Revenge That Backfired

We all love hearing about cheaters who get exactly what they deserve, or bad bosses being publicly humiliated, or horrible friends being thoroughly exposed! But these revenge plots and calculated acts of sabotage don’t always go to plan, which is somehow even more entertaining! From bad dads who tried and failed to humiliate their families, to cheaters who got the ultimate lesson in karma, let's go through some revenge plots that went really wrong!

Bad Pen-ergy

Have you ever had a bad boss? Maybe they snowed you under with work they knew you couldn’t do in time, or blamed you for something that wasn’t your fault? Well, if you have, then this next story is for you! Back in 2021, Andreas Flaten quit his job at A OK Luxury Autoworks in Georgia. He claimed the job had a pretty toxic culture, and so decided to move on. However, his boss, Miles Walker, refused to give him his final paycheck.

After he went silent on the matter, Andreas went to the Department of Labor, asking after the $915 Miles owed him. Then, a few weeks later, Andreas opened his door and discovered a gigantic pile of pennies on his driveway, which were covered in oil, along with his last paycheck that had a pretty nasty expletive scrawled on the front.

Shocked, he and his girlfriend painstakingly shoveled every last penny into a wheelbarrow, realizing that this must be the way Miles had decided to pay him, in some 91,500 greasy pennies. It was a pretty childish form of revenge, but Andreas had no choice but to deal with it.

So, he got in touch with Coinstar, a coin collecting company, who agreed to collect the pennies and exchange them for bills, but they also asked if they could post a press release about the unusual incident on their website, as it made them look very good. Andreas said yes, not thinking much of it, but this press release got the attention of local and then national media, who all then covered the story, dragging Miles and his business through the dirt!

Miles tried to discredit the press release by posting a lot of nasty stuff about Andreas on the company website, but that’s when The Department of Labor caught wind of the situation! Seeing the pennies, the press release, and the website slander, they then sued Miles for unfair retaliation against an employee.

But as they were filing this and going through Miles’ records, they noticed he hadn’t been paying his workers overtime, which he was required to do by law! As such, they slapped him with an eyewatering $40,000 bill in backpay to all the workers he’d screwed over.

He was forced to cough up the full amount, all while National Tabloids covered the story of his disgrace and 1 star reviews began to flood his business pages, which he might have avoided if only he hadn’t stooped to such a penny attempt, or petty attempt at revenge!

These Bros Ain’t Loyal

It’s pretty rare that you find a story where someone admits not only to cheating in a relationship, but that they were wrong, and here's a juicy one. A now deleted reddit user, who I’ll call Mark, posted that he was once in a serious relationship with a girl called Carly. It started off sweet, they had each other’s backs, and Carly even helped him pay off some of his debt, she clearly cared about him a lot! But they hit a rough patch, and while they tried to fix it by talking and going to therapy, Mark decided to cope by cheating on her with Kara, her childhood best friend.

Mark blamed Carly for their relationship deteriorating, but he assumed he was being real smart about cheating on her, and that by hiding all the evidence, like texts and calls, Carly would never find out. So, imagine his shock when one day, Carly sat him down and, very calmly, asked if he was cheating on her. Panicked, he immediately lied and denied it all.

But she just laughed, saying she didn’t think he’d admit it, and that she’d just wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Why? Because Kara, feeling guilty, had broken down and shown her their messages a few weeks back. It was only then, when he was cornered, that Mark guiltily admitted it. She just shrugged and said “It’s fine. Oh, by the way, Louie and I are going out tonight. I’ve been seeing him since last week. Don’t be here when I get back”.

That’s when Mark’s heart sank because Louie was his big brother. Not just that, Louie was the golden child of the family, the one that everyone adored! Mark had always felt insecure next to him, and now, it turned out Carly had been seeing him to get back at Mark for his affair with Kara!

That sounds like she just levelled the playing field, except Carly knew that she could just block Kara and never have to see her again, but Louie and Mark were family. They were around each other all the time! Family events, birthdays, celebrations, and what’s worse, he couldn’t tell his family about it, because he knew how much worse that would make him look! Carly had made sure he’d never forget how he wronged her, or how badly his own cheating had backfired on him!

Major Misfire

If there’s one thing you don’t mess around with, it’s guns. We could sit around and lecture you on gun safety all day, but let's learn with reddit user Golden_Silver61’s story instead.

Back in the late 90’s, Golden was a councilor at a boy scout summer camp, with one of his jobs being a director of the camp’s rifle range. He was very clear with the kids about where to aim the rifles they were given, up, or down the range. Never at another person, loaded or unloaded, it didn’t matter. Anyone who pointed a gun at someone else would be kicked off the range for good!

