Man's Valentine's Day Revenge on Stranger Applauded: 'I Patiently Waited'

A Redditor has shared an amusing case of petty revenge that people have praised online, as he took a stand against strangers using his phone number to make dinner reservations—leaving an unsuspecting couple without a Valentine's Day meal.

The post, shared in the popular r/pettyrevenge subreddit, details how user netpastor, real name Jeff from the state of Washington, has been dealing with a persistent issue: people using his Google Voice number for restaurant reservations. Over the years, he has received numerous confirmation texts and has often canceled the bookings as soon as he received them.

"Google Voice came out in 2009, and I got an early access invite and got a number that is +1 (234) 567-XXXX where the Xs are other almost sequential numbers," Jeff told Newsweek. "I use this account for different two-step verifications and as a gatekeeping number to protect me from spam—which didn't work at all."

Jeff has routinely received confirmation codes for random Facebook accounts, X accounts, logins, and reservations for restaurants, hotels, spas, and more—often in different languages. "It's kind of wild," he said. Initially, he attempted to resolve the issue by contacting businesses or customers about the errors, but he found that "most responded poorly and didn't care."

As the issue persisted, Jeff decided to retaliate. "I began delving into some of the repeat offenders' personal info and, through social engineering, sent many of them their very, very personal information with a formal request to make necessary changes—or I would make the changes myself. Most complied, but some got aggressive, saying they would do whatever they wanted. So I made changes to their Verizon accounts, hotel reservations, dinner plans, and even ordered extra parts for a complete motor refit at a vehicle dealership for someone's vehicle. This got beyond petty, I'll admit, but their laziness affected my quality of life with the spam," he said.

When a Valentine's Day dinner reservation came through under his number, Jeff decided to have some fun. "On Tuesday, I got a confirmation SMS for a reservation at an upper-scale Mexican restaurant. I let it be, planning to cancel on V-Day itself."

In the Reddit post with more than 16,000 upvotes, he recalled how he "patiently waited."

"I got another SMS on the 14th itself saying, 'See you soon for your 6 p.m. dinner reservation,' and I acted," Jeff said.

On Reddit, the story of revenge quickly gained viral attention and people praised the man's actions and shared similar frustrations.

"If they can't even use their own phone number for a reservation, they've got it coming. Good one though," said user avid-learner-bot.

"If the lazy ppl r using ur number than you got every right to do petty revenge lol," agreed N0DAMNG00D.

Many couldn't understand why the person on the date wouldn't have used their own number. Redditor FormerSalmon wrote: "Not sure why people wouldn't use their own number!" And RugerRedhawk said: "Making up a number for a dinner reservation seems like a 'some risk, no reward,' situation to me."

Jeff was surprised by the reaction online, but enjoyed reading the comments and the camaraderie: "It was a blast these last couple of days, to be honest. Some really funny stories, and some very heartwarming ones too," he said.