It’s amazing how fast confidence fades when someone’s forced to back up their words with proof instead of attitude.

So, what would you do if someone wrecked your daughter’s car, lied about it, and then dared you to take them to court?

Would you let it go because the car’s not worth much anyway? Or would you call their bluff and make them pay what they owe?

In the following story, one family finds themselves in this predicament and takes the person to court.

Here’s what happened.

Take you to court? Okay…

Twas was the year of our Lord 2006, my big sister had just started driving on her own.

My parents did as most parents did at the time, they bought her the biggest pile of garbage car that they could find.

Relatively reliable, but it was a mid-80s gold Geo Metro. It was a beater, rusty, dented, and dinged, very ugly, and importantly for this story, one of the mirrors was duct taped on.

They filed a police report and moved on.

One afternoon, in the fading light, she was driving to our local Pizza Hut to pick up her paycheck.

On that fateful day, as the sun was going down, someone in a big black suburban-type vehicle backed into her front driver’s side pretty hard. So hard, in fact, that the car was completely totaled. But luckily, my sister was fine.

Both parties had insurance, they called the police to take an official report, and my parents started the hunt for a new car.

Then, they got a letter from the other person’s insurance company.

Some time passes, and they get a letter from the suburban’s insurance agency asking for our insurance to cover the cost of the damage done to the suburban.

The suburban driver alleged that my sister had been speeding through the parking lot and was at fault.

This was news to them; they grilled my sister, who swore up, down, and sideways that she was not speeding, and actually that she was going much slower than normal because, as the sun was setting, it was hitting the windshield in such a way that made visibility difficult.

The woman suggested they take her to court, so that’s what they did.

After some digging, they found in the police report that the sheriff’s deputy had noted that the duct-taped-on mirror fell straight down. So, not only had my sister not been speeding, but she was very nearly or completely stopped at the time of the accident.

My parents’ insurance sent a letter back stating that my sister had not been at fault for this accident, and they were willing to accept the total they had paid for the car several months earlier, a paltry sum of $350.

The lady who hit my sister responded back that she would not be paying for anything, as she was very confident that she was not at fault, and told my parents that they would just have to take her to small claims court.

My parents responded “bet” and did just that.

Getting the Metro fixed would cost a lot of money.

In order to get all of the paperwork in line for small claims court, they had to take this beat up little Geo Metro to an auto body shop and estimate how much it would cost to replace the panels that this lady had totaled.

Well, a car that old was difficult to find parts for, and so they were unable to find anything to replace the panels and the door. So they gave her a quote for how much it would be to repair those panels, as well as replace the tire and suspension bits that she messed up by backing into them: about $4,000.

Just before court, they attempted to go to mediation with her to get her to pay the $350 that they had initially spent on the car.

When all was said and done, the car had more than paid for itself.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, she was still convinced that she was not at fault.

Long story short, my parents were awarded the full four grand, as it was determined that the lady did not check behind her thoroughly enough before backing out of the parking spot.

And that’s how my parents made three grand on a $300 car.

Wow! That ended really well for them!

Let’s check out if the readers over at Reddit have had anything similar happen to them.

It is pretty shocking.

Here’s an interesting point.

For this reader, you can’t speed in a Geo Metro.

This was pretty lucky.

The woman deserved to lose!

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.