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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/casserole422 on 2025-10-05 15:48:10+00:00.

This was many years ago, so I apologize if some of the details are incorrect.

Twas was the year of our Lord 2006, my big sister had just started driving on her own. My parents did as most parents did at the time, they bought her the biggest pile of shit car that they could find. Relatively reliable, but it was a mid-80s gold Geo Metro. It was a beater, rusty, dented, and dinged, very ugly, and importantly for this story, one of the mirrors was duct taped on. One afternoon in the fading light she was driving to our local Pizza Hut to pick up her paycheck. On that fateful day, as the sun was going down, someone in a big black suburban type of vehicle backed into her front driver’s side pretty hard. So hard in fact that the car was completely totaled. But luckily my sister was fine.

Both parties had insurance, they called the police to take an official report, and my parents started the hunt for a new car. Some time passes and they get a letter from the suburbans insurance agency asking for our insurance to cover the cost of the damage done to the suburban. The suburban driver was alleging that my sister had been speeding through the parking lot and was therefore at fault. This was news to them, they grilled my sister, who swore up down and sideways that she was not speeding, and actually that she was going much slower than normal because as the sun was setting it was hitting the windshield in such a way that made visibility difficult. After some digging they found in the police report the sheriff’s deputy had noted that the mirror that was duct taped on fell straight down. So not only had my sister not been speeding, but she was very nearly or completely stopped at the time of the accident.

My parents insurance sent a letter back stating that my sister had not been at fault for this accident, and they were willing to accept the total they had paid for the car several months earlier, a paultry sum of $350. The lady who hit my sister responded back that she would not be paying for anything as she was very confident that she was not at fault, and told my parents that they would just have to take her to small claims court. My parents responded “bet” and did just that. In order to get all of the paperwork in line for small claims court they had to take this shitty little geo metro to an auto body shop and get an estimation for how much it would cost to replace the panels that this lady had totaled. Well, a car that old was difficult to find parts for, and so they were unable to find anything to replace the panels and the door. So they gave her a quote for how much it would be to repair those panels, as well as replace the tire and suspension bits that she messed up by backing into it. About $4,000.

Just before court they did attempt to go to mediation with her to attempt to get her to just pay the $350 that they had initially bought the car for. Unfortunately, or fortunately, she was still convinced that she was not at fault… Long story short, my parents were awarded the full four grand, as it was determined that the lady did not check behind her thoroughly enough before backing out of the parking spot.

And that’s how my parents made three grand on a $300 car.