Back when I was a teenager, basically before internet was mainstream and people still wrote letters, me and my mates would spend hours writing fake complaints to various companies. Experiences where a product failed on us or a staff member was rude, that kind of thing. We'd do this because they would almost always send back usually vouchers or sometimes products in parcels. Of course this is unethical. Lying through the post may not be illegal, but certainly unethical and whatever. We were teens without jobs so it just felt natural. And really scamming corporations, that's got to be ranked pretty low on the evil scale.
One odd thing I noticed, whenever we had a genuine complaint that is when usually they would get defensive and refuse to compensate. Would get letters back claiming to be from the engineer who designed the packaging listing why our claims were outrageous, their design was perfect, it would never crack, must be our fault. But when making stuff up it would almost guarantee a cheque, a voucher to redeem in stores, or a box full of goodies.
Wouldn't dream of doing it today, can't believe we did it back then. Not just because it's a lot of effort for such low value return. But just wondering if anyone else did this.
In this economy I’m genuinely surprised it’s not more common place (then Subsequently reported as a genius ‘life hack’)