While a few cents in the monthly bill is not a huge amount, it is not acceptable for anyone to be harassed and pay the same amount for services that are not even used. One man, u/Impossible_Mine2065, found himself in a similar situation with a phone company years ago and came up with his own plan that involved malicious compliance to get revenge on them. But then his wife came up with an even better idea to get the company to leave him alone for good. Since it worked, the man shared the incident from two decades ago on Reddit.

He describes his experience as follows: “I live in the US and own an IT support company. Many years ago I used a cell phone company called Nextel. They had this great push-to-talk feature that allowed you to turn your phone into a walkie-talkie, which was perfect for communicating with colleagues in my IT work.” Then he further mentions: “However, their customer service was a nightmare. Every time I needed to contact them, I had to spend at least 30 to 40 minutes on hold. Eventually I had to switch to a cheaper service, which meant I needed a new number. (Today you can port your number to a new provider, but back then you had to change the number when you changed providers.)” But he changed all phone plans 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 tell callers my new number,” the person explained. “I could also hear the phone make a sound when it disconnected from the cellular network and then another sound when it reconnected to the cellular network. I 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 the usual 30 to 40 minutes on hold just to cancel my service. After telling the customer service rep that I kept dropping out of the network and had already switched services, they checked the service issues on my account and canceled my entire plan.”

“I didn’t have a contract at the time, so it was no problem to cancel my service with Nextel. As expected, I got my last bill. It was about $10, since that was my monthly plan. I paid the bill and was happy to be done with that provider,” the man exclaimed. “Then the next month I got a bill for four cents. Yes, only four cents. I thought it was a clerical error and ignored it, expecting them to write it off. But no, every month another bill came for four cents. I couldn’t believe it! I checked the postmark and saw that the postage on the bill cost ten times more than the bill itself!” he added, describing how the company sent him the bill every 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 a very petty, malicious indulgence.”

“I wanted to wait on hold for 40 minutes and pay the four cents with a credit card, even though I knew that would result in them paying higher fees. I told my wife about my plan, thinking it would be the perfect story of malicious indulgence. But my wife, the true master of malicious indulgence, suggested an even better idea: she should call and ask if I could split the four cents into two installments with my credit card,” the user recounted. Eventually, he was connected to the customer service representative, who decided to write off his payment in response to the request, even though he insisted on paying it. “She firmly rejected this and assured me that I would not receive any further bills.”

People took to the comments to share their opinions and experiences. u/rcrossler commented, “These companies need an automatic filter that only writes off amounts that are less than the cost of sending statements. They would save a ton of money and could write this off as a business loss.” u/AC5424 shared, “American Express denied 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 12 cent balance and a message to call them to arrange payment. It’s been 3 years now.” u/Chaosmusic noted, “Or some clever employee creates a program that sends these tiny amounts to a special bank account.”