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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/WatchOut4possums on 2024-12-13 04:18:30+00:00.

(I think this qualifies as malicious compliance, as one person being inflexible with the letter of a policy led the other person to ‘comply’ with said policy and pursue its options in a way that brought about a change that aligned with the spirit of what was asked for in the first place.)

My parents had a house fire recently (no fault of theirs) and while the house didn’t burn to the ground (this is important for later) it is basically a total loss due to heat, smoke and structural damage. They have great replacement insurance. While the long wait for restoration and replacement will be frustrating, they are in as good of a situation as one could hope for.

They also have one of those appliance service plans where they pay monthly. If any covered appliance isn’t working properly, the service company will send someone out to troubleshoot, repair, and if it can’t be repaired, replaced. My parents have the total coverage plan including everything from kitchen to laundry to the freezer chest and mudroom fridge.

Since the house is uninhabitable, they called to cancel the service and ask about prorating this month. My mom explains the situation and the rep on the phone says sorry, they can’t prorate this month nor can they cancel the service for the next payment cycle, even though they are in the middle of this payment cycle. Basically, it will be 45 more days of paying for coverage.

My mom states that they are dealing with the stress of a house fire and living in short term housing. “I understand you can’t prorate this month, but can you at least cancel the service for next month based on our situation?” The rep says “Well, I’m HAPPY to cancel the service effective today if that’s what you really want, but you will still have to PAY for this month and next month.”

I can tell you from personal experience its a bad idea to get cute with my mom.

My mom says “Ok, NO. We aren’t going to cancel a service we still have to pay for. Please keep the service in place. Instead, I’d like to file a claim on all of our appliances.”

There is a pause, and the rep says “You can’t do that on appliances destroyed by fire.” My mom says “Oh, no. The house was damaged, but the appliances weren’t destroyed. Since this plan is effective through next month, please start a claim to send a service rep out to the house for ALL of our covered appliances and do any repairs or replacements as needed.”

There is another pause, and the rep asks her to hold.

A few minutes later a supervisor gets on the line and says that due to the circumstances, they are happy to make an exception to cancel coverage early if she would like.

“Yes, thank you.”

For anyone thinking my parents should have seen the MC through to the end: they got what they initially asked for, and to do so would have foregone personal benefit for spite since the appliances will be covered by home insurance anyway.