Well, for all his warnings, one day one kid decided it would be funny to point the gun at his friend. Golden sprinted over, grabbed the rifle, and booted the kid from the range. But he was not happy, yelling at golden and threatening to call his dad, who was a cop. Golden couldn’t have cared less, ripping up his range pass and sending him on his way.

A few hours later, a patrol car rocked up to the camp, and a very angry looking cop got out. Golden could see the kid smirking, clearly, this was his father, and he looked like he was about to give Golden a piece of his mind. The cop then approached Golden and began screaming at him, telling him he had no right to revoke his son’s rifle pass and to let him back on the range that instant.

Golden let the cop rant on and on, and when he was finally done, he simply asked “Did your son tell you why I ripped up his pass?”, but the cop didn’t have an answer, and suddenly the kid looked nervous. Golden then told the cop father his own son had been pointing the rifle at his friend, and the cop went red with anger. Not at Golden, but at his son.

He turned on his heel and screamed at the boy to get in the car, because that was the end of his time at camp. The cop then apologized profusely to Golden, and drove off with his crying, sniveling son in tow. Mishandling a firearm and embarrassing your cop dad? You’d be amazed if that kid wasn’t grounded for life.

Pretty Pennies

People who try and get their revenge with pennies don’t realize just how easily the script can get flipped on them, as it’s recently happened to another loser!

Back in 2021, 18-year-old Avery Sanford saw a car with a trailer pull up to her family’s house. As she walked out, she watched a man she didn’t recognize dump thousands of pennies onto their lawn. She called her mom out, who asked the man what was happening, and he snidely replied, “This is your last child support payment”. Having not seen him in years, neither of them recognized the man as Avery’s father!

As Avery had just turned 18, and so no longer qualified for child support from her father, he had dumped the final $800 payment in pennies on their lawn in an attempt to horribly embarrass them both, before driving away laughing. It was incredibly cruel, and Avery felt like her father, who she barely knew, wanted to humiliate her personally.

But Avery’s mom told her not to worry, they were going to turn this into a good thing! They sorted through the coins and donated every last penny to a domestic abuse shelter, which presumably has something to do with why Avery’s mom left her horrible father in the first place!

After the donation was made, local news covered the small story, where it quickly picked up steam and went to the national papers. There, thousands of people saw the high road Avery and her mom had taken, and donations to the shelter came flooding in, which fueled even more coverage! In just a few days, $47,000 was donated to the shelter from all over the world!

Avery and her mom were painted as heroes, her dad on the other hand, not. Countless journalists reached out to him for comment, and he quickly realized the mistake he made. He apologized and claimed he’d acted in frustration; the last thing he’d wanted to do was drive the wedge further between him and his daughter, but the damage was done.

Seeing how he’d tried to publicly disrespect her mom, Avery was quick to shoot down any chance of them ever reconciling, so not only did he destroy his reputation, but he also lost any chance at getting to know and incredible young woman too!

Cheat Creep

Some people just love to gossip, so much so they’ll stick their nose into anyone’s business, even that of people they don’t know very well, just to have something to talk about. Although, I reckon this next guy wished he’d kept his nose well out of the business we’re about to get into!

A now deleted reddit account user, who we’ll call Anna, once worked in an office, and was chatting to her colleagues in their breakroom. They were talking about how much they hated cheaters, and Anna agreed, cheaters are the worst!

All of a sudden, a co-worker called Ken, who she’d gotten a promotion over the year before but still didn’t know very well, burst forward and screamed that she was a hypocrite. Confused, she asked what his problem was, and he showed the room his phone, and on it was a picture of Anna at a bar, holding hands with another lady.

Ken looked triumphant, like he’d just gotten revenge, but at this point, Anna was incredibly creeped out. That was her and her girlfriend, Ruby, at the bar, but she hadn’t seen Ken that night, so he’d been there and covertly taken pictures of her, which, seeing as they barely knew each other, gave her the willies.

To the room, she said, yes, that was a picture of her and her partner, Ruby. Ken grinned and yelled that he knew she was actually dating a man called Simon, and that she was cheating on him! All eyes were glued to Anna now, and boy was she annoyed. So, she calmly confirmed that, yes, she was also dating Simon. And Simon and Ruby were also dating each other, the three of them were in a relationship together because they were polyamorous!

Initially Ken, now super embarrassed, refused to believe her, until Anna got out pictures of the three of them together! Ken was so embarrassed, he turned beet red. She finished the interaction by saying to the room that while her private life was technically none of their business, she found it very creepy and unprofessional of Ken to take pictures of her without announcing his presence, stalkerish, even, and then left the room.

She could hear her colleagues all turn on Ken the second she left; having made them all look like they were talking behind her back, which they clearly had been.

