When doing a nice favor for someone, people expect something in return. Even if it's not money or a gift, people usually want to hear some type of sincere gratitude and a 'thanks.' However, this doesn't always happen and some people are exceptionally rude to those that help them out. Sometimes their rudeness is beyond what anyone can imagine and would leave you speechless.
We're always surprised by how rude these people can be and wanted to find more 'wait, did they really do that' scenarios. So, we searched through Reddit and found the most unbelievable stories of how people got thanked and repaid for their good deeds. This content was edited for clarity.
The One Time Of The Year You’re SUPPOSED To Be Thankful
“A few years ago I worked for a local bank that was super into helping the community and volunteer work. It was getting near Thanksgiving, and every year the company would pick families in need in the community and we would hand deliver them food/supplies for a proper Thanksgiving dinner.
This was my first year doing this, and I volunteered to go with my boss to deliver it to this family. I felt especially excited/joyful to do this because my family was one of these families when I was growing up and I thought it was a way of paying it forward.
So we get to this families house, and knock on the door. It takes awhile for anyone to answer. Finally, a woman answers the door. She is on her phone. We tell her why we’re there, etc etc and start handing her the bags of groceries. We had so much my boss and I had to make a second trip and go back to the door. The ENTIRE time this woman is on her phone, won’t make eye contact, and is just taking the bags from us. I say, ‘I hope your family has a wonderful Thanksgiving!’ in a last effort to see some sort of reaction. Her response? Shutting the door in our face.
I came close to crying. I couldn’t imagine behaving in such a way. I remember being on the receiving end of this when I was a kid. My mom cried and hugged the people. We all came to the door and thanked them. We wouldn’t have had a Thanksgiving that year without it. That whole experience with that woman was just sad.”
No Favor Lasts That Long
“My mom set me up with a babysitting gig from like 3 pm to 10 pm. They didn’t end up getting back till about 2 am and their payment was a ‘Thanks.’
My mom shredded her friend in front of me. They said they thought I was just doing it as a favor.
‘WHAT KIND OF FREAKING FAVOR HAVE YOU DONE THAT LASTED 11 HOURS YOU TURDS.’
I think they tried to give me like $15 but my mom told them to stuff it.
My mom just assumed that her friend would pay me, you know, like normal people, so they never set a price.
My mom gave me $50 for it though, cause she’s a true lady.
Now, I live by set the price beforehand.”
When Minimum Wage Sounds Nice…
“My cousin said she would pay me well to help her strip and remodel a house. I worked every day after work and on my days off at the house for a month. She paid me $75. Partially it was my fault for not discussing an amount, but surely she realized $75 is not paying someone well for around 140 hours of work. I ripped out the drywall, put in new drywall, flooring, cabinets, tiled the bathroom walls, etc. Bathroom, Kitchen, and laundry room were all completely gutted, the two bedrooms had their carpet ripped up and hardwood floor refinished too. Luckily it was only a mile from my house.
I just quit helping her with anything after that. She wanted me to look at her car but I said I’ll be ‘out of town” aka my car will be in the garage instead of the driveway like usual.”
Never Trust A Mean Mother-In-Law
“My evil mother-in-law started being nice for once. I should have known a favor was incoming. It was. She asked me if I could take this English Literature online class for her because she said I was smart and loved reading anyways. She said she’d pay for a surprise vacation for my broke husband and me so I agreed.
I was just excited she was being nice and desperately wanted that vacation. So I proceeded to spend a semester taking the most difficult and time-consuming online class I ever took. Every assignment would be sent back to me 3 to 4 times to fix minute details that made no difference and the professor wouldn’t even tell me what it was. She just bounced it back and wouldn’t accept it over and over again. That was every single assignment, of which, there were plenty.
By the end of it, I was exhausted. I hated English literature and was just happy it was over. I got an A+ and was excited to show my mother-in-law.
The vacation? It was with the whole family (not alone as she promised) and her daughter’s boyfriend’s family came too and took the bedrooms. We were all sharing this hotel suite. I had to sleep on a tile floor. Spent the whole time playing UNO and charades because mother-in-law didn’t want to go anywhere.
So my reward was being stuck in a room with a woman who hated me and 8 more obnoxious, rude people and cooking and cleaning for all of them. Good times.
Though I was at the point where I was just happy she wasn’t actively making my life a living nightmare. Also, it was nice to hear her say that I was smart because she usually says some heinous things about me. This was 6 years ago. I know now that nothing I do will make her like me. I haven’t even spoken to her in more than a year.”
