Ever been wrongly accused of something and there was no way of convincing the other person (people) otherwise? How did you deal with it?

I was dumped by a woman I liked a lot in highschool because she heard a rumor I hooked up with another woman. It was completely out of nowhere and she wouldn’t even tell me who said it, which either means she created an elaborate excuse to break up with me, or she was irrational as f*ck.

I didn’t even get a chance to prove her wrong.

I filed a lawsuit and won a judgement of $100,000 dollars. My side of the story had never been heard. It all came out in hearing, before it came out in open court. Then, they settled .If you are right, hold your ground. “The truth will set you free”.

Money talks and the other stuff walks.

Good question.

When I was 18, I parked in Harvard Square to see a movie with a girlfriend. We lucked out because there was a spot close to the entrance to the theater. We double and triple checked to make sure it was a legal spot and that I was inside the lines.

Right behind my spot was a blank (no parking) spot, but my spot was legit.

Anyway, after the movie we came out to find a ticket on my car. I calmly walked across the street and asked the police officer about the ticket. He told me that another officer had issued the ticket and pointed to him. We stood there in front of my car and I asked him why I got a ticket.

He said, “You are parked in a legal spot _now. But when I gave you the ticket, you were in the illegal spot behind this. You just moved you car up.“_.

When I pleaded with him that I had not – and that I would never, and that I’m not a liar, etc. the younger cop got in my face (we almost kissed) and threatened to “figure this all out in an ‘unpleasant way’ in the back of [his] cop car unless [I] shut up and drive away now”. I nearly sh*t my pants, apologized and drove off.

That whole experience really influenced my attitude towards the police. It got me thinking and probably set me off in a political direction. It got me thinking a whole lot about race in particular. I am a white guy. What if I had been black? Would I be telling a story about the time the cops cracked my head open and f*cked me with a toilet plunger?

Tom, sorry this happened to you and I believe you. If you had witnesses, why did you not fight the citation in traffic court? It was two witnesses against one. I am not saying that this does not happen, because it does. Some departments have “quotas” to make and you just happened to be in the right spot at the wrong time. I would have fought the citation in court.

@john65pennington – I ended up fighting it, although my girlfriend couldn’t attend. It wasn’t court, but filed a form with the city of Cambridge and they had me go in on a certain day. I had to take the day off and they essentially met with me and I told my side of the story (some woman at a desk). She thanked me and told me that a decision would be made and I would be notified within 6 weeks. I did get notified, along with a “pay fine now” notice. :(

Yep, my mom does this constantly, I just decided to stop fighting and let her believe what she will. It’s not worth the effort to fight over.

Yes… I had to move away to another community.

I told a (bad) joke at my own baby shower. That joke got recycled 3 or 4 times with other people and became a true statement I made instead a joke to highlight how ridiculous people can be.

A week later I was fired literally with a babe in arms in my own home after being questioned for an hour and half like I had committed murder.

I sued: they settled. But I have not worked since. I cannot believe how backstabbing people can be.

When we lived in Paris, I once arranged to meet my wife at a certain Metro station. We didn’t specify, though, whether we would meet down by the tracks or up in the station lobby. When I got off the train, I saw that she wasn’t by the tracks, so I went up the stairs to look in the lobby.

On my way up I passed one of the cops who hunt for fare cheats, lurking just below the top of the stairs. I got to the top, turned right and walked up to the turnstile and looked out to see if my wife was up there. No wife, so I turned to go back down to the tracks to wait for her.

As soon as I hit the stairs, the cop stopped me and asked for my ticket. I had a monthly pass, but by reading the magnetic strip he could see that I hadn’t run it through the turnstile at this station. I explained that I didn’t enter at this station and all the rest, but he accused me of jumping the turnstile even though I had a monthly pass and even though I had just walked past him 10 seconds before.

He demanded that I pay him 200 francs on the spot. I only had 100 francs with me, so he took that and sent me on my way.

@tranquilsea Oh man that sucks. What did you say, if you care to say.

@thorninmud I wouldn’t have let that go. I would not have parted with the money without a receipt. I would then have written in to explain the circumstances and claim the money back.

@flutherother Yeah. Do you know the expression, “l’esprit d’escalier”? It means “wit of the stairs” and refers to all the great arguments that occur to you after you’ve left the room and are on the staircase leading out. It originated with Diderot, who wrote, “a sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again [when he reaches] the bottom of the stairs”. That was me. My French was still pretty shaky, and this was one of those guys who had heard every excuse in the book anyway. It just looked hopeless—I got flustered and wanted nothing more than to be out of there. Then I thought of all the things I should have done and said.