Anna then swiftly filed a report on the incident and went on about her day. She didn’t think anything more of it, until she received a message from her higher ups a week later. Apparently, they’d interviewed Ken and several others about the incident, and it had become clear that Ken simply wasn’t a good fit for the company, and so he’d been let go. Sometimes it’s better to just keep your nose to yourself!

April Fool

Pranks can be fun, but they’re only fun if everyone’s laughing, which is something the workers at a UK Post Office Delivery Branch weren’t doing back in April 2023.

It was during this time that Post Office staff were striking over wage rises, as the cost of living was fast outstripping what they were earning. This was also during a time where a scandal had rocked the Post Office, one where a software issue had wrongly placed many post masters and mistresses in jeopardy after misreporting their takings, meaning many, over 900, were falsely prosecuted, and some imprisoned.

Between the strikes and the investigations, tensions were incredibly high. So, workers at a Post Office delivery branch in Gloucester North were delighted when they saw a poster had been put up by their manager, claiming workers would receive a backdated 11% pay rise, along with a whole list of other conditions they’d been hoping for.

As the poster instructed, many shared it on social media. Hundreds of other workers all breathed a huge sigh of relief together, it was almost too good to be true! And then they realized what date it was April 1st, April Fools Day. In a tone-deaf move, one of the managers had mocked up the poster to pull the prank on their striking staff!

British company UNDER FIRE for pay rise April Fool’s joke | Latest English News | WION by WION

The staff may have seen the funny side of it and been able to brush it off, but when it reached the internet, thousands of people were furious at how cruel and unfunny it was in the current climate. It eventually reached the tabloids, and national headlines ran with the story.

Everything eventually forced the big bosses over at The Royal Mail to put out a statement, apologizing profusely, with statements from the now horrendously disgraced manager apologizing for their conduct, but even then, the public still called for the manager to be sacked! When all his co-workers lost whatever respect they had for him, hopefully he saw the funny side of it!

Baby Got Trapped

Bringing kids into revenge plots is a low blow by any standard! But when this next, now deleted, reddit user decided to share his story that involved at least one kid, it’s just unbelievable.

So, Dan had been together with his long-term partner Stacy for 4 years. They didn’t have much money, but they were happy, or at least Dan thought they were. Until one day Stacy began acting distant. She changed the password on her phone, spent hours messaging other people, and would often come home late from supposed work meetings.

Sadly, having been cheated on before, Dan knew the signs, and chalked it all up to her cheating on him. But he didn’t have any concrete proof, so he didn’t say anything, instead choosing to pretend it wasn’t really happening.

However, one day when he returned to their humble apartment, he realized all of Stacey’s stuff was missing. She’d left him, without so much as a text. He was crushed but consoled himself with the fact that his gut instinct about her cheating had probably been right. He continued living his life, refusing to let it keep him down, when, about 4 weeks later, something wild happened: he won the lottery!

He was probably due a bit of good luck. It wasn’t mega millions, but enough to set him up for a good long while! He moved out of his humble apartment, got the keys to a swanky new abode, and began dating a lovely young lady. They were getting ready to start a family together, when one day, a good 7 months since they’d broken up, Stacey knocked on his door, heavily pregnant.

She lay into him, claiming he’d hid the lottery winnings from her, and she’d had to track him down because the baby was his! He’d left her pregnant and stranded, and now, as revenge, it was his duty to provide a good lifestyle for her and their child, as she was due in a month!

Initially Dan was too stunned to speak. Hadn’t she left him? And now clearly, after hearing about his big win, she was just after his money, but this is where Dan flipped her wicked plot against her with three little words: “But I’m infertile?”

As Dan and his new lady had been trying to start a family, Dan had discovered he was, in fact, infertile! While they’d initially been sad, this meant two things, 1: Stacy’s baby couldn’t be his, and 2: if she was, as she claimed, 8 months pregnant, then that confirmed she had in fact been cheating on him while they were still together. Stacey, flustered, stormed off, and never darkened his doorway again, while Dan, his now wife, and their 2 adopted kids have never been happier!

SSSniperWolf vs JacksFilms

If you’ve been on YouTube for a long time, then you probably know SSSniperWolf, aka Lia Shelesh. Through gaming, trying out hacks, and reacting to videos, she’s amassed more than 34 million followers on YouTube to date. Lia reacts to a lot of videos from TikTok and YouTube, typically without crediting the original video owners, which has caused other YouTubers, such as JacksFilms, to call her out.

With around 5 million followers currently, he reacted to Lia’s reaction videos, critiquing her video style and calling out her credit-less takes. The situation soon escalated, with Lia hitting back at Jack with a series of tweets, calling him out for reacting to her, and then Jack hit back, then Lia; their digital beef got messy.

