Integrity matters. It shapes how we act, how we respond to conflict, and how far we’re willing to go when someone crosses a line. And it doesn’t mean that we need to lash out. There are other, more subtle ways to send a message.
Reddit user TuttiFruttiBooty69 wanted to know what that kind of quiet payback actually looks like in real life, so they asked the internet to share their most satisfying secret revenge acts that turned out to be surprisingly effective.
From college fraternities to offices and everywhere in between, people can get cheeky in a lot of different environments, too.
#1
Small revenge from a child. I got bullied as a kid as did most. It was 1983 and my 8th grade class went to the beach. My bullies were hanging out, I was solo for safety. They went into the water. I crushed up a bag of potatoes chips and spread them all over my enemies blankets and towels as I casually walked past. It took less than five minutes for about 50 gulls to find the spot.
Image source: Any_Clue_1632, David Trinks/unsplash
#2
This isn’t particularly great but I enjoyed it. Had a coworker who disliked me for no reason, would argue with me over asinine things just for the sake of it.
When I got him for secret Santa I, knowing he was colourblind, bought him a Rubik’s cube.
Image source: Meeeeehhhh, Arturo Añez/unsplash
#3
I had an instructor in the Navy who had just started a deployment onboard a destroyer and had gone to put his clothes in the washer, but had forgotten his detergent. So, he put his clothes in the wash and started it and walked back to grab the detergent. Coming back to the machine very shortly after, he had found that somebody had grabbed his soaking wet clothes and threw them on the deck and put their clothes in the machine. Seeing this, he grabbed their clothes out and threw them all over the side of the ship.
The deployment had just started, and this random sailor would now be without some of his clothes for months because he wanted to be an jerk.
Image source: MajorMalfunctionNN, Josué Sánchez/unsplash
#4
I remember reading about a woman who would bring her lunch and a can of Coke and put it in the work fridge. The can of Coke went missing…repeatedly.
So she took a very hot pepper, cut it in half, and rubbed it around the opening area.
The thief was discovered.
Image source: PJMurphy, Joseph Sharp/unsplash
#5
I knew someone that signed someone up for every newsletter, magazine, junk mail, samples, etc. Of course that puts you on other mailing lists, then more, and more, etc. They told me their victim received boxes and boxes of mail every day, it got to the point where it wouldn’t fit in their mailbox and the mailman had to knock on their door each day with an entire box.
Image source: llcucf80, Maxim Makarov/unsplash
#6
If a restaurant’s photos don’t match the food,like if the toppings are scarce, the price is high, and the attitude is bad,I’ll add my own toppings, take a photo, and upload it with a glowing review praising how generous the portions are. This review quickly attracts more customers, who then leave even more negative reviews.
Image source: Ok-Insurance-6313, Amanda Hodge/unsplash
#7
I started working my wage.
All the lil extra cleaning and care I was doing stopped, and suddenly manager doesn’t know why things are starting to become a problem.
Image source: hanks_panky_emporium, Vitaly Gariev/unsplash
#8
A friend of a friend was forced out of their apartment unfairly by a horrible landlord, and before she left she stuffed a single frozen scallop into the middle of one of the curtain rods.
Image source: thedick009, Getty Images/unsplash
#9
I have a relative who dumped her guy because he was a beginning musician and there’s no money in music.
His name was Gene Autry.
Image source: anon, Gabriel Gurrola/unsplash
#10
This is an Army Story. When I was a company XO the XO of our sister company didn’t get along with his commander. The commander was an awful human being, ride, lazy, an would blame his soldiers for all his failures. This particular commander also had a habit of not showing up to work. In a particularly bad series of days the commander didn’t come if for almost two weeks.
My friend and the 1SG got totally fed up. They sheet rocked over the commanders door and repainted the entirety hallway. This building housed the offices of four companies, so the hallway was super long. It took them a whole 4 day weekend to do.
When the commander shows back up the had everyone in the company act like they had never heard of him or met him. Eventually that afternoon the battalion commander caught wind of it and the company commander was relieved.
Image source: Jayu-Rider, Getty Images/unsplash
#11
Guy in my fraternity grew up poor and was an extremely hard worker in college. He saved enough money to buy a truck with a custom paint job. This town our college was in has a sizeable population of WT. He catches kid down the road keying his truck one night, marches the kid down to his house where the kid’s mom tells him to frick off.