He Paid For That?!
“I was at a conference and at the end of one of the talks someone dropped their passport. Luckily I knew people at their company so I contacted them on LinkedIn. They were so thankful because their flight was that day.
The company is a big gaming company and they wanted to send me a gift as thanks.
I expected a (signed?) copy of their new game (released that week). Instead I was sent a black cap with their logo on it in a large box filled with air.
When it got delivered the guy was confused why it was so light because I had to pay $50 for import fees. The cap didn’t even fit my fat head.”
He Gave You A ‘Gift’ And Said What?!
“A few years ago I worked in a retail store. It was pretty bad from the pay to the bosses to the hours. You name it, it was all bad.
I managed to get out and find another much better retail job. I was pretty happy working there, much better environment. One day I overheard the boss talking about hiring more staff and I told him I knew someone who was looking for work. It was a guy I was friends with from my old job. I knew he wanted to get out as well.
So I got him a job. That’s it. No interviews or anything, my boss hired him based on my recommendation only.
So this friend of mine was also trying to start off his own brand of clothing; he was ambitious about and the clothes looked nice. After his first week, he messaged me telling me how much he liked the new job. He then linked me his website and told me to pick anything I like. I wasn’t interested in any of his clothes really, but I figured this is how he was trying to say thank you for getting him the job.
So I picked out a shirt. The next day at work he delivered me the shirt. I thanked him for it and he said, ‘No worries, I’ll text you my banking details later and you can just pay me whenever!’
I was completely speechless and I just stood there like an idiot without saying anything. I was trying to work out if I ever agreed to pay anything for it or not. Turned out he hasn’t been able to move his stock at all. His whole room is full of his own clothing brand that he couldn’t move, so he tried to pawn them off to friends.
Long story short, I just paid it. I just didn’t want any issues at work. I probably just should have said no.”
It’s Always So Nice To See Family…
“My mom moved to Hawaii a couple of years ago, so naturally anytime someone in the family wants to go on vacation, they call her up because they want to come and visit her for a week. It was really so they could use it as a free place to stay and so they could get an islander discount on tourist things. My aunt and uncle went out for about 2 weeks. Now keep in mind, my parents work full time, have a 6-year-old that goes to school and daycare, have one vehicle each, and rent a 2 bedroom place. It’s not like they have a ton of extra time and resources to be taking people around on their vacation. So my aunt and uncle got there and slept on my brother’s full-size bottom bunk bed, used my dad’s car which left my mom to be a taxi for the whole family, and they didn’t even provide their own food or offer to help pay for groceries. My mom just had to feed two additional adults for 2 weeks. All under the guilt trip that they ‘wanted to come and see them.’
My parents probably forked out as much in extra gas and food for the 2 weeks as my aunt and uncle did on plane tickets.”
They Tipped You With WHAT
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“I used to deliver pizza. On Halloween, I had to deliver to a house that was going to throw a huge party, so they ordered like 20 pies. I had probably 4 of those oven bags full of extra large pizzas and they weighed a quite a bit. These people lived on a hill and the only place I could park was at the bottom of the hill. I am a hefty man and I was carrying two bags up this mountain dropping them off and then running back down to get the other two and then trekking back up the mountain again. I was tired and sweaty and breathing heavy by the end of it.
The people I was delivering were getting ready to pay when they saw me, a large out of shape man, sweating and breathing heavily. I was embarrassingly bad at trying to hide just how out of shape I was. So they crossed out the tip and changed the total and grabbed a Hershey’s bar and gave that to me as their tip. IT WASN’T EVEN FULL SIZED!!!!!!!! A fun-sized Hershey bar!”
No Thank You To This Situation
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“This woman and her daughter ran out of gas at a red light. I pushed their car with two other people. It was up an incline and about 100 yards to the gas station. The three of us were panting and it was worse than any seven-man sled on the football field.
When we finally got to the pump the two of them went inside without even glancing at us.”
She Justified Underpaying For A Bizarre Reason
“I was babysitting 3 kids for this family that lived down the street. It was a 10-year-old boy, an 8-year-old boy, and a 5-year-old girl. These children were demonic. The mom told me that she would also like me to clean up the house while she was gone which I usually did anyway. She also told me that she promised her kids she would get them ice cream that day, so she asked that I drive them to Baskin Robins instead, which I did.
The two boys were trying to speak to ghosts and scaring their little sister. They told her she needed to be sacrificed or something. They demanded that I make them food and snacks every 20 minutes. While I was in the bathroom I heard the little girl crying so I ran out and her brother’s body slammed her onto the hardwood floors. I yelled at them and told them to go to their room and they straight up said, ‘You’re not the boss of me, my mom said I don’t have to listen to you.’
