Have you ever been accused of something that wasn’t true, yet you had no way to prove your innocence?
I’ll start. Teenage me driving up the street to hang out with friends at the mall and passed my younger neighbor and his mom. When I got back a couple hours later, the neighbor’s mom was livid - confronting me for the slight. I seriously had no idea wtf she was talking about and I couldn’t convince her otherwise.
I had a job interview for a huge company that I was super excited about. I had applied to an entry-level job position, and they even contacted me and told me that my profile would match a non-entry position more closely, so my process was transferred. I was nervous, but excited!
The interview was remote, which was not usual (this was pre-pandemic! Around 2018 I believe). Once they arrived, I was surprised that they didn't want cameras on; it was a fully audio-based interview. Whatever, I thought, I'll just do the interview anyway.
It didn't go very well, as I was just a silly kid straight out of university with no interviewing experience, but I thought it wasn't catastrophic or anything. I still do. They asked me a couple of questions about my industry that I had no idea about unfortunately. I still tried to answer as best as I could, but I could tell my answers were not the ones they wanted. The dude was nice anyway and told me "that's OK" whenever I didn't know an answer.
A couple of days after the interview, I get a call from a very nice HR lady and she said "unfortunately you were not selected for this position, but feel free to apply for other positions in our company!". I was a bit sad but wanted to make use of this as a learning experience, so I asked "do you have information as to why I was not selected?" or something to that effect.
She said: "let me see... It says here they were not looking for someone with your profile...
... Oh! Also, you were googling the answers to questions you didn't know, as we heard you typing"
This broke me. I had done no such thing! I started trying to tell her that was not true (and that if it were, I would have gotten the answers right!). But I quickly realized that it was a losing battle. They had made their decision, and I was just wasting their time. If only they had turned on the camera I could have evidence that was not true. But I decided not to further sully my reputation and just said "Thank you for your time, I hope to talk to you again".
Since I did not get that job, I applied to and was accepted into a PhD programme so I guess that was a pretty important moment in my life. I am about to finish my PhD and that company is one of my options afterward, so I sometimes wonder if they still have that lie on file.
TL;DR: I got a remote job interview, they refused to turn on the camera, then told me after the interview that I was googling the answers to questions I didn't know, which I wasn't. But without a camera I had no way of proving it.
Nah, sounds about right, at least for kids who had the Internet at 6th grade. For me it was back in the dialup days, but still, once I accidentally stumbled onto CumFiesta - which I thought was pronounced "coom fiesta," since I'd never heard the word cum - I spent every morning of summer vacation on the Internet staring at naked women for a reason I didn't understand, making sure to get offline by 11 so I didn't tie up the phone lines for my parents when they'd call to check in on their lunch breaks.
Ahh, I have one story. It's also kind of my own personal tin-foil-hat conspiracy.
I was living in a place where you could rent, but it was also a hotel. It had a Rent-a-Car inside, and I was working there. It was exceptional because I was 2 floors away from my job, so no need for commuting.
Ultimately, and to make this long story short, I decided to leave the company (it was a small company, just my boss, his wife ane me), because one week I started to get paid less than what I was working, they probably thought I wouldn't notice.
I immediately started looking for another job, and funnily enough, the hotel - where I lived - was hiring. They basically accepted me after the first interview, I told my boss' wife that I was leaving the company for the hotel so I gave my two weeks notice.
Next day, I am driving through the highway with my boss to pick up a customer when he starts SCREAMING at me about going to work for the hotel instead of him. One thing stood out from what he screamed at me:
"I will make sure that you don't get that job, or other jobs in the future, and you will never get this job back either, how are you going to live like that now? You just fucked up" - He said
Now this is the conspiracy/accusation part:
The hotel needed to do a drug test (they did that to everyone). The day of the drug test, I go to the place, do whatever I had to do, and they just told me to wait for an answer.
2 weeks goe by - no response. I call and ask, they say they "lost" my tests. Strange, but ok. I went to do another one.
2 days after the second one, they call me and tell me that the test was positive for weed. Now I'm not going to be a hypocrite and say I've never done weed. I have arthritis, so weed is something I sometimes need to handle tha pain and stress, but at that time I was clean for about 5-6 months.
However, I told them that it's impossible, that I've never done weed, that I didn't even have money to buy weed. They straight up tell me they don't care and hang up.
Exactly 20-30 minutes later, my former (rent a car company) boss -who I hadn't spoken to for more than a month- calls me, he doesn't even ask me how I am or anything, he just goes straight for "where you accepted for the job? How did the drug test go?"
