It is surprisingly easy to get banned from an entire country. Or an entire chain of stores. These people found themselves in the weirdest situations with disastrous consequences. It's impossible to look away from all of this cringe. Content has been edited for clarity.
His Unforgivable Act
“I’m banned from all of Canada. Why? That’s kind of a long story, and I need to start with the face that I was initially on the run from the Mormon Church. It was the last week of 1986. I was nineteen years old, and I spent the past three months in the dreary town of Brooks, Alberta, Canada. It was the first location in my two-year assignment as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For context, I never wanted to serve a mission, but I grew up in Utah with a devout family, so there was no getting out of this. Like a good boy, I filled out my missionary application papers, hoping for a cool location like Brazil or Sweden or Japan. Instead, I got western Canada. Missionary life was pretty horrible. I was knocking on doors for twelve hours a day in miserable weather. There was no television, no movies, no newspapers, no dating, and no phone calls home. I had a constant presence of my assigned partner. It only took three months to say enough was enough.
I was stir-crazy and depressed, and I wanted to go home. A few days after Christmas, I snuck off to the bus station early in the morning to make my escape. That bus ride was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. Once my absence became known, the church activated its remarkable emergency communications network to find me. At the border crossing, I managed to avoid the two missionaries they sent to intercept me, as I transferred from one bus to the next. I felt like an actual super spy. That evening, a gray-haired man in a leather jacket trailed me through the bus station towards the men’s room. As I was taking care of business at the urinal, this man leaned against the wall and called my name out. He was a local Mormon president, and he was there to convince me to either resume my mission service or to request an honorable discharge from my mission. Look, it’s hard for any Mormon kid to say no to authority figures, so I did go back to my mission.
Fast-forward two months, and I had completely drank the Kool-Aid. I was surrounded by other missionaries to keep the loneliness and depression at bay. It was evening time and I was at the Calgary International Airport with my new partner, Elder Finn. Elder Finn was planning on escaping from his own mission after four months. He was completely done. He assumed, based on my past behavior, that I would stand by and give him time to get away. He thought wrong. I slipped away from him in the crowded terminal, desperately trying to call the local president on a pay phone. No one is answering their phones. I have this crazy, half-formed backup plan, but am I really willing to do everything in my power to keep Elder Finn from leaving? Turns out yes!
I rip open the phone book to look up the airlines that Elder Finn would be flying on. My hand shakes as I dial the number. I take a deep breath and tell the person on the other line, ‘There’s a bomb in a suitcase on flight seven-eighty-nine.’
I hang up. The plane in question is grounded, evacuated, and thoroughly searched. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police come and ind me, and upon not finding any explosives, convict me of felony public mischief. I was sentenced to brief jail time and am no longer allowed to set foot in Canada. Ironically, Elder Finn was still able to find another flight and got home, away from his mission. I have always regretted these actions I took once I resumed my mission. It deeply unsettles me how easily faith and circumstances can warp a brief impulse into an act of terror. Anyone could be standing on that brink without suspecting it.”
A Long Time Ago, At A Job Far, Far Away
“I was banned from Skywalker Ranch, where they work on the Star Wars movies. I still feel shame any time I watch anything Star Wars related. This happened around 1991 or 1992, when I was working as a meager audio technician there. I desperately wanted to work in film ever since I was a teenager, and then I got this opportunity to work for George Lucas, I was beyond ecstatic. I even got to briefly talk to George Lucas as he walked into a mixing room once. I also got to say hello to David Lynch. I even got yelled at by James Cameron during a dailies screening, but that was just how he responded to everybody. Most of the time, I would take raw audio tapes form the film production and transfer them to magstripe film for the official sound mixing process. As time went by, I ‘graduated’ being an official recordist, managing a whole lot of equipment and working for Oscar-winning sound mixers. Someday, I wanted to be just like those sound mixers too. Unfortunately, I could also be terribly immature.
So for some background, my department got a new manager who seemed to assign work based on who he liked the most, rather than whom it was best suited for. My fellow techs also didn’t like him, but none of them wanted to rock the boat with such a cool job. So I looked up the company’s private database and found my boss’s folder. I technically didn’t hack into it, I merely violated the expectation of privacy! I found out that my manager was getting a significant raise, which I didn’t think he deserved. I printed out that document and showed it to my trusted coworkers, thinking nothing of it.
