The 5 Most Satisfying Tales of Payback
Revenge is a tricky thing. On the one hand, when you've been wronged, it's human nature to seek some kind of personal restitution. On the other hand, it's also human nature to not want to appear to be a scorned maniac who pees in coffee pots and slashes tires every time a fast food restaurant screws up your order. It's a fine line.
Still, sometimes people go so far above and beyond for their acts of petty revenge that you can't help but stand back and admire it ...
A Family Forecloses a Bank for Trying to Foreclose Them
In most cases, it should come as no surprise when a foreclosure notice shows up in your mailbox (or gets nail-gunned to your front door by a sheriff's deputy like in the movies). After all, it doesn't happen unless you've gone months (or years) without paying your mortgage. It's the kind of thing a person should see coming.
But this wasn't the case for the Nyerges family -- their foreclosure notice from Bank of America came as a total shock. Why? Because they paid for their house in cash. That's the type of act that normally keeps a family safe from the foreclosure monster. But Bank of America wasn't going to let the fact that the Nyerges home was paid off keep them from taking the matter to court and attempting to foreclose on it anyway.
Naturally, their ridiculous claim was thrown right the hell out. In fact, Bank of America was ordered to pay the Nyergeses $2,534 to cover the legal fees that went into making sure their home wasn't literally stolen from them.
This isn't a screengrab from a blurry video -- the bank is just shrouded by a fog of evil.
But after five months of trying, the Nyerges family was still unable to get that $2,534 out of Bank of America. What happened next will almost certainly be a Hollywood movie someday.
The Petty Revenge:
Remember what we said about seeing a foreclosure coming? It probably doesn't apply here. Basically, Bank of America's refusal to pay up paved the way for the Nyergeses to pull a stunt so damn beautiful it makes our fingers cry just typing it ... they turned the tables and foreclosed on Bank of America.
After contacting their lawyer to handle all of the legalities involved, the Nyergeses found themselves standing at a local Bank of America branch, watching as movers and sheriff's deputies removed everything. According to the court, the Nyerges family now owned all of it, right down to the money in the tellers' drawers.
How was this possible? Well, keep in mind, the $2,534 wasn't some refund BoA owed the Nyergeses -- it was a freaking court-ordered payment. And judges don't like it when you just blow that shit off.
Something about the prospect of falling victim to a court-mandated bank robbery got Bank of America on board with the idea of paying the Nyergeses the relatively meager sum they were owed in the first place. After an hour of being locked out of his bank, the manager handed the Nyergeses their check.
Moving vans are a powerful motivator.
And that was the only time a bank ever tried something so stupid.
Ha! Just joking. They tried the exact same thing with someone else and the results were exactly the same, except for the part where a guy shows up to a televised interview dressed like a vampire to gloat about sticking it to the man.
Jane White Gives Jehovah's Witnesses a Taste of Their Own Medicine
There likely isn't a person over the age of 18 reading this who hasn't had at least one run-in with a roving pack of Jehovah's Witnesses. They tend to show up at your door, unannounced, at some inconvenient time. So most people regard the encounters as an annoyance (the lone exception being if Prince happens to be the JW knocking at the door, and even then he better have a guitar in hand).
You can't blame them for showing up just once, of course -- how do they know you're not into it? But you can imagine how annoyed a person would be if it happened every single month. That's what East Sussex resident Jane White had to put up with ... for 12 damned years.
Every month, like clockwork, a group of Jehovah's Witnesses would rap on Jane White's door offering up religious reading material and the assurance that, if she so desired, they would bore the shit out of her for hours on end with talk about getting to heaven by way of not having lifesaving surgery because blood transfusions are the devil.
The Petty Revenge:
Having decided she had turned the other cheek to unwanted drop-ins far more times than any person should have to, Jane White worked up a plan to give those intrusive Jehovah's Witnesses a taste of their own medicine.
After gathering up all the religious material she possibly could, White showed up at a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall at 10 a.m. The time was important -- she knew the group would be at the height of their service, and Jane White had designs on interrupting that shit, just like she'd been interrupted so many times before.
