There are some folks who think they can pull one over on the insurance company to try to get free repairs. If a car’s in an accident, they will claim that damage that existed before the accident was caused by it, no matter how improbable it is. Sometimes insurance companies investigate; sometimes they don’t.

We get a call from a customer. He’s been in a rear-end collision and his car needs some repairs. Fair enough. One of the things that needs to be fixed is the rear parking sensors. Again, fair enough. However, the damage he’s talking about seems excessive given the details of the accident. The garage is asked to check.

They phone back and the garage owner is barely able to contain his amusement.

Garage Owner: “He’s lying about the rear parking sensors.”

Me: “How do you know this?”

Garage Owner: “Because there aren’t any. The car was fitted for them as an option, but this one never had them installed.”

It seems that when he bought the car, the customer had thought that it had rear parking sensors but that they didn’t work, and he decided to claim that they had been damaged in the accident to get them repaired for free.

The claim was swiftly referred to the fraud department.

One of the best things about being thirty and older is that you develop a low tolerance for drama in partnerships, gaining a deeper perspective in life as you discover that there is so much more out there than needing to have a significant other at all times.

I ended a four-month-long roller coaster of a relationship with a twenty-six-year-old after deciding that there were too many things about her personality that just didn’t rest well with me. After three months of silence, she contacted me and promised that she would work on her personal issues, and for reasons unclear to me, I elected to give her one last chance on the condition that we take things slowly.

After only a week of communicating only by phone and Facebook, she left me a message.

Girl: “Okay, you know what? I’m done playing around. If you don’t want to be with me, have it your way. I’ve met this guy from [City] and he treats me with way more respect than you ever did!”

She listed all kinds of things about him.

Girl: “I feel strong and safe with him. He is going to be going to [Location] for a vacation and he wants me to come along — and you know what? I’m going with him! It’ll be just him and me! So there! I hope you feel happy now that you blew it with me! Don’t even bother trying to contact me because I’m changing my number! Have a nice life!”

Had I been twenty-one, I would have been ringing her back and trying anything to make her happy. But now, having had all the experiences, I…

…deleted the message, grabbed my tennis racket, and headed for the courts.

Amusingly enough, she contacted me again only a week later.

Girl: “Here is my new number if you ever want to talk and fix things between us.” 

This was later followed several days later with:

Girl: “Okay, I’m sorry. That guy doesn’t really exist; I made it up to make you mad. Can we start over?” 

Neither message got a response. I’m still single, but I’ve learned that it’s better to be happy and alone than to be miserable in a relationship full of drama!

This story is part of our Best Of June 2021 roundup!

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My boss does not tolerate nonsense from anyone. A woman comes in to claim that I spit on her when she paid, and she wants a refund on the gas she purchased.

Boss: “I will look at our security camera.”

Woman: “Is my word not good enough for you?”

Boss: “No.”

She had a beautiful look on her face when he told her that. And the camera showed she was a liar.

I worked for a while in the office of a railway company. At the time, the company ran both a long-distance main line and a more local network. My department dealt with delay claims; in the UK, if your train is delayed by more than thirty minutes, you are entitled to some or all of the price of your ticket back. Because long-distance main line tickets can be very expensive, all the delay claims on the main line were checked to make sure they were genuine, but claims on the local network weren’t because the company believed it wasn’t worth it, since any losses due to fraud were likely to be very small.

But then, the policy changed; checks were introduced to the local network, as well. The savings from this amounted to £8,000 in the first week alone! And a man who had appeared to be the unluckiest traveller ever was discovered to have put in for compensation for more delays than there had been on the entire network that year.

I work as a leasing agent for an apartment complex. The owner is a fantastic guy, but he is always super late to every meeting and never has any keys to the building on him. One day, he needs to come by and pick up some tax stuff, but naturally, he is running really late and my manager can’t stay to wait for him, so I’m waiting for him after hours with the door unlocked when a car pulls up and two people get out.

I’m at the front desk, so immediately I let them know that we’re actually closed, but the lady cuts me off and demands to see an apartment right now. That’s not how it works here. As I explain to her, I can’t ever show an apartment without someone in the office (safety), and we’re actually completely out of apartments to lease.

The lady stares me down and insists that we definitely do have apartments available and that I will show her one right now. Nope. I don’t budge. I can’t; we don’t have apartments and I can’t leave the office anyway.

So, the lady tells me, in the most condescending way possible, that the owner is one of her best friends, he has promised her an apartment, and if I don’t show her one right now she’ll have my job.

And guess who pulls up right at that moment?

The owner. I swear I could hear the cosmic laughter.

I look at the owner’s brand-new best friend, smile as big as I can, and chirp, “Oh, what good luck! That’s the owner right there! We can ask him about that apartment he promised you and get it all cleared up!”

She looks outside, looks back at me, and bolts out of the office.

The owner comes in and asks about her, so I tell him that she is one of his best friends, obviously. He just chuckles and tells me that he’d never promise an apartment to anyone without telling us first. And that he’s never seen that lady before in his life.