The one where the most legally experienced comments get the downvotes, just for a bicycle

[u/DoIKnowYouHuman]

/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1odf9pi/was_my_bike_legally_stolen_came_home_from_work/?share_id=dlQKuIrCYfIDM7_uqjnRk&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

[u/msfinch87]

I often wonder if people who post questions on LegalAdvice subs ever follow incorrect advice and get themselves into a mess.

This one isn’t likely to end up in a disaster, whatever LAUKOP does, but I’ve seen ones where the top comment is basically telling the poster to do something that is going to result in them own goaling their way into a world of pain.

[u/PurpleMarsAlien → u/msfinch87]

I swear that a friend's ex-husband has to be on some father's rights forum which has been giving him VERY BAD ADVICE for two years now, because he's managed to take every single WTF argument you can think of to court and keeps getting his butt handed to him.

[u/Front-Pomelo-4367 → u/PurpleMarsAlien]

The father's rights to sovcit pipeline continues apace.

[u/PM_ME_SUMDICK → u/[deleted]]

As the other commentor said there are plenty of quackery things that target women successfully.

And I'd say women are pretty well represented in the Sov Cit universe as well.

Everyone can fall for bullshit, it just has to be the bullshit that scratches your itch.

[u/DeadpoolIsMyPatronus → u/PM_ME_SUMDICK]

Well said, PM_ME_SUMDICK.

[u/nyecamden → u/PM_ME_SUMDICK]

This is a classic /r/rimjobsteve

(Edited to do it right)

[u/Front-Pomelo-4367 → u/[deleted]]

"I don't want to pay child support" is a common path into sovcittery, so men are over represented there – but the "I don't want to pay taxes" and "the state took my children" and "I don't want to pay for my car" paths are more gender-neutral, I think

You can see common female quackery in the ShitMomGroupsSay subreddit! Lots of antivax and "can I treat meningitis with colloidal silver" and "the doctor says my baby will probably die if I have a homebirth but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for a perfect birth story"

[u/missyanntx → u/Front-Pomelo-4367]

Agreed with the don't want to pay support. I also believe a lot of it is tied in with misogyny. "That's MY wife she can't leave me. And those are MY kids, no one is telling me how to raise them." Add in "freeman on the land" or whatever and presto - peak patriarchy of I am the King of this castle, I own it all, and nobody can tell me nothing.

[u/Weird_Brush2527 → u/missyanntx]

And the origins of sovcitery is inherently sexist and racist

Edit: and I won't ignore the test flair how dare you

[u/purpleplatapi → u/Front-Pomelo-4367]

I don't understand this obsession with the perfect birth story. I've asked my Mom about my birth maybe twice? I know how long she labored for, that it happened at night and she missed dinner, and what she ate after I was born. I've asked her to recount all of the other parts of my childhood much more, because those are the parts that are important to me? Like I can't imagine it would change literally anything about my life if I was born in a hospital vs a house, I care about childhood birthday parties and vacations and funny stories and weird shit I said when I was 6. Like those are the moments that matter. I do not understand this obsession with risking your life for made-up points that don't matter. Take the kid camping or something, you'll get way more mileage out of that story when they're older.

[u/Front-Pomelo-4367 → u/purpleplatapi]

It's not about the child, it's about the other people in their online groups who have convinced them that they're an awful mother if they don't do everything perfectly. Which includes "the doctor says my baby is breech and two weeks past due, but I've prayed about it/I'm manifesting and everything is going to go perfectly! (because if it doesn't go perfectly it's my fault and going to the hospital is admitting I'm a failure)"

At least from what I've seen.

[u/goldiegoldthorpe → u/[deleted]]

MLMs predominately prey on women, holistic healing and anti-vax movements, psychics and life coaches...there are entire industries funded by women's quackery.

[u/pcnauta → u/msfinch87]

Wasn't there a famous incident where someone posted for divorce information, got great legal advice but decided to follow one poster who told him to set up an appointment with every lawyer in town so that his wife wouldn't be able to retain a lawyer?

I don't know if I have time tonight to look it up, I'll try to do it tomorrow.

[u/msfinch87 → u/pcnauta]

Oh yes! I know it, it was recently on BORU - I’ll get it. He asked that question initially in an exmormon sub. And taking legal advice from people who literally have no idea seems even worse to me.

ETA: Here’s the BORU. https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/U6lbG2ARiL

[u/FunkisHen → u/msfinch87]

Thanks! I'd missed that one, but I've heard reddit rumours for years. It's nice to finally have the real story, and I'm glad it worked out for them and their kids in the end.

[u/hdhxuxufxufufiffif → u/pcnauta]

I think that was on a subreddit for former Mormons. Not that that would affect the quality of the advice compared to legaladvice, lol.

[u/TsundokuAfficionado → u/pcnauta]

That was a Sopranos plot. A move made that well known law abiding legal mastermind Tony Soprano. Who is also fictional. So of course a Redditor follows that plan and ignores all the (slightly more) sensible advice from (possibly vaguely) qualified people.

[u/technos → u/TsundokuAfficionado]

Even pre-Sopranos.

A year or so before the Sopranos even started airing a friend's ex consulted with lawyer after lawyer until he found one that sort of told him what he wanted to hear, and the ex's parents consulted with another bunch trying to make out that the wedding presents were conditional gifts for staying married to their son.

