Dealing with big companies can be an exercise in futility since they often do things that make absolutely no sense.

What would you do if you kept getting a bill for $.04 on a service that you had already canceled?

That is what the couple in this story experienced and they found the best solution possible.

Check it out.

I Thought I Mastered Malicious Compliance—Then My Wife Showed Me How It’s Really Done!

For this story, you need to know that I am the kind of person who will go a great distance for a good laugh, as you will see below.

I love this story, and we tell it every once in a while, even though it has been more than 20 years.

I live in the US and I own an IT support company.

Nextel phones were great back in the day.

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.

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.)

A good way to make sure you don’t miss any calls.

I canceled all the phones on our plan except for mine, which I downgraded to an emergency plan costing about $10 a month.

I left the old phone plugged in at my office and set my voicemail message to instruct callers of my new number.

The phone just sat next to my desk on a shelf, plugged into a charger, so that I could see if anyone called.

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.

It connected and disconnected constantly there in my office.

I would estimate that it only stayed connected to the network about 50% of the time.

After six months, I decided to cancel it.

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.

Sounds like things are going well so far.

As expected, I got my final bill.

It was somewhere around $10 since that was my monthly plan (just the emergency plan, and I didn’t make any phone calls).

I paid the bill and was happy to be done with that carrier.

Their systems should have automatically canceled any bill that is lower than the cost of a stamp.

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!

And they kept sending 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 some very petty, malicious compliance.

I decided to invest the 40 minutes on hold to call Nextel to work this out.

By golly, if they wanted my four cents, I would give them my four cents.

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.

Getting a laugh out of it makes the whole hassle worth it.

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.

OMG! I was in the presence of malicious royalty!

I called, waited on hold for 40-45 minutes, and finally got through to a representative.

The representative sounded like one of those airport terminal attendants who act like they are checking your reservations, but instead, they are writing a Stephen King-length novel.

I could hear the clickety-clackety sound of the keyboard.

The female representative was constantly typing as I explained that I had canceled my service but kept getting the final bill and proposed making payments.

The representative, typing away, said she’d look up my account.

As she typed away at her keyboard, I explained that I had gotten the final bill and that I would like to set up a payment plan to take care of the outstanding balance.

I told her that I would like to pay half on my credit card today and pay the remaining half the following month.

I can just imagine her face.

She was agreeing with me and typing away when suddenly she stopped typing and went quiet. “Sir,” she said. “Yes?” I replied. “Are you aware of the balance amount?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Four cents???” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I figured that you really wanted that four cents because you keep spending all this postage to send me bills each month. So I’m just calling you to take care of it.”

After a brief silence, I heard the clickety-clack of the keyboard again and she said that I would not have to worry about the balance because she was writing it off.

I insisted on giving my credit card for the first half of the payment, but she firmly dismissed it and assured me I wouldn’t get any more bills.

Perfection!

My wife’s suggestion turned a simple prank into a masterpiece of malicious compliance.

I may be good at it, but my wife is on another level!

And you really have to want to do malicious compliance to wait on hold for 40 minutes!

Now that is a great outcome, the company lost money and he didn’t have to pay!

Let’s see what the people in the comments think about it.

Indeed, you have to laugh together to stay happy.

A bank should know how to avoid losing money!

It is bad for your credit, but would be so funny.

Well played mom!

It would be such a simple solution.

Companies lose so much money to sheer stupidity.

You’d think they would learn.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.