Now, call me crazy but...
I didn't tell him I was doing a drug test, and if the hotel had told him, they still woul't have known when I did the drug test.
How did he manage to call me exactly the day I got the results, almost at the same time?
I called the hotel after that call and they told me that they hadn't even received a call from the drug test place to tell them that it has been positive. That basically I was the one notifying them. However, they said that since it was positive, I couldn't get the job regardless, no exception.
At the end, I figured I was fighting a losing battle and searched for other jobs. 2 weeks later COVID-19 hit and the rent-a-car had to close, so that was good news for me.
Sounds sketchy for sure. But some follicle tests for weed can go back up to a year, you could have actually tested positive. The conspiracy part comes back in because usually they only test for 2-3 months unless a different time frame is requested.
Your boss could have had a connection at the hotel, and convinced them to get a test for a longer time frame. Most believable answer to me at least. Especially if he knew you smoked or smelled it on you.
I got accused of rape my junior year of high school by a girl I had never met. She picked me out of the yearbook and made up a crazy story. This dragged on for months, countless meetings with police/principals with no evidence other than her word. Her mother even came into my work yelling and screaming at me, her brother was trying to find me to kick my ass. Turns out the whole time her boyfriend was sexually abusing her. She admits to randomly picking me and making up the whole thing. Pretty fucked up situation to put a random kid in high school through.
Same boat. Got accused of raping and beating my ex, I was in 9th grade. The rumor always lingered and I was treated like a terrible human. I will admit I was a dick, controlling, etc. But I was not a rapist or a woman beater.
In an event that I've told very few, she spoke with me a few years later on the phone (we had a kid prior to this), and she was having troubles with her current dude. She told me she was going to go to an abused women's shelter.... Here we go again...
Now we're older, things are mellow. Wild ride.
In other, related news, our son was accused of sexual assault and became a shut in during his last year or two of high school. He never really left the house, didn't really want to talk to anyone except me... People are evil... Or don't understand the magnitude of false accusations... Or both.
My best friend had the same thing happen to him in high school. A girl didn't like my friend's gf, so she made up a story about him raping her. Thankfully she eventually admitted it, but it still put my buddy through a lot of mental anguish in the meantime.
Back in the day, I was stationed in South Korea when I was 18/19 years old. While it was legal for Koreans to drink by 18, US soldiers were expected to wait until they were 21. Soldiers 21 and over got ration cards in order to buy alcohol from the post's shoppettes. I was never 21 in Korea, so I never got one.
One day the Criminal Investigation Division shows up and starts asking around about me. Sure I guess I was technically drinking underage on base, but I was legal once I left. And I hadn't done anything else shady or dodgy, so I was getting a little concerned.
Turned out, I was being accused of buying liquor on base for cheap and then selling it to Koreans for profit because a bottle of real Jack Daniels was like $200 whereas I could have bought it for $20.
I told them that I couldn't have bought it because I don't have a ration card for alcohol. They didn't believe me, but somehow it got cleared up down the road because I never heard another word about it. And I doubt it was mistaken identity because my height kinda precludes me from being misidentified, and the only other guy on the base that looked even remotely like me never got in trouble either and he was never questioned in the first place.
When I was 13 walking home from school the day after a snow day I was berated by a driver that accused me of throwing a snowball at his car. I had done no such thing (that day). I mean message received, I don't think I've thrown a snowball at a car since, but it wasn't me. A few years later I realized it was probably nick.
Oh yeah I %100 had thrown snowballs at cars that winter. But not that day. That driver was full of shit. Fucking Nick. I'm gonna dig out my year book find out Nick's last name look up his LinkedIn profile and silently simmer in my resentment.
I've been testing it vs recordings while taking care of the elderly for the last 5 years.
The thing is that I'm really great with conversations but I'm nearly face and name blind when it comes strangers. So my memory isn't perfect, just really good in some situations
Its a curse in some other ways. While I'm hyper good at conversations woth people I know, I feel face and name blind when it even comes to acquaintances.
Yes, as I said in another post I was punched in the face by a policeman who then accused me of having done that to him. He falsified the medical report while I had no marks, he forced a courier to testimony in his favor and has the version confirmed by his partner. The prosecutor believes his story even if I presented evidence in the form of a recording where he admits to hitting me but in self defence (there's no mention of that in his report) he asks me if I have cameras (just so he can say whatever he wants if I don't have them), he admits to pushing me (another thing he denies in his report where he says he accompanied me gently in my garden). None of this was taken into consideration. I tried two times and was rejected by the prosecutor who wants to archive my demand. I'm waiting to be condemned for something I didn't do. I'm a pianist and I'd never use my hands to hit something and I'm disabled and visually impaired. Nothing seems to matter.
