Some say that revenge isn't a good thing, as, usually, it doesn't solve your problem, and it only creates new ones. Yet, sometimes, revenge can be so enticing that people cannot resist it. After all, not all petty revenge turns into disastrous situations.
For example, in today's story, which happened quite a while ago, the company canceled the rented helicopter on very short notice, but they soon regretted it, as the person and their online forum companions left quite a stain on said company's reputation.
More info: Reddit
While in some cases, the best revenge is not doing anything, other times, it is best served online
Image credits: Firmbee.com (not the actual photo)
A helicopter rental company canceled an order for a wedding only 3 weeks before the event, saying it wouldn't fit in the needed places despite previously saying the exact opposite
Image credits: HIGHER VIBRATION (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Ricky Esquivel (not the actual photo)
Image credits: markbrev
The person from the family who got let down vented about the situation in their online forum, and the rant became the first thing anyone saw when they googled the company
Today’s story happened 12 years ago, in 2012. It was a year that gave us many significant events like Loreen’s victory at Eurovision, the London Olympics, and many other (including not-so-great) things, amongst which was speculation that the world would end that year.
For more context about the situation, Bored Panda reached out to the OP, whose brother's wedding was another event that happened that year. For it, the dad decided to do something interesting, and instead of several wedding cars, he rented a helicopter.
They rented a helicopter from a company that quizzed the family to make sure it would fit in the places it needed to go and declared that everything was fitting, so the dad paid a 50% deposit.
Then, the thing that justified the post author's comment that "event planning in general is a headache full stop" happened. Merely 3 weeks before the wedding, the company called to inform the family that the helicopter wouldn’t fit so they were canceling the order, and they said the money would be refunded at the end of the month. This made the dad lose it, and at the end of the day, he got his money back. Luckily, the family was able to find another company on short notice and even ended up with a more relaxed and cheaper firm. Additionally, they learned that they weren’t the only people who were let down by the previous company.
Yet, the story doesn’t end here. At that time, the OP was a contributor to a car forum of 70 or so members. Naturally, on that forum, the contributors chatted about things related to cars and so on. So, they decided to vent about this very frustrating situation, where they basically called the company a vulgar insult. The blog contributors chimed in with support.
Image credits: Andres Ayrton (not the actual photo)
Then, one of them pointed out that the forum had paid for a Google ranking boost. This meant that if someone searched for something related to that infamous company, the forum would be on the first Google page, as one of them had posted about it.
Eventually, one of the directors reached out to the blog admin, demanding the post's removal, as naturally, it was damaging to their reputation. The admin answered that they needed to provide proof that the post’s version of events wasn’t true and then it would be deleted. But the company didn’t provide anything, as there was no such proof. You can’t prove something that didn’t happen, can you? Even the company's legal action threats didn’t get the post removed.
The OP revealed that they believe that, in cases like this, if the reviews are factual and genuine, it's OK if the review stays on any type of media it's posted on, as long as the company is able to post a response. Yet, if the review isn't factual, then the company should be able to have it removed. But the latter wasn't the case in today's story, so the review stayed online.
While some people online were kind of horrified by the company's actions, others were impressed by the collective effort to take down a scummy company. It appears that some might have doubted the story's validity, as in the update, the OP clarified some things and assured them that the story was really true.
Well, the world didn't end back in 2012, but at least for that company, this situation was probably quite apocalyptic. Beefing with an online blog about your reputation and knowing but not admitting that you're losing must have felt like a disaster for them, maybe just not a natural one, which was predicted for the world's end. As the OP said, "If they didn’t want the job, they shouldn’t have agreed to it," and the whole situation could have been avoided. Yet, as far as the author's comments under the post explain, the company survived this apocalypse, for better or worse.
The company tried to make them delete it, but it didn't work out, and now, 12 years later, this has become a story that many people online find amusing