@thorninmud I know the feeling if not the expression. The idea that the guy possibly pocketed the money would also rankle.

I edited a technical document as requested and returned it to the writer, whose cubicle was a few feet away from mine. This writer was known to be very temperamental; people avoided her because she would lose it periodically. I’d heard plenty of stories and had also heard her go off to someone on the phone. Everyone knew she was a handful to work with, extremely volatile, but she was a very capable writer.

When she saw the extent of my markup, she got angry and said she didn’t have time to make all those changes. She grabbed the sheaf of paper out of my hands (it was in a large binder clip) and flung it across her cubicle.

I’d been in a few unpleasant office situations before. I went straight to my cube and wrote a detailed account of the incident, with verbatim quotes, while it was all still fresh in my mind. I sent it to my manager within an hour.

A short while later, my manager called me in. She said that the other party had gone straight to her manager and accused me of throwing a document across her cubicle.

The two managers squared off, and neither would back down. For some reason, the folks in neighboring cubes had all gone deaf. And no one but me had seen her throw it.

I was ready to face her down in the presence of the two managers, believing that my reputation for diplomacy would stand by me, but my manager wouldn’t allow it for reasons I never understood. I was never able to answer the accusation, although I know my manager believed me.

My opportunity to settle the score came a few years later. This writer was assigned to a very special project, and I was the editor who was available to support her. My manager offered the assignment to me with trepidation. I took it, saying “Either we’ll end up killing each other or I’ll make her love me.” I knocked myself out to make the writer shine—that’s a big part of an editor’s job—and backed her all the way. At the end of the project she wrote me one of the most glowing commendations I’d ever had, and I was satisfied.

@Jeruba Meh, you still should’ve slashed her tires.

When I was 22, a cab driver ran a red light and totaled my car. The cab company sued me. In court, the owner of the company (who was not on the scene) said that I ran the red light, that I was speeding, and that I was talking on my cell phone. None of it was true. It was my word against theirs. They won. My insurance company paid for everything. It still sucked.

I’m angry for you. Some people will do anything if they can get away with it. Check out this video: once the guy reveals he has a dashcam, the woman is visibly upset that she was caught.

I was with a friend in a shopping mall once. There were jewelry stalls outside a lot of stores. She ended up stealing a ring out of fucking nowhere, and walked off really quick. I didn’t want to follow her in that manner myself because it would give her away. Except when I walked off normally, the lady at the stall saw a ring was missing and she thought I took it. She started yelling and I saw my friend dart out the building.
Well, I get what I deserve for not telling her my friend took it instead, but I didn’t want to rat my friend out, either. you jess dun do that up in da hood yo So I kept denying it. My friend came back looking all innocent. I got brought into an office, they searched in my bag but never found the ring, obviously. They didn’t search my person, but I was told to empty every pocket and take off my shoes. (like I’d have had time to stick the ring in my shoe in the short time it would have taken me to take it and get busted according to when the lady thought I nabbed the ring, ha) My friend accompanied me in the office, although she didn’t have to. I know I should just have said she took it, but it just felt wrong at the time. Not saying I’m all awesome or nothing, and I was really pissed at her actually. She didn’t do a thing to help defend me, she even laughed at times, and what’s worse, when I got released, we were leaving the grounds and she’s like, hold on, I wanna get my ring, I threw it over there in the snow. I said nothing and just fucked off lol. She followed and didn’t go look for the ring.
The security guards called the police and everything, and I was to be arrested for this ’‘theft’’. I do believe at that point, I would have told the cops that my friend took it…except after like forty minutes, the cops never showed up, and the security guards banned me from the place, and since it was near Christmas, they were all like, yeah just get your ass outta here ya tramp. XD

I was angry yeah, but since I decided to protect her, there really was no reason for me to be. Except she never thanked me or anything, and even seemed to get a kick out of the whole situation. So yeah, while I could have proved it in a way, I didn’t, so that’s the closest answer, because since my friend threw the ring away, if they had searched her they wouldn’t have found it, so…except I didn’t know she threw it out until after everything was over.
Maybe there’s some bad ways to be ’‘honest’’, heh…

If people won’t see reason, I buy it.

When a mentally disturbed individual accused me, and even filed a suit in the courts, I contacted my lawyer, and he had the suit thrown out of court. The convicted, mentally ill stalker eventually recanted the accusations by saying aliens disguised as me were the real cause, it did not help at all, because the false accusations are still all over the internet.

I followed the advice of my lawyer and contacted the websites which carried the false accusations, and otherwise ignore it.