If you claimed that there is a unicorn floating somewhere in the andromeda galaxy then it's your job to prove it
Not mine to disprove it since it's not possible
Likewise if someone claims I've done smth then they need evidence of that
I'm 8 years old. For some reason I'm out the front of the house with a friend and his mum on my bike. Again, for some reason that makes sense to children, I insist on showing them how 'far' I can cycle, and go off around a corner a little way from our houses to find some kind of loop back. Not important.
I find myself going down this fairly tight alleyway when a girl, maybe around 11/12, starts coming down the other way. There's just about enough space for us both to fit, but I'm not a very experienced cyclist and lose my balance, instinctively grabbing her handle bar to avoid falling into her bike. We're going slowly enough that we're both absolutely fine. I apologise profusely and remove my hand from her bike and back to mine, when she grabs my hand and forces it back into her handlebar. She loudly shouts 'DAD!!' and my heart absolutely sinks.
This big guy comes round the corner. He was fairly tall and muscular, with short hair and a tank top. The main thing I remember is that he had terrible teeth, something I'm about to get a good look at. The girl informs him that I am 'bullying' her. He is immediately aggressive, detaining me in this narrow alley and interrogating me about what I'm doing. He shouted directly at my face, letting me feel his spittle and see his black teeth clearly. Her mum comes round to see what's going on. She asks how old I am, and I say that I'm 8 and just trying to ride my bike. She says "8's very young to be bullying" as if there's a more acceptable time. I insist I'm not trying to bully anyone but they have none of it. After 5 minutes or so the dad asks me where I live and as some sort of self-preservation I say through tears that i "don't know". They let me go and I cycle off wiping away my tears.
I get back to my friend and essentially just say 'haha! I went a really long way', and that's the end of it. I never tell anyone for fear that they won't believe me, and I feel terrified that that girl or man will find me for the next year or two. Arseholes.
I don't even know where to start with this, it's happened so many times. Although I'm sure everyone has at some point in their lives. I mean the whole point of being framed is you can't prove your innocence. I will say though, it feels even worse when there actually has been proof of my innocence but the people who want to say I did something had such strong willpower that they were able to ignore the proof on a collective level and continue to accuse me of the thing I just proved my innocence about.
My bf is convinced I have/had feelings for some other guys. Keeps pressing the issue and "Why can't you just admit it?".
I can't admit something that isn't true...
Sorry to say that this behavior is usually projection. He may have feelings for some of your friends and feels guilty about it, and wants to know if you feel the same way so he doesn't feel as bad. In his defense, he may not even realize he's doing this. Worst case, he may be cheating already. Either way, it's toxic behavior and I just wanted to make you aware that it's something you should discuss and work through before it becomes a bigger problem.
Yeah I don't think he is projecting in that sense, but I do believe he has really bad abandonment issues, that is making him "see" things that aren't the case, maybe to have a reason to push me away before I hurt him, too... I'm not sure what to do, he's so convinced that I've betrayed him already, and even if the offense is not real, the pain clearly is, and I'm not sure there is anything I can do to reassure him. It's so painful to watch (beyond the hurtful accusations..)...
Last year my (then) gf got it into her head that I'd been unfaithful to her with my neighbour, and on one occasion snapped and physically assaulted me in my own home. She then claimed to friends and family that I assaulted her, presenting photos of bruises on her arms and face as "proof".
Quite a few times. Not much you can do about it except avoid the person forever. Spent 3-8 grade refusing to talk to a fellow student over them doing this to me.
I was walking home from work late one evening 20+ years ago when someone in a big pick-up truck pulled up next to me, rolled down their window, and started berating me for "doing drugs and chasing girls".
I was not, at the time, doing drugs or chasing girls. I was working an IT job in a tiny New England town, had recently been dumped, and was convinced that I would never date again, oh woe is me. Some server had blown up and I'd been at the office late.
And for this I get hollered at by some stranger?
Best I can figure is they mistook me for someone they knew — who, for all I know, was doing drugs and chasing girls.
This happens to me all the time to where I don't even have a specific story I can think of that would be more interesting than another. I guess I just look guilty 🤷🏻♂️