The mom came home that night and she handed me a couple 5 dollar bills and said: ‘I only needed you to watch the little girl, my boys could handle themselves.’
So I only got paid for 1 kid because the other 2 were ‘old enough to watch themselves.'”
“It Was As Empty As Their Hearts”
“When I was 9, I watched my neighbors’ pool for two weeks while they were in London (we lived in Southern USA). Two weeks of daily cleaning the filters, fishing dead animals out of the pool, and dealing with the snake that liked to frequent the filter.
They get back from the trip and thank me with a pencil pouch, but not just any pencil pouch. A cheap London pencil pouch shaped like a double decker bus, and I freaking hated it. I was expecting at least a couple dollars inside of it, but it was as empty as their hearts.”
This Manager Is The Real VIP
“My friend is a server at a really nice restaurant and this old lady came in with a big group of family/friends to celebrate because she had just gotten her book published.
She told my friend she was such a good waitress that she wanted to give her a copy of the book. My friend responded with something like, ‘sure, thanks’ – not really wanting the book but just trying to be nice. When my friend came back to the table the lady hands her the book and says, ‘It sells at the bookstore for $15, do you have any cash on you?’ Taken completely aback by this, my friend just says no and the woman tells her they will take it out of her tip.
Confused, she continues to do her job while secretly hoping there has been a misunderstanding or that the woman will forget. When she drops the check, however, the woman’s daughter loudly reminds whoever is paying that my friend still hadn’t given them money for the book.
There is a silver lining to this story that goes to show what an awesome boss her manager is. Because they made a reservation, their phone number was on file, so the manager called them and told them what they did was wrong, to come pick up their book and that they were not welcome at the restaurant ever again. When they protested by saying my friend wanted to buy the book, the manager says, ‘No, she absolutely did not. She has children she’s trying to buy Christmas gifts for and she needs every penny she can get. She doesn’t have extra money to spend on your stupid book.’ Of course, they never showed up to get it, but one would hope a light came on in the brain of that old lady hustler.”
It Wasn’t Worth The Trouble
“I once found someone’s phone laying in the street after nearly running it over. The case was cracked but the phone was still working. I parked and picked it up, waited about fifteen minutes before someone called it. A lady screamed at me asking me where I found the phone, I said where, and she asked if I could drop it off at her house. I said no, because she was starting to make me angry with her attitude. But I told her she could meet me at the nearest Starbucks.
She said fine. We met at Starbucks about ten minutes later, she was dragging her poor daughter into the place with her. ‘Was this how you found it?’ she asked, I replied yes. She then started yelling at her daughter, grabbed the phone and just left. She briefly chirped thanks before exiting, which I guess is better than nothing. But considering I wasted an hour of my life to save someone’s $700 phone from the street and all I got was attitude and brief thanks, I should have just steered a few inches to the right and ran it over.
I honestly felt bad for the daughter since her mom was such an idiot.”
Jeez, Thanks…
“In fourth grade, we had 20 spelling words per week and had to write each word twice as homework every night. My best friend forgot her spelling words once and so her mom called my mom on the house phone and had me give her the words. I sat on the phone with her for 45 minutes slowly saying and spelling each word (my friend wasn’t the brightest).
Her mom got back on the phone with my mom afterward, thanked us, and said she’d send a special gift for me with my friend to school the next day as a thank you.
My 9-year-old self got excited thinking the gift would be a small dollar store toy or a chocolate bar or something.
Turns out the gift was four sour, soggy strawberries.”
“I Would Have Preferred If She Gave Me Nothing”
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“My grandma was moving from her condo into a retirement home because she had been diagnosed with lung cancer and it would be better for her in terms of care and stuff. That entire summer, I happily went with her to run errands, helped her pack, helped her move, dropped stuff off for donations, and so much more. I honestly did not mind doing this. I was the only grandchild around, my parents couldn’t help and I couldn’t work that summer due to a knee injury.
I really need to stress that I wasn’t helping her in the expectation of anything. Seriously, I did it because she is my grandma, even though she was kind of a horrible person. Anyways, we had her all moved in and settled and she told me she had something for me. She gave me a little jewelry box, and inside it, was a bunch of broken and mismatched costume earrings. It was one of the cardboard ones you get when you buy something at the store. I was pretty insulted but also not surprised, as I mentioned previously, she was kind of a terrible person. I would have preferred if she gave me nothing. Although in fairness, I still have all of it. It is a pretty good example of how my Grandma saw me. I was consistently her least favorite grandchild because I’m ‘not a man’ and my sister was much more diplomatic with her than I was.
