworker looks ready to call security; I tap her on the shoulder and shake my head, watching as the man goes through.)

Coworker: “Why did you do that? You know what he’s going to do.”

(I give my best slasher smile.)

Me: “We bought security cameras this year.”

(Sure enough, he made another attempt at his scam. The camera caught him goading an actor into attacking him, and when they didn’t fall for it, he walked out of sight of people but still where cameras were. He bashed his arm and head against the wall until he bruised. When he tried to sue, we let him take to us to court and showed the camera footage. The case was dropped immediately, and we counter-sued him for roughly three times the cost of being taken to court, very nearly making up all the money he had scammed out of us in the years past.)

This story is part of our Haunted Houses roundup!