Knowing this family had no money he knew he was screwed as far as getting any money out of them to repair his truck. So he waits. He waits until winter and it is freezing cold out. Very late one night he puts a tow chain on the back of his truck and the other end on the door knob on the front door of that kid’s house. He then proceeded to rip the door and the door jam off the house. Said he hit a bump in the yard and the chain fell off his truck so he didn’t even have to get out and unhook it. That guy is the CEO of a company now and has done very well in life.
Image source: AlanStanwick1986, BeautifulMenu9/reddit
#12
When I moved in first with my now ex she was in a shared flat. We lived in her room so to speak. The landlord / live in owner was a complete jerks to both of us and it almost came to blows before we left. We later heard he had been badmouthing us a lot to other people for things that weren’t even to do with us.
He was rather tech-illiterate so in a bout of pettiness my ex and I pulled up outside the building and looked for his WiFi. The signal was fine and he hadn’t changed the password since we left. I tested a few usual ip addresses, 192.168.0.1 turned out to be the router. It gave me the name and model but needed a login. On a hunch I googled the default passwords for it and managed to log in without issue. I then had to think of something sneaky and not obviously going to lead back to us. At this point it was still old ADSL lines which dial in to the ISP with a username and password stored on the router so I simply changed the login details from ending with .co.uk to ending with .com. at a glance it would look completely normal but it would never connect.
I later heard they were without internet for 3 months including over Christmas, and even the ISP engineers kept connecting to the router to see what was wrong but couldn’t spot anything amiss.
The memory of that a decade ago still cheers me up sometimes.
Image source: Oxygene13, Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk/unsplash
#13
I forgot to log out of my prime video account after I left my ex husband. When I finally realized it, I waited until he was on the next to last episode of the last season of a TV show he had been binging and then I cancelled the membership. Considering not only cheap he was, but also tech illiterate, I would bet it took him months to figure out how to watch that last episode.
Image source: Elegante0226, CardMapr.nl/unsplash
#14
Refusing to give positive references or opinions on people who truly deserved such treatment.
I never said anything negative, I simply declined to say/write anything positive.
Image source: CardiologistTrue8665, Getty Images/unsplash
#15
So when I was about thirteen or so, I was sleeping over at my friend’s house. It was myself, my friend, another friend of ours, and my friend’s little brother who was about nine at the time. Being hormonal thirteen year olds (AKA jerks) we were not too kind to my friend’s nine-year-old little brother. We didn’t kick him or anything, but just teased him all day, wouldn’t let him play Halo with us, etc.
So that night, we decide to sneak outside and play flashlight tag in the adjacent woods. My friend and his little brother shared a room, so there was no way we were gonna sneak out without him waking up— so we just decided to let him come along. Truth be told, we had a blast out there. Probably played until 2AM or so. Time comes to wrap it up and we all start walking back, but we can’t find my friend’s little brother. Can’t find him *anywhere*. So we immediately go into both “damage control” *AND* “panic mode” at the same time. We can’t scream his name to look for him for fear of waking up my friend’s parents. We were all horrified he’d been eaten by a bear or kidnapped or something. We hustled all over that woods for probably 30 minutes in a white-hot-panic trying to find this kid… to no avail. We decided to regroup around the tree where we had started the game and just kinda get our bearings for a minute.
We’re all huddled around there, huffing and puffing and pretty much trying not to cry out of both fear and frustration. Suddenly, my buddy goes, “hey guys… is it raining?” and we feel this stream of water spraying down upon us… then we hear my friend’s little brother cackling like a madman.
We shine the flashlights up in the tree, and this little jerk is peeing on ALL OF US. I had to hand it to him… he gave us the scare of our lives *and* peed on us.
We never teased him ever again.
Image source: PermaBanTogether, Рома Морозов/unsplash
#16
Back in high school there was a boy (let’s call him Bob) that was incredibly talented with computers but was bullied a lot by another kid for being a nerd. Well they had a a class together that took place every day in a computer lab and they all had assigned seats, with Bob and his bully on opposite sides of the room from each other.
Well Bob realized one day that the school’s computers had very bad security so he was able to install software onto his bully’s computer that allowed him to remotely control the bully’s computer from his own computer across the room. Then when class was in session, whenever the teacher was passing by the bully’s computer, Bob would pull up adult material on the bully’s computer screen. The bully could never adequately explain to the teacher why it was magically popping up on his computer so he got constantly in trouble for having it open in school and from then on out was teased by the other students for it.
