Subscription services are known for being a bit clingy — many don’t take “goodbye” for an answer!

One Redditor thought returning his set-top box was the end of the story, but instead, it was just the beginning of an absurd game of cat and mouse with a call center.

Read on for this tale of pro revenge!

Cable company kept calling to recharge even after disconnecting service, booked tech support to fix non-existent TV box.

My old TV finally broke down, so I got a new smart TV.

A couple of weeks later, I realized that no one in the family watched any TV channels—everyone preferred streaming content.

I decided it wasn’t worth paying for the TV connection anymore.

But cancelling wasn’t going to be easy.

However, my TV connection was bundled into my phone plan along with my Internet, so disconnecting it wasn’t straightforward.

It was a custom plan with its own dedicated relationship team.

It took several calls to the team to find a resolution, which was to convert the TV connection to a prepaid one and then stop recharging.

After the conversion was done, I received messages for a few weeks reminding me to recharge, followed by a final message to return the set-top box.

I responded to the message, and in a few days, the box was collected from my place.

Good riddance.

Or so I thought.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Then, the calls from random call centers started, pressuring me to recharge.

These calls felt different from the dedicated relationship team.

After some research, I discovered that this had become common practice in my country — the company had outsourced this part of customer support to a third party.

The cable company decided to make this as complicated as humanly possible.

The third-party call center simply used a printed database listing customers who had a connection but hadn’t recharged in the previous month.

Since my disconnection happened mid-month and their database was from the beginning of the month, my updated status wasn’t reflected.

I tried my best to inform them of this issue, but it was pointless.

So the customer decided to start playing along.

So, I started telling the callers that my TV had a fake problem connecting to the set-top box and that multiple support requests had gone unanswered.

I also began recording the calls.

The third caller took my complaint seriously and booked a tech support visit.

Within hours, I got a call from a field technician.

Then the customer told the tech what was really going on.

When he arrived, I greeted him with drinks and explained the real issue.

We had a good laugh.

He suggested I keep it up a few more times for good measure.

After eight tech support visits, they finally got the message.

Then management wanted to know what was up.

A supervisor eventually called, asking why I kept booking tech support when I clearly no longer had a connection.

I emailed him the call recordings.

He was pretty annoyed, but the calls stopped.

Now this customer’s name has a big red X over it.

Now, I rarely get a call—maybe once every couple of weeks.

When I do, I just read from the same script.

If someone takes it seriously enough to book tech support, they get a short note against my ID: “Do not bother this gentleman.”

Persistence really does pay off in the end!

What did Reddit think?

The customer being harassed should be the one asking the questions.

If it was this redditor, they probably just wouldn’t have picked up the phone at all.

Annoyed at the customer’s reaction? Stop calling then!

It turns out, the best way to end an endless stream of calls is to let them drown in their own inefficiency.

The calls started as an annoyance, but in the end, he turned them into entertainment.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.