This debt collector refused to believe her father was dead. Her response is a masterclass in malicious compliance.

When dealing with the estate of a loved one, bureaucratic headaches are common. But for one woman in the UK, a debt collection agency's absurd demand pushed her to a moment of brilliant, unforgettable malicious compliance.

On Reddit, user u/georgetgwtbn shared the story of a frustrating battle over a small, disputed broadband bill. The collection agency claimed the bill was for her deceased father. The woman explained the situation repeatedly. “I explained that there really must have been a mix-up as he had died a few years earlier,” she wrote.

The agency, however, was unmoved. The representative stubbornly insisted that company policy required them to speak directly with the account holder—her late father.

A man hands over a debt collection noticeCanva

After repeated letters, legal threats, and infuriating phone calls, she decided to grant their request. She drove to the churchyard where her father was buried.

The Phone Call

Standing at his graveside, she dialed the collection agency and announced that the account holder was now available to speak. Then, she placed her phone on the headstone.

A woman holds a cell phoneCanva

“I left the mobile by the gravestone while I wandered around the quiet,” she wrote. After a few moments, “I heard some irate voices at the end of the line, so picked up the phone and asked if they'd had any joy speaking with the account holder.”

An angry agent demanded to know what was going on. She calmly explained her location and the situation. “I would love to know if my dad had said anything to them. I had been unable to reach him under six feet of churchyard dirt since we buried him a couple of years earlier,” she shared.

The agent was left speechless. The call was immediately escalated to a senior manager, who offered a swift apology. About a month later, she received a letter confirming the debt had been cleared.

A woman laughs at her cell phoneGiphy

Her story struck a chord on Reddit, with many sharing their own frustrations with faceless corporations. User u/Honigmann13 had a similar idea: “Some companies insisted that they needed to contact my deceased mother. Fed up with this, I provided them with the address of the cemetery.”

In the end, the woman’s creative and poignant act of defiance was the only thing that could cut through the absurdity of the situation, proving that sometimes the only way to reason with an unreasonable system is to follow its rules to their most logical, and hilarious, conclusion.

This article originally appeared last year.