'My new favorite customer': Contractor in awe after a determined homeowner pays $35 to put a stop-payment on a $1 check to get back at his home insurance company

Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer
Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jan 1, 2025 12:00 PM EST

This HVAC specialist witnessed a customer go into 'pettiness overload mode' after their home insurance company got stingy with their coverage. 

Insurance might be the biggest grift in America. While it's nice to have peace of mind over the coverage of your belongings, oftentimes, insurance companies create a racket in order to collect premiums every month without ever having to fork out a check to cover damages. Charging people every month only to significantly push back every claim that comes through the pipeline has to be the fastest way to make money for doing nothing. So when this homeowner realized his home warranty wasn't going to cover hardly any of his HVAC repairs, he decided the only way to get even with the insurance company was to match their pettiness level. 

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    Cheezburger Image 10449164800
    via spates

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • After getting a simple maintenance service done by a professional contractor, this customer was decidedly peeved when their insurance provider backed out of their end of the deal, covering only a portion of the final bill. In order to get a little revenge of their own, they covered their end of the deal with weekly payments of $1, taking over a year to pay off a $76 invoice. 

  • And, on top of that, once the payment was complete, he realized he'd gone $1 over, so instead of letting them have a single penny over his due amount, he ordered a $35 stop payment on the check–it was never about the money for this customer.

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    My New Favorite Customer S I own and run a residential / light commercial HVAC contracting company. We have a customer, we'll call him Tom, that contacted us for a residential breakdown.
    via JohnGalt314
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    Tom told us that he had a home warranty and we informed him that their repayment policy is often different than our billing rates and that, regardless of their payment, he would be individually responsible for the full amount of
    via JohnGalt314
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    the bill. The repair was a smallish fix for just $228. Bear in mind that home warranty companies are notoriously stingy with payments, if they pay at all. We won't work directly with them for this reason.
    via JohnGalt314
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    Sure enough, the home warranty company paid only $153 of the invoice, leaving a balance due of $75. Tom wasn't happy about having to pay this bill, so he began paying us $1 per week automatically by check through his online banking platform.
    via JohnGalt314
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    Neither I nor my bookkeeper were exactly excited by this (because it takes the same amount of her time to process a $1 check as it does a $1,000 check); but we decided to take our lumps.
    via JohnGalt314
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    Here we are now exactly 76 weeks later, and Mr. Tom has accidentally paid us $1 too much -- so he put a stop payment on the final $1 check. I actually made it a point to look up the
    via JohnGalt314
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    stop check payment policy from his bank and saw that he would have had to pay $35 to do this. I honestly have nothing but respect for this amount of spite.
    via JohnGalt314
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    WorthAd3223 A company overcharged me for some roofing. Not by a lot (about $300), but they did, and they acknowledged it. We talked back and for for a couple months and finally I demanded they pay me back what I over paid. They charged me for some bulls
    via WorthAd3223
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    things and finally came up with they owed me $0.08. That's right. 8 cents. Fine, whatever. I demanded they write me a check, so I received a check for 8 cents. It cost them more to write the check and mail it. I also then
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    contacted the better business bureau, showed them all the documentation I had, and I then received a refund for the correct amount miraculously. I framed the 8 cent check and display it in my study.
    via WorthAd3223
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    Arry42 My mom did something similar to a credit card company. She thought she paid the balance in full but turns out she still owed 2 cents. She called the company, thinking they'll be reasonable but nope. They make her send them a check for her remaining
    via Arry42
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    balance. So she sent them a check for 10 cents and they sent her a check for 8 cents. She'd get the check and then shred it. They sent her so many checks for 8 cents over the years it's hilarious how much money they've wasted over that original 2 cents.
    via Arry42
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    Previous Wedding_577 When I quit working at McD's in the 90's. 2 months later the store called to tell me there was a pay cheque for me. It was for 2 cents. I never cashed that cheque so it would cost them in fees for bookkeeping to stale date it.
    via Previous_Wedding_577
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    dry.gulched When I paid off my student loans through the online portal, they still showed a balance of one cent. I absolutely sent Navient a paper check for one cent. They did actually cash it, and mailed me a paper statement.
    via drygulched

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