Some sibling rivalries fade with age. Others apparently survive long enough to involve fake text messages, imaginary book deals and a man who may not even know he’s the star of the family drama.

One woman says she and her younger brother have always shared a sense of humor, partly because they grew up dealing with an older sister whose idea of a prank was considerably less amusing.

According to her, their childhood involved being tied up, locked in cupboards and generally terrorized by their sister and one of her friends.

Decades later, the siblings were reminiscing about those experiences when they came up with an idea.

What if their older sister suddenly heard from that very same childhood friend? The man had reportedly moved to Japan years earlier, making the possibility of him randomly appearing in their sister’s tiny Australian town seem hilariously unlikely.

But after sending a message pretending to be him, the siblings discovered their sister was more than willing to believe the story.

And what began as a fake invitation for coffee soon developed into something neither prankster claims to have anticipated.

AITAH prank turned into stalker charges

Ok buckle in this is going to be a long one. I’m 38F and my brother 34M we recently played a prank on my sister who’s 40F. It started off innocently enough we never thought it would go far.

For context my sister and I no longer speak she’s always been the complete opposite to me and a very nasty bitter person we just don’t get along and grew apart as we got older just never really speak now.

As kids she was always playing “pranks” as she’d call them on us. Evil things like tying me to the clothes line or duck taping my brothers hand and feet and locking him in the cupboard (it was the 80s obviously all happened when we were home alone her being the eldest would do as she wanted).

Oh man…

We had a family friend that was the same age as her his name was mark murphy* they used to get together and terrorise me and my brother fast forward 25 odd years later.

Me and my brother have always been very similar always laughing and joking around we were talking laughing about the good old days when I mentioned something about mark murphy my brother said “oh you know who hasn’t heard from mark murphy in a while…

A-jay (our sister) I started laughing and said oh yeh tell her he’s messaged you on Facebook asking for her number and you gave it to him so expect a message” and that’s where it all started.

Here we go…

A-jay lives in a tiny outback Australian town mark Murphy we last heard had moved to Japan so there’s no way we thought she’d fall for it.

My brother messaged off his work phone “hi A-jay it’s mark im moving to (her town) would be great to catch up for a coffee”

after 25 odd years she instantly knew who it was she called my brother complaining that of course mark Murphy would be contacting her and he obviously wants something probably to use her car “oh hi mark long time oh yes coffee sounds good what area have you moved too?”

Hmmm…

Mark told her he moved to her exact same suburb (she still didn’t clue in) he also told her he was writing a book adding another layer to the lamington.

She instantly assumed the book was about her telling my brother “oh of course he’s writing a book about me that’s why he wants to meet up all makes sense now”

it’s been going on for a few weeks except now my sister is calling our mum saying mark Murphy was at the Cole’s and she’s seeing him around town she currently thinks mark Murphy has moved from Japan to the middle of no where to her town to write a book about her called adding another layer to the lamington and I think she’s secretly loving it…

The siblings may think they’ve pulled off the prank of the century, but it’s difficult to see them as anything other than the troublemakers here.

Sure, their older sister sounds like she was downright cruel when they were children. Tying up younger siblings and locking them in cupboards isn’t harmless teasing, and it’s understandable that those memories have stuck with them. But decades-old grievances don’t exactly justify spending weeks deliberately deceiving someone.

What makes the situation particularly questionable is that they’re impersonating a real person. Their sister now believes he’s moved across the world to her tiny town, is writing a book about her and has been appearing in places she visits. Whether she’s enjoying the attention or genuinely feeling uneasy, the siblings are encouraging a false narrative that could have consequences for someone who isn’t even involved.

And if their sister really has been making accusations of stalking, continuing the prank becomes even harder to defend.

This could easily be an ESH situation given the older sister’s history, but the siblings are the ones actively creating the current mess. Childhood cruelty doesn’t give them a lifetime pass to retaliate.

They wanted to get the last laugh, but they may have taken the joke far beyond anything worth laughing about.

This person votes YTA.

This person says everyone is in the wrong.  

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about siblings who don’t think they should have to give up their own sports’ seasons to help with their younger siblings.

And this person says to, basically, grow up.

They wanted to give their sister a taste of her own medicine, but apparently forgot to read the warning label.