When she passed away, I was actually shocked when all the grandchildren got equal shares in her will. My grandma blatantly favored boys, preferring her grandsons to her granddaughters. Every year for our birthdays, my sister and I got $10. My brother and cousins got $50.
To be fair, I didn’t help her opinion of me that when I was 18, got my usual $10 and sent her a thank you card telling her to thank her for the money as I used towards buying a carton of smokes as a joke. That put me on her bad list until she died.”
Bold Move, Old Lady
“There was an old lady in line at the gas station ahead of me and she didn’t have money for gas. After she walked out and I paid for my soda with a $20 bill I said to put the change on whatever pump she was on. I ran out to tell her she had $17 and change on her pump, instead of thanking me, she asked, ‘Can you put on some more?’
I just said, ‘That’s all the money I have,’ and walked away dumbfounded.”
Never Grew Out Of Her Jealously
“There was this girl I went to middle school with who always hated me for whatever reason. People told me it was pure jealousy because she had a hard time making friends and I’ve always been having a lot of good people around me which apparently made her really jealous. She came from a bad home with neglecting parents and I came from the complete opposite. During my senior year in high school, I met this girl at a party through a mutual friend.
Years had passed and we started talking with no hard feelings, everything was fine. Pretty early in the evening, maybe at 6PM she was black out wasted and really, really sick. Being the caring person I am, I stayed with her the entire night and carried her puke-filled bags out of the room every time she needed a new one. Eventually she fell asleep and by 12 AM she woke up and was surprisingly fresh.
The very first thing she said to me was, ‘Thank you for helping me, but I actually think you’re really annoying as a person.’
What..the..heck…I had been with her through her hard night, carried her puke-filled bags(one even ripped while I was on my way out) and this is the ‘Thank you’ I get. I love helping people and I don’t expect any help in return but I get pretty upset when someone acts this ungrateful to me.”
There’s A Reason For The Age Limit
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“When I was 14 my mom decided I needed a job. In my country, you need to be 16 to have an official student job, but my mom’s co-worker saw an advertisement in a local paper for some light landscaping job in the next village so she called them and next Wednesday she dropped me off at some huge house to ‘try out’. I rang the bell and was told I needed to visit the people living in the barn instead. Ok…
I headed over and there was already some other kid outside for his first day too. Some old dude walked over with his cane and started barking orders at us, he wanted us clearing a stretch of grass but had us do it on our knees with a small garden tool. He then sat on a bench, watching us, telling us about how he used to own these stores and everyone working there was terrified of him and how he loved it and used to drive from store to store to check on them and how he rented out the house and lived on the first floor of the barn to make extra money. It was strange.
After two hours he ordered the other kid to get a pencil from his wife in the barn. The kid walked over, knocked on the door that was wide open, then walked one meter in the barn to look around the corner inside. His wife lost her mind. She stormed out yelling, ‘HE WAS IN THE HOUSE!!’ Old fart lost his mind too, this is clearly unacceptable. The kid said you told me to get a pencil and since you live in a barn it has no doorbell. The kid was fired on the spot and sent home.
I continued on the lawn while the old guy told me to make sure to tell my dad that he fired the other kid. He then asked what job my dad does. I told him my dad was a tax inspector. He turned white and told me the job is done for the day and to call my mom to pick me up. At this point I’ve been cutting out grass with an undersized tool on my knees for four hours. He then told me to wait on the street and hands me a whopping 10 euro. Wow. Did I mention his ad said ‘no monetary worries!’?
My mom told her co-worker the next day who laughed and said, ‘So that’s probably why the ad is in there every week!’
In hindsight, I should have seen the terrible pay for my child labor coming but I was too young to realize.”
They Assumed Their Trash Would Be His Treasure
“One time in high school I was working for a church library moving THE ENTIRE LIBRARY to a new building doing what I thought was a paying job. After an entire week of very strenuous manual labor that was mostly heavy lifting, I was given several boxes of old national geographic magazines as payment. I heard the librarians talking while I was hauling those to my car, turns out they were originally going to throw them away but they thought they’d be generous and let me have them. Then they literally proceeded to talk about what nice people they are.
Don’t get me wrong, national geographic is great, but it isn’t what you give someone who just put in 40 hours of hard manual labor who thought they’d be getting several hundred dollars cash.”