Image source: urbanhawk1, Thomas Park/unsplash
#17
I like the one I recently pulled.
The neighbor, her kids, and her guests kept parking in front of my house even though she had plenty of space in front of hers. The property across from her has its side facing her house, so she has plenty of parking on both sides and has a big driveway that can fit four different cars.
She was keeping all of us who live here from being able to park in front of our own house. So I started parking in front of her house as revenge.
The short end of it is that she got mad and came over one day. I was called mean, vindictive, etc. I was told she can legally park wherever she wants, but if I kept parking in front of her house, she would call the cops on me when I informed her that I can also park anywhere I want legally.
It worked out because none of them park in front of my house anymore, and I laugh internally with how they all give me a pissed off glare any time they see me outside.
Image source: OnlyIGetToFartInHere, omid bonyadian/unsplash
#18
I witnessed on a job site one day a delivery driver had gotten into an argument with some roofers who were (obviously) up on the roof The delivery driver then pushed their ladder over so they were stuck up on the roof. Then he was guarding it so no Good Samaritan could come get the ladder back up. Well a few minutes later the delivery driver was standing within range so one of the roofers started peeing on him from up on the house.. Residential construction is a fun industry kids.
Image source: anon, Nick Page/unsplash
#19
I was seperated, and after months and months of being harrassed by my ex i called the tax people on her and let them know she was running a side buisness lol found out she owed closed to 10k in taxes lol.
Image source: Outdoorsmen_87, Vitaly Gariev/unsplash
#20
My best friend’s boyfriend cheated on her and broke up with her. She blocked his number and moved states. She found out she was pregnant a few weeks later and aborted the embryo because it ended up being ectopic pregnancy. Recently he reached out via fb apologizing and told her how she was the reason he cheated and blah blah blah. Anyways she sent him the abortion paperwork and then blocked him on fb.
Image source: whitewidow420420, Getty Images/unsplash
#21
My ex had to wear a tie to work every day but didn’t know how to tie one. I tied each of them, and then he’d put one over his neck and adjust, and leave it tied in the closet. When I realized it was a really bad relationship that I needed to leave, I packed up all my stuff and my cat while he was out (but not at work or wearing a tie). On one final, petty impulse, I walked back into the closet and yanked out all the knots. Then I drove to my aunt’s house and called my parents.
Image source: Crazycatlover
#22
Not really a revenge story but i had a tailgater who was like driving a few inches behind car on a wide open freeway on i-405 in LA. I gave him a small love tap on my brake and then he got all angry and tried to overtake me by going probably 90+ mph.
Then there was an undercover seeing all this who immediately pulled over the jerk. It was one of the happiest moments of my driving experience.
Image source: anon
#23
My husband never did any of the budgeting or taxes or money stuff. It was too much work to learn to do it,. when we were getting divorced I told him how to keep his bills paid etc. After I left he decided he didnt have to do anything I said anymore. Within a year his pay was garnished for not paying his bills so he quit his job which meant he couldnt pay his taxes and he lost his house and his car. He is so foul he couldnt get a decent woman so he found this 400 pounder on disability to sponge off of. He is on anti depressants so he is impotent and he hates using the blue pills because they make him nauseous but he has to do it because he will lose what little bit of security he has if he doesnt sleep with this woman. lol. Worth the 27 years of hell he put me thru.
Image source: Fluffy-Hotel-5184
#24
My old roommate was being disrespectful and entitled towards the end of him moving out. He wasn’t packing, so I changed the wifi information and told him I forgot to pay it.
He left so fast.
Image source: AggressiveLawyer3617
#25
Was in a relationship with a woman that treated me horribly. Finally, after two years of making my life miserable, she started cheating on me with this guy who was a huge jerk. So I said fine. You two were made for each other. I’m out.
They proceeded to make each other miserable for at least 3 years afterwards. While my life only improved. It was awesome.
Image source: photoguy423
#26
Moving things around on her desk after she left for the day. Nothing big, just maybe moving her cup to from one side to the other or taking a paper from her in bin and putting it on the desk. Drove her crazy and she deserved it for harassing everyone in the office and running to the boss to tell her everything.
Image source: Atara117
#27
Storytime kids so grab some candy and soda.