After banging on the door for a few minutes, she was let in by a confused church member who, along with every other worshiper in the place, was then subjected to Jane White's special brand of justice. For the next 30 minutes, she preached to the assembled JW's about her religion while handing out magazines. It was exactly like an unwanted visit from a Jehovah's Witness, except for the part where someone called the police and Jane White was escorted out of the building.
But it was no matter by then, because Jane White had her revenge. She was never bothered again, and we're assuming those pesky Jehovah's Witnesses moved on to newer, less vengeful potential converts. They're probably at your door right now.
South Korea Blasts K-Pop Music at the North
Some neighbors just can't manage to get along. Take North Korea and South Korea, for example. In 2010, the ROKS Cheonan, a South Korean navy vessel, was sunk by a North Korean submarine. This was following a previous naval battle in 2009, where South Korea damaged a North Korean navy ship. And then after the Cheonan sank, North Korea thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and launch an artillery attack against the South, killing four people. And this was right after North Korea borrowed South Korea's snow blower and couldn't even be bothered to return it.
OK, that last thing didn't happen, but the two foes did have a brief gun battle across the DMZ to add to the neighborly discord. Like we said, they don't get along, and most of the problem lies with the unpredictable antics of the North. After decades of putting up with Northern shenanigans, South Korea finally had enough and decided to seek some of the most bizarre revenge imaginable.
The Petty Revenge:
In June of 2010, South Korean soldiers marched out into the DMZ determined to send a message back into the North. Armed to the teeth, they quickly set up their weapons. Their primary armament being ... a giant-ass set of speakers?
The North Korean guards were most likely already perplexed by this weird action, and that almost certainly got worse when the speakers were turned on and waves of sweet, sweet girly K-pop music began blasting loudly across the border. The song that kicked it off was called "HuH" and was specifically chosen for its lyrics, which include rabble-rousing lines like "Baby, you're kidding me? I do what I want and I do it my way."
Naturally, North Korea sent back their stock response of "Take those things down or we will destroy them," before also adding, "We'll fucking kill you, too." The South didn't take the threat seriously. We're not sure if that was because of or in spite of the fact that this adorable little fella was running the North Korea show at the time ...
Incredibly, this isn't the first time that this has happened, either. Until 2004, blasting girly K-pop music into the North was a pretty regular occurrence, mainly because the North also had a habit of blasting propaganda across the border, but an agreement stopped this. That is, until North Korea took it too far with their aggressive actions.
Now, in addition to the speakers, South Korea is building giant TV screens to show the music videos that go along with the ridiculous pop songs North Korea has likely grown to secretly love after all these years.
Aaron Barr Learns What Happens When You Take on Anonymous
Aaron Barr was the CEO of an Internet security firm called HBGary Federal. Anonymous is a secretive (hence the name) group of Internet users who have no problem shutting down the CIA website if the situation calls for it. Seeing as how Aaron Barr's security firm works with the U.S. government on cybersecurity issues, he decided to conduct an "experiment" in which he would flex his cybersecurity muscles by rounding up actual names of Anonymous members using publicly available resources like Facebook and Twitter.
Using fake aliases, he actually managed to sneak into forums that Anonymous users used and talked directly to some of the group's leaders. Timing events on the forums to events on Facebook and Twitter, Barr figured he had names for "about 90 percent of their leadership."
Now, he was head of a security firm and these were a bunch of hackers. It makes perfect sense. And, had he just quietly passed this information off to the FBI, who had been tracking Anonymous for months, we probably wouldn't even be talking about Aaron Barr right now. Hell, maybe some good might have been done.
But no way was Barr going to let an achievement like this be ignored by the world at large, so he decided to have his work published in the Financial Times, effectively boasting about how much smarter he was than this group of rag-tag hackers.
Do we even need to tell you what happened next?
The Petty Revenge:
Anonymous was quick to act, publishing over 50,000 HBGary company emails, wiping out an entire terabyte of backups, taking down the entire HBGary website and locking everyone out of it by changing every password that could possibly be changed.
Oh, and for good measure, they also remotely wiped Barr's iPad.
"As long as we exist, you will never play Angry Birds again!"
Barr tried to go into the forums again and claim he was never planning on selling them out to the FBI, but Anonymous called his bullshit bluff when they pointed out that they had all his emails, including those between Barr and the FBI.