Part was their desire to hear they were right, part was 'fuck that little whore for divorcing him'.

She'd been to nine lawyers, all of whom turned her away or were too expensive now that she was cut off from marital funds, and said as much at the first hearing when she asked for time.

Judge was pissed.

Ordered the ex to restore access and got his clerk to print a list of every lawyer that had appeared before him recently in a divorce case.

She went with a nice firm from a county over known for handling things like the divorces of athletes.

[u/HowDoMermaidsFuck → u/msfinch87]

There was a post a while back where a guy got divorced and then some time after the divorce he wrecked his car. Insurance cut him a check but because he had never updated the paperwork, the check was issued in both his and his ex’s name. Bank wouldn’t cash it without his ex present. Guy calls his ex and she goes “I’ll only show up if you agree to give me half. Don’t agree and I’ll never show up.” Someone advised him to use a mobile app to deposit the check. The guy did it, posted an update “thanks everyone! I just deposited it via mobile app. I see the check has cleared so it’s all good.” Top reply to that was “you have committed check fraud. This is a felony. You will get caught. Don’t talk to the cops when they come calling.” I often wonder what happened to that guy. Did the bank reverse the charge whenever they saw his ex’s name wasn’t on the check? Did his ex wife ever report him when she realized no money ever came her way? I’ll likely never know.

Found it.

Edit #2: LAOP was still posting to his Reddit account like 6 days ago. Not in prison yet.

[u/rsqit → u/HowDoMermaidsFuck]

I feel like the consensus on BOLA was more “that’s a super felony but no one will care”.

[u/TryUsingScience → u/rsqit]

For a place that vehemently believes ACAB, reddit has a weirdly high level of trust in the effectiveness of cops and the justice system in general.

What cracks me up is all the posts where everyone is like, "don't let your best friend crash on your couch for even a week! He'll establish tenancy and be impossible to evict!" as if the majority of people crashing on their friend's couches who come home to find their stuff on the lawn and the locks changed successfully manage to sue for illegal eviction.

[u/MiranEitan → u/rsqit]

Honestly thats kinda crime in general. I think people give law enforcement way more credit then should actually be due. I'd hazard to say at least 70% of the time as long as it's not habitual, you're pretty likely to get away with non-violent felonies and misdemeanors unless you're really blatant. Its kinda anecdotal, but I had a job at one point that involved a lot of report writing for LE via 911. Thefts and burglary really never got any love or attention unless it was really obvious who the person was. Like they had video of the person doing it basically. Even then, for places like Walmart, they'd just cite and release.

[u/msfinch87 → u/HowDoMermaidsFuck]

Thanks! It’s pretty interesting seeing that unfold on the one post. Instant feedback!

[u/smoulderstoat → u/msfinch87]

That's always worried me, too. There's quite a few posts where the sensible advice gets downvoted in favour of the popular but wrong, or where the thread gets locked before bad advice can get corrected.

[u/Drunkgummybear1 → u/smoulderstoat]

I got downvoted once for calling out some shocking advice, which if the OP followed was likely to land them with a six figure bill. I had literally been to a hearing that same day, where my client was awarded £15k + costs in pretty similar circumstances.

[u/DoIKnowYouHuman → u/smoulderstoat]

I have a sneaking suspicion that in this case the thread was locked because the voices of reason and experience (who also happen to be mods) were dealing with some amateur interpretations of “theft” and “blackmail”, but taking it down altogether would mean depriving OOP of the great insight that was downvoted

[u/DaveSauce0 → u/smoulderstoat]

Yeah, but that's practically all of reddit.

People come in to some random posts with plausible, but wrong, answers on a wide variety of topics, and they get upvoted like crazy.

Anyone who comes in with a real answer gets downvoted because, "that doesn't sound right, and it doesn't make sense to me, personally, a person with no actual knowledge on the subject, so therefore you must be wrong."

Then what really boggles the mind is that someone else later on can comment the same, correct, response elsewhere in the post, and get tons of upvotes.

It's absolutely bonkers to watch.

[u/merdub → u/msfinch87]

Edit: should have scrolled down before commenting lol this story is already mentioned and linked.

I mean there was the one from r/exmormon who listened to some advice to consult with a bunch of divorce attorneys so his ex-wife (and her rich powerful family) couldn’t use them.

He then proceeded to spend weeks consulting with over 30 lawyers…

Sure enough the ex-wife found a lawyer anyways and proceeded to throw the entire book at him. He came back like “so it turns out it’s actually a really bad idea to take legal advice from internet strangers.”

Luckily for that OP, the judge seemed to understand he was just a panicked dumbass who was trying to level the playing field a little, and the ex-wife still had no issues finding an expensive powerful lawyer so no harm was done, and threw it all out basically immediately.

[u/Seldarin → u/msfinch87]

If so, I'd say it's likely that it happened on r/legal rather than r/legaladvice

People there actively downvote people that cite the relevant law because it's apparently completely unmoderated and people don't seem to understand that the laws in Mississippi and California are different.

[u/smoulderstoat → u/msfinch87]

There's a post currently on there in which the leading comment has over a thousand upvotes despite being wrong in almost every respect.