Wife's brilliant plan helps man get back at phone company pestering him with unfair bills

 While a few cents on a monthly bill may not seem like much, being harassed to pay for services you don’t use is infuriating. A Reddit user, u/Impossible_Mine2065, encountered this issue with a phone company years ago and devised a plan of malicious compliance. But it was his wife who came up with an even better solution to get the company off their backs for good. Since it worked, he shared the two-decade-old story on Reddit.

Narrating his experience, he wrote, "I live in the US and I own an IT support company. Many years ago, I used a cell phone company named Nextel. They had this great Push-to-Talk feature that turned your phone into a walkie-talkie, which was perfect for communicating with coworkers in my IT work." He then went on to mention, "However, their customer service was a nightmare. Anytime I needed to contact them, it would take at least 30-40 minutes on hold. Eventually, I had to switch to a cheaper service, which meant getting a new number. (Now you can port your number to a new carrier, but back then, you had to change numbers if you switched carriers.)" But he changed everyone's phone plan except his own and kept a number for $10 a month just for emergencies.

"I left the old phone plugged in at my office and set my voicemail message to instruct callers of my new number," the person explained. "I could also hear the phone make a sound when it disconnected from the cellular network and then a different sound when it connected to the cellular network. I would estimate that it only stayed connected to the network about 50% of the time. After six months, I decided to cancel it." He continued, "I had to wait on hold for the customary 30 to 40 minutes just to cancel my service. After telling the service rep that I was always dropping off the network and that I had already switched services, they verified the service problems on my account and canceled my entire plan."

"I wasn't under any contract at the time, so there was no problem canceling my service with Nextel. As expected, I got my final bill. It was somewhere around $10 since that was my monthly plan. I paid the bill and was happy to be done with that carrier," the man exclaimed. "Then, the next month, I got a bill for four cents. Yes, just four cents. I figured it was a clerical error and ignored it, expecting them to write it off. But no, each month, another bill for four cents arrived. I was incredulous! I checked the postmark and saw that the postage to send me the bill was costing them ten times more than the bill itself!" he added describing how the company kept sending him the bill each month. "I could have paid the bill, but it seemed ridiculous to write a check for four cents and spend more on a stamp. After six months, I finally had enough and decided on some very petty, malicious compliance."

"I planned to wait on hold for 40 minutes and pay the four cents with a credit card, knowing it would cost them more in fees. I told my wife about my plan, thinking it was the perfect malicious compliance story. But my wife, the true master of malicious compliance, suggested an even better idea: call and ask if I could make payments on the four cents, splitting it into two payments on my credit card," the user shared. He eventually connected with the customer service representative, who decided to write off his payment in response to the query, even when he insisted he should pay it. "She firmly dismissed it and assured me I wouldn't get any more bills."

People took to the comments to share their opinions as well as experiences. u/rcrossler commented, "These companies need to have an auto filter that just writes off balances less than the cost of sending statements. They would save a bunch of money and would be able to deduct that as a business loss." u/AC5424 shared, "American Express declined to give me a fee waiver on their card. I paid off the balance with an extra 12 cents and canceled the card. Every month, I get a statement from them with my 12c balance and a note to call them to arrange payment. It's been 3 years." u/Chaosmusic pointed out, "Or a clever employee creates a program that sends those tiny amounts into a special bank account."