A few days later, I got a call to visit the vice-president’s office, where he accused me of breaking into the private company database. My heart was in my throat in an instant, and I tried my best to deny it. But the pressure from the vice-president quickly made me cave, and I confessed and was ushered out the door. He told me never to return. The Ranch security took away my parking sticker and followed along beside me as I drove off the property. Yep, I was most certainly fired. The worst part? My girlfriend at the time still worked for the Ranch.
I spent a significant amount of time in a depressive funk, cycling through the events that led up to that fateful day over and over, wishing I could take it all back. I also spent a lot of time trying to justify my actions, but that sort of thinking just made me feel worse. Eventually, I saw a psychiatrist and went on anti-depressants, which did so much good for me. I’m still with my girlfriend, now my wife, who was later fired from the Ranch for totally unjust circumstances. Just the act of writing this story gives me those same pangs of regret, even twenty years later. At least I do have a happy marriage and a stable job, but it isn’t as cool as working for Skywalker Ranch. That life slipped through my hands thanks to a single childish, self-destructive act.”
Literary Cold War
“I’ve been banned from my library for twenty-one years and counting for a crime I did not commit. Just writing about it could get me in serious trouble. But I have to defend myself. I can’t keep living with other people’s assumed guilt. I can only imagine how high my fine is by now, but I’m never paying it. The police would have to drag my body back to the library to do that. Flashback to the turn of the millennium. I was a very bored child. My mom was talking to our handsome neighbor Derek noticeably often. I snuck out of the house and wandered through my small town. I found myself in front of the town library, so I figured I would check out the children’s section. Well, I actually took a detour to the adult romance section so I could sneak a peek at some lewd book covers. Unfortunately, the librarian showed me away with a rolled up newspaper. When I finally made it over to the children’s section, that’s when I saw it. An unmistakable cover. A book that grabbed me like Derek grabbed my mom at my cousin’s birthday party when he thought no one was looking.
It was ‘Wallace and Gromit: The Lost Slipper’. A book series about a man and his dog who solved mysteries?! What’s not to love? I had never read this one. It was new and exciting and was bound in hardcover. I was hooked immediately. I took it to the front desk and borrowed it. The librarian looked at me sharply, her beady eyes burning a hole through mine as she handed me my prize. Several days later, I returned to the library. The branch was closed for the day, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I took my book and pushed it firmly through the return cycle. A week later, I got my first letter tellign me that I had an overdue library book. No I didn’t, I clearly returned everything! But a week later, the same thing happened. The letter told me that failure to return the book would result in a twenty cents fine per day. I crumpled up the letter and tossed it in the recycling bin. I didn’t know it yet, but this would be the beginning of a literay Cold War.
It has been twenty-one years since that fateful day. At this rate, my ‘overdue’ book has accumulated a fine of $2,204.60. I stood by my principles and refused to pay to this day. The library officially banned me form the premises until the debt is paid. But it was their mistake in the first place for overlooking my returned book! I was banned for a crime that I didn’t commit. I was made a scapegoat for a filing system that failed me. I haven’t given up hope of exoneration. I stand with righteous truth in my heart. I will not be silenced, even though I’m supposed to be quiet in a library. Tomorrow I will wake up with another twenty cents added onto my debt. Tomorrow, I will continue my fight. As for Derek and my mom, I am fairly certain they had an affair. She still sends him hand-written Christmas cards every year, even though he moved away a long time ago.”
The Most Dangerous Hide And Seek Game
“I live in Cincinnati, headquarters of Macy’s. During my junior year, I was dating this girl, whom we’ll call Stacy, and we were on winter break. We were downtown on this group date, ice skating together. Eventually, we decided to walk around the city and see what we could get up to. We decided to walk around this massive Macy’s. Upon entering the three-story department store, I had the perfect idea: hide and go seek in Macy’s. It was late at night, and not many people could get in our way. Between three floors and six people playing, what could go wrong? Well, after quite obviously speed walking around, accompanied by lots of giggling, management decided to come intervene in our game. The manager got the other five people, but I wasn’t going to go down so easily.