A couple of years back I bought my favorite breakfast joint in town. It was having issues with supplier costs because they jacked up the prices on breakfast staples to be unsustainable for anyone but the business was solid beyond that so I bought it after checking their books. The only thing that has changed is that the suppliers are now local farmers for our breakfast staples (basically I switched it to a farm to table model). The regulars loved it. The local health inspector doesn’t like the farm to table model though. It still gets decent health scores he just grumbles about the methodology we use for supplies. This is where the subtle revenge was born. We decided to offer a single non farm to table breakfast option after he decided to grumble a lot about it. We have a bunch of plates named after regulars that come in so adding a new one isn’t out of the norm. We named it after him and comp him a free one every time he inspects our place. He is basically the only person who ever eats it.
It’s basically identical to our standard Rise and Shine breakfast but it’s a lot more expensive and the portions are a lot smaller compared to the size of the
standard. For $21.99 you get three tiny pancakes, two medium sized eggs over easy, three slices of preservative laced bacon, and a small serving of frozen hash browns with unlimited Folgers coffee.
With the standard Rise and Shine breakfast combo you spend $13.99. For that cost you get you get three dinner plate sized pancakes, four large eggs any way you want them, your choice of twelve ounces of locally produced ham, sausage, steak, or bacon, a generous serving of our made in house fresh hash browns, and unlimited cups of our ow locally roasted and blended coffee (we partner with a local coffee roaster we don’t have the space or equipment to do it in the kitchen). This is actually one of our most popular combos for good reason.
The local farmers save us a ton of money but if he wants us to serve him mass produced stuff we won’t disappoint. I think the absolute best part of this revenge came recently when a local newspaper reviewed the restaurant. They declared that his combo was bland and tasteless compared to the far superior Rise and Shine breakfast combo and people shouldn’t waste their money on the more expensive option.
Image source: invisiblyold
#28
Stopped explaining myself and just lived better, nothing pisses people off more than you being unbothered and thriving tbh 😌.
Image source: RiverWink
#29
I put her contact details and address on a Mormon church website.
Image source: Ashamed_Smile3497
#30
My high school boyfriend went to a different school. There was another student (who my boyfriend didn’t like or get along with cause he was a pig) who was boasting about how he met his new girlfriend at a bus stop, she was a model and how, after Prom/Formal he was going to ‘do her’.
Charming, right?!
So the night of Prom/Formal, I notice her going to the Ladies room on her own and make my excuses to the people we were with and follow her. We bump into each other at the mirror and get to chatting. As girls do, you know how it is…
You came with X? I’ve been dying to meet you! So yes she is a model and yes they did meet at a bus stop.
He’s the sweetest guy, I really like him… Erm
Honey, I need to tell you that he’s been telling people…
About an hour later I hear through the grapevine they had a blow up cause she confronted him but cause if the exact terminology he used (that I passed on) he was so shocked he couldn’t deny it. She left with another guy from that school for their own fun times.
The next week at school, he’s throwing a fit and demanding people tell him who told his now ex girlfriend.
Oooops. My bad.
Image source: WTF-is-this-life
#31
Maybe not 100% harmless… but I was living in a duplex and got new neighbors. They were these kids living off their parents’ money while they tried to become DJs. They were awful, they’d be blasting the worst house music I’ve ever heard from about 8pm to 3am, every single night. I had to wake up for work around 5am, so I asked them nicely to please stop at 10 on my work nights. Friday and Saturday, go for it, go as late as you want, but not the nights I need to sleep. They wouldn’t listen, if anything it got louder.
Well, I had access to the furnace/breaker room. I disconnected their thermostat from the furnace for their side of the house. That entire winter, the only heat they had was whatever wafted over from my side. If I knew I was going to have a big day at work the next day, I’d turn off their power for the night. The landlord was a slumlord, so he wasn’t going to do anything about it. Eventually they just stopped staying at the house. I assume they went to stay with friends.
Image source: Judge_Bredd3
#32
“It girl” always bullied me for my acne and she thought she was the prettiest.. last valentines I wrote a letter to her friend saying she was prettier than anyone else and that I had a crush on her (anonymously) It girl was fuming when friend got the letter and was prob so jealous.