But then Lia decided to take it a step further, and one incredibly dumb step at that. Lia didn’t know Jack in real life, but she did some digging, found his home address, and then turned up at his family’s house unannounced. Did she knock on the door and ask to talk out their feud like adults? No, she did not.

To one-up her revenge, she posted a picture of his house on her Instagram stories to her 5 million followers, doxing him. Doxing is revealing identifying information with malicious intent, something that’s really looked down on by the internet community because of how dangerous it is!

And considering SSSniperWolf revealed his house to her 5 million strong Instagram audience with an ominous ‘Let’s talk’ message attached, that’s pretty threatening!

While it’s not illegal, doxing is considered adjacent to crimes like harassment and stalking, something Jack was not going to let go. Even though the pics disappeared from Lia’s stories, Jack doubled down on the ordeal, he made a video and several tweets about it which went viral, big commentary Youtubers covered the story lambasting Lia’s actions, and people contacted YouTube demanding she be held accountable.

YouTube eventually struck her SSSniperWolf channel with temporary demonetization costing her thousands of dollars, and while she’d initially defended her actions, she suddenly backtracked and publicly apologized. But the damage was done.

The backlash was so severe that she’s since turned off the comments to all of her latest videos, and where she would once routinely upload some 4 or 5 times a week, that’s dropped down to just once a week at the time I’m writing this article. She’s cemented her reputation as an internet villain, all because she wanted to get back at Jack. Looks like this sniper’s aim was off, way off.

Cait Corrain

Being a new author is hard work in this day and age: competition is fierce and getting people to buy your book instead of other new authors in the same category is an uphill battle! And that was a pressure that aspiring author Cait Corrain really felt back in 2023.

Her debut fantasy book, Crown of Starlight, was being released along with the works of many other new fantasy authors. However, Cait felt insecure, and decided she needed to give her book an edge, not by trying some fancy new marketing technique, but by sabotaging her fellow debut authors.

She headed over to the book review website Goodreads and created a bunch of fake, anonymous accounts. She then systematically went after other authors whose books were in the same category as Crown of Starlight and gave each of them a one-star review. She repeated this process hundreds of times, purposefully reducing the average rating of at least 20 books!

She thought she’d gotten away with it, however, Canadian author Xiran Jay Zhao noticed something weird had been happening, because the accounts leaving one-star reviews on all these new books had also left glowing 5-star reviews on Crown Of Starlight! Cait had been so arrogant, she figured she may as well boost her own book while tearing down others!

Xiran then documented everything in a 31-page file and shared it with the community, accusing Cait of strategically review-bombing in a tweet which then went viral.

Cait’s plan had backfired on a catastrophic level, but instead of admitting what she did, she unbelievably dug the hole deeper. She created a fake chat log with an imaginary friend who she claimed admitted to her that she’d done it to try and help her, and then shared the screenshots!

Either she hoped the community was too trusting or too stupid to see this was fake, but they were neither, and they refused to believe Cait. Amidst all the controversy, Cait’s publisher quickly announced they would no longer be releasing Crown of Starlight, her agency dropped her, and the community turned its back on her.

In a desperate attempt to salvage something, Cait came clean. She released an apology, blaming her actions on a mixture of a new medication and bad mental health.

Here’s the kicker though, all of the authors she’d review-bombed had been people of color. So essentially, her apology looked like she was saying her medication made her racist. Cait’s gone quiet since then, and a vast portion of the book-loving community will hope it stays that way!

Love Stings

Breakups can really, really hurt. Trust me. But some hurt more than others, as one woman, who we’ll call Ingong, in Cambodia discovered back in 2015. She had been dating her boyfriend, Chan, for a while, but after his family discovered Ingong had previously been arrested for jewelry theft and illegal substance related crimes, they convinced him to break it off.

She was heartbroken, but also hellbent on getting revenge. They took a short break, then met up at Chan’s home a few days later and decided to go for a motorbike ride, with her as a passenger sat on the back. Neither of them was wearing a helmet, which would have saved them not just from a crash, but from what Ingong was about to do!

As they were travelling, she pulled out a plastic bottle, which had a malicious substance in it and went to vengefully pour it over his head as he was driving! If she couldn’t have him, no one could! The only problem is that when you’re travelling at high speeds, wind makes pouring liquids on a target very hard, and, long story short, that malicious substance blew back into her own face!

A little did get on Chan’s face, and he stopped the bike immediately. Screaming in pain, she fled the scene. Chan was taken to hospital where he made a full recovery and a police report, and before long there was a pretty serious warrant out for Ingong’s arrest. Looks like she got a face-full of Karma!

If you were amazed at these stories of revenge that backfired, you might want to read more revenge stories. Thanks for reading.