I wanted to look cool in front of my girlfriend, so when the manager started to come for me, I just continued the game. I was having a lot of fun irritating the manager and hiding from him. Unfortunately, I managed to catch a brief glimpse of the manager talking to two police officers and pointing to the general direction I was in and telling them what happened. the stakes of this game had just gotten higher. The normal and sane person wouldn’t let things get to this point, but I persevered. I was somehow avoiding everyone. I even took a few clothes off the rack and changed, so the manager wouldn’t suspect it was me. This went on for about twenty minutes, then it came to a screeching halt when another police officer saw me making fun of the oblivious manager. I heard, ‘Hey! Stop right there!’ and I dashed. My plan was to somehow make it to the dressing room, change back into my clothes, then leave and get away with all of it, impressing my girlfriend in the process. Nope, that wouldn’t happen at all.
As I was running away, I ran straight into a third police officer, who threw me to the ground and dragged me to the manager. I had been beaten and proudly accepted my loss. The manager was fuming, but I still kept the smirk on my face. Even though I didn’t show it, I was panicking inside. What if I was thrown in jail or arrested?! My parents would either disown me or murder me if that sort of thing happened. To my surprise, the manager told me, ‘Despite how irate I am with you right now, in light of the holiday season, I will let you go on one condition. I get your name and your prints, and if I ever see you in this store again, I will see to it that you are thrown in the back of a cop car. Do you understand me, son?!’
Of course, I complied. It turns out I had dropped my wallet, which the manager had retrieved, so he already had my name. I told him, ‘Yes, I would appreciate it if I could have that back.’
The manager replied, ‘I would appreciate it if you never show your face around here again.’
HE made me stand for a picture and then threw my wallet at my feet. He told the cops to take me away and to collect my prints. The cops took me outside and told me, ‘We aren’t going to take your prints. It’s Christmas time, no need to be mean. I know you were just trying to make your girlfriend laugh, but no need for that. You seem like a nice guy, I would hate to have to put you in the back of this car.’
I thanked the cops profusely and they drove away. I then met back up with my girlfriend, who was a mixture of embarrassed and elated, because she and our friends thought the entire thing was hysterical. I definitely know what I did was wrong and very rude, but I was so eager to make Stacy happy. I was so lucky that no legal action was taken. It is very funny to reminisce on, but I don’t see myself partaking in anything like that ever again. It’s been over two and a half years, and I still refuse to enter that store, out of fear that I’ll be arrested on the spot. I also wonder why the manager wanted my fingerprints so much, was that even something a manager could request?! The funniest part is that this past Christmas, my family and I were walking around downtown, and they all wanted to go to that exact Macy’s store. I had to awkwardly explain to my parents why I couldn’t go into that store. My mom was frustrated and my dad burst out laughing. He stayed outside with me while my mom and sisters went inside.”
Fooling An Entire Country
“This is a little embarrassing, to say the least. I’m banned from South Korea. Yep, the entire country. So back in my twenties, my friend Scott and I were working at competing newspapers in Arizona. We were a couple of years out of college, completely broke, in debt, and burned out. I remember drinking with Scott and watching television with him one night, when we both realized that the television wasn’t even on! At that point, we decided that we needed to figure out something else. For us, that ‘something else’ was teaching English in South Korea. Our thinking was somewhere along the lines of, ‘Hey, let’s make a bunch of money and have some adventure!’ The fact that we could travel thousands of miles away from our current sad apartments helped to seal the deal. Fast-forward six months. Scott and I are now living in Korea, working for the same company. It’s important to mention that I was worse than broke. Four days before I left Korea, the car I planned to sell was stolen, along with all of my photography equipment inside. I arrived with Scott in Korea with a one-way ticket, $400 in my pocket, $10,000 in debt, and $15,000 in student loan debt. Within two weeks of living in South Korea, my wallet was stolen too. Maybe Scott and I hadn’t really thought things out…?