The president of HBGary Inc., Penny Leavy, went into the forums herself and asked what Anonymous wanted. Their answer was simple: Fire Barr and make him issue a public apology. Barr resigned, and his company's reputation was ruined. After all, their main line of business was freaking cybersecurity. In the end, not only did they fail to defend their website and private emails, but they also couldn't defend their booth at a cybersecurity show. Sad.
A Pilot Carries Out a Personal Vendetta in the Middle of a War
It was a bad day for 1st Lieutenant Harold Fisher. It was World War II and he was on his 20th bombing mission, coming back from Italy. His B-17 "Bonnie Sue" was barely flyable. Two engines were gone, and he was seriously considering ditching the plane. He had the crew throw everything out -- guns, ammo, flak jackets, anything that could lessen the weight of the aircraft, hoping to stay aloft long enough for a miracle.
They got one -- a familiar American P-38 fighter came by to cover him. Fisher radioed him asking for assistance, and his comrade happily obliged and pulled alongside to escort him home. Everything was at last looking up.
Until a minute later, when Fisher was shot down by the very P-38 that was supposed to be covering him.
This was before enemy units glowed red on the mini-map.
Instead of an American pilot behind the controls, this particular P-38 was piloted by an Italian named Guido Rossi who had captured it on the ground. Fisher attempted a water landing with his aircraft and, as far as water landings go, it was pretty successful. Translation: Every single person on board wasn't killed. Fisher survived the emergency landing and was eventually rescued by the British.
As it turns out, Fisher wasn't Rossi's first or last victim, but would prove to be the one who would lead to his undoing.
The Petty Revenge:
Fisher went to his commander, Colonel Bill Hall, and asked permission to borrow an experimental YB-40 aircraft. A YB-40 was essentially a B-17 with the bombs taken out and a ridiculous amount of guns added.
There were no YB-40s in Africa, so they had the Brits fly one out there, for the sole purpose of taking down Rossi. The Allies had essentially just condoned a private vendetta using experimental aircraft just to quell the hijinks of one Italian fighter pilot.
After hand-picking a crew, Fisher went out in search of Rossi, but the slimy bastard never showed. Meanwhile, Rossi was still off somewhere in his undercover plane, pulling his ruse and shooting down B-17s left and right.
Fisher wasn't going to give up. He pored over intelligence documents and found something interesting: Rossi's wife, Gina, was located behind friendly lines. Fisher quickly searched her out and found her. After seeing what she looked like, Fisher got a painter to paint a picture of her on his aircraft and put her name on it. All just so he could piss off Rossi even more when he shot him down.
On the next bombing mission, Fisher was getting ready to become a pretend straggler again when he all of a sudden was shot and became an actual straggler. Who among us hasn't been there before? After ordering his crew to dump everything except for ammunition, they flew on. Soon enough a P-38 pulled up alongside, but they couldn't tell if it was Rossi or not. Thinking this time it was a legitimate P-38, he ordered ammunition dumped overboard as well, until a curious question came across the radio.
"Pretty girl, Gina. She from Constantine?"
Suddenly thrust back into reality, Fisher ordered his men to keep their ammunition and guns and carried on with his conversation with the P-38 pilot, steering the discussion toward cutesy stories about how nice it was to be straight up boning Mrs. Rossi.
This infuriated Rossi to the point that he flew far ahead of the bomber and attempted a suicidal head-on attack. Waiting until the last minute, Fisher ordered every gun on board his aircraft to fire on the P-38, which was literally shredded away around Rossi from the massive amount of gunfire.
Rossi was picked up by Allied Rescue crews and became a POW for the rest of the war. Meanwhile, Fisher was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and his entire crew Air Medals for their incredibly hilarious revenge campaign against one Italian pilot.
It did wonders for the morale of the men Rossi hadn't already killed.
Which one of them actually ended up boning Mrs. Rossi while her husband was a POW is still unclear, so we're going to assume they all did.
For more tales of vengeance that are almost unbelievable, check out 7 Legendary Acts of Petty Revenge and 6 Historic Acts of Revenge That Put 'Kill Bill' to Shame.