Image source: Beneficial-Cause-898
#33
When I was a kid some bullies showed up at the playground I was playing at, trying to get me to leave. I pretended to leave then played quietly out of sight on the other side of a structure. I noticed a few minutes later they’d taken off their shoes, and weren’t playing anywhere near them. So I secretly took and buried one of the ringleader’s shoes in the sand and left. They didn’t even notice then, but I’m sure she noticed when she eventually got ready to leave.
I’m still oddly proud of that little bit of revenge. Yes, I could’ve buried both, but mysteriously missing only one shoe from a pair felt like it’d be much more frustrating. If she ever realized it was me, she never confronted me about it.
Image source: MellyKidd
#34
I used to work with a rude phlebotomist in a hospital setting. He would push his little cart around, park it outside the room, go in and talk trash about nurses to the patients. When I would hear him run his mouth, I would get a packet of lube and squeeze it out on the handlebar of his cart. This occurred several times. He would flip out in a rage and he never suspected me.
Image source: amybpdx
#35
Stopped fixing their mistakes and did my own job, they were narcissistic as hell and thought their charisma was good enough to carry them until it didn’t. I stood back and watched them point fingers at everyone with every unfixed mistake or picked up slack to the point they ended up getting suspended for work refusal.
It was glorious, after they were gone and management put them on a different shift, production went up and everyone worked well with eachother, I guess the poison was them the whole time.
Image source: Hushwater
#36
Mint and strawberry seeds on his perfect lawn. I added MaresTail just outside his back fence so it could get established in the wild before it naturally moved into his garden flowerbeds. Enjoy getting rid of all that you jerk. Mares Tail is still hounding him years later.
Image source: TheHudsini
#37
It wasn’t necessarily revenge – but back in the day – VW bugs had easy access to rear engine – and the inside heat source was air going over the hot manifold. On occasion – someone might put a slice of Limburger cheese on that manifold of someone they didn’t like….
Image source: Negative-Layer2744
#38
Left a glowing Glassdoor review with a VASTLY inflated salary & PTO for my position, so anyone being interviewed would think they’re being low balled and would decline their offer. Got fired a year ago, and they haven’t been able to replace me yet. 🤣.
Image source: Orangeboi_22
#39
I focused on improving myself and just stopped giving them access to my time and energy. living well and moving on quietly was enough “revenge” for me…
Image source: Sumimori
#40
I stopped giving them access to me. No drama, no explanation. That one always hits.
Image source: cutebogi
#41
The best revenge story I know is my own.
I was in a toxic relationship with a narcissist and after 7 years I left her for good, and broke her “heart”. Even though out of the 7 years, she spent 5 of them cheating on me at least twice a year with a buddy that lived across the street from her in a trailer park.
Once she knew I was gone and she couldn’t control me anymore I got voicemail after voicemail of listening to her cry and tell me it’s my fault, why am I doing this to her, etc etc etc.
The best revenge was removing myself from her life.
Image source: Ragez121
#42
Drove up to the lake to our sailboat one Friday evening to clean ahead of the weekend, and found my ex there with an also married dingbat from work (saw her car in the marina parking lot).
While I sat up top to wait for them to come up, I noticed her purse on the seat next to me, and without a thought chucked it overboard as far as I could throw, and left.
When ex got home (for the last time), he complained about how she had to call her husband to drive 90 minutes to bring her spare keys. I played totally clueless about why and laughed and told him that if he hid when her husband got there, it was a waste of time because he already knew who she was there with.
Just a small bit of revenge, but it still feels good years later.
Image source: GyspySyx
#43
I went on a lunch run and a person I didn’t care for asked me to get them a chicken sandwich.
On the way back from the restaurant I took the chicken out of the sandwich and held it in front of my air conditioner vent cranked on high the entire trip back to the office and then replaced everything.
They complained about how “ice cold” their sandwich was and never suspected a thing!
Image source: Girthw0rm
#44
Roommate was annoying me so I decided to mess with him. I found a stick and put it outside our apartment door. Proceeded to ask why the stick was there. He was confused and went to look. Laughed it off and walked away. Added a stick everyday and would occasionally ask him about it. First he ignored it but after a couple days he started getting nervous. He posted it on Facebook or something saying he was feeling unnerved by it. After 2 weeks, I decided to suddenly get rid of all the sticks (big pile) at once. Never told him.
Image source: RedDevilJin
#45
I took my bosses job.
Image source: justsurfingtonight
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