But then I noticed something. Other English teachers that I met were teaching private English lessons on the side and collecting cold, hard cash for their efforts. They were making bank, too. There was the solution to my problems! I found an offer from a young businessman looking for an American to teach English in a private school. I was hired, started teaching there on the side, and the money began to roll in. Things started to look up, but only for about three weeks.
At this point, I need to explain something: this private school gig was technically illegal. To work abroad as a teacher, I needed to be sponsored by a company and only work for them. The private school gig was a violation of immigration law, but my employer paid off workers in the immigration office to notify him before any ‘raids’ were about to commence. We would get calls the night before to only work the next day at the registered school.
Three weeks after starting my illegal side gig, I got a call from the head of operations at my official employer, who was sponsoring my work visa. He told me that immigration told him that one of their teachers was working illegally. I denied doing anything of the sort. The owner of the school confirmed it was me, but I looked him in the face and said I had no idea who he was. The head of operations continued to interrogate me for a few more hours, until I simply asked him what the penalty would be if I was guilty? Apparently, it would only be a fine of about $700 or so. I was relieved to just pay the fine and end that entire argument, even if it felt very under the table!
A few months later, my via was almost up, I wanted to stay and teach for another year, but I was looking for a new company in Seoul. My current company didn’t want to help renew my visa. I happened to befriend this retired gentleman who used to work for the mayor of the city. He had a lot of connections, so when I mentioned my issue, he took me to the immigration office to get things sorted out. That’s when the proverbial poop hit the fan. Turns out that my name was listed as someone who had violated the immigration policy months before. Apparently, my offense was one that required immediate deportation, rather than the fine and the pat on the back I had gotten. The clerks didn’t know what to do. If I was still in the country, then someone had taken a bribe and something illegal had occurred, which was exactly what had happened. They couldn’t deport me now, because the office would have to explain why I wasn’t deported earlier. But they couldn’t let me stay in the country either. Instead, the office launched surprise raids on my company over and over again over the next few weeks, catching a lot of teachers in the process. The private school I was working for had to let me go early. I would have to leave the country, and I was on a blacklist preventing me form ever coming back. It actually worked out well for me and Scott, who was in a similar predicament. We ended up buying one-way tickets to Japan and leaving a few days later. We could teach English there too!”
An Epic Yet Stupid Quest
“I have been banned from all MGM Grand properties for life. As an adult, I decided to move to Last Vegas right out of college. It might seem weird, but this was before the 2008 recession. Housing was affordable and jobs were booming. A friend was in town, so we decided to go to Circus Circus, which was a popular MGM Grand hotel and casino. By this point, it was a sad shell of a place. We had too much to drink and decided to go exploring. After a few more drinks, we were on a mission to get to the roof of this building. In most Vegas casinos, you have to have a room card to get up to the higher floors. But this building didn’t have much security, so we walked onto the elevator unquestioned. We came across a deserted hallway, with a mysterious door at the end of it. My friend was getting nervous, so I told him, ‘If we don’t check this door, we’ll have to live the rest of our lives wondering whether or not it was locked. Are you prepared to live with that unanswered question? I’m not, so let’s go!’
After a few drinks, I can be pretty inspiring. It worked, and we got to the door. Amazingly enough, it opened! Even better, it contained a flight of stairs going up. At the top, we found a heavier door that was also unlocked, which led to the actual roof! It certainly wasn’t a place you were supposed to get to. The edge of the building was raised six feet up, so I had to get on my friend’s shoulders to get a good view of the city. Right at that moment, six security guards ran out the door right for us. They picked just the right moment to notice something was amiss. I wasn’t handcuffed or interrogated, but they didn’t love our explanation when we talked to them. They took our IDs and put our names and images on file. Apparently, we were now banned from all MGM Grand properties for life, which was over half the casinos in Vegas. Since then, I have been back to some of these casinos for a drink or two, and I’ve never been confronted. But if I were to win a jackpot or something, I’m sure the casino would run a background check on me and have great reason not to give me the winnings.”
Something’s Up With The Babysitter
“My wife and I are banned from Care.com. That’s right, the babysitting service website! There is a chance our ban no longer applies, as this incident happened when my now nine-year-old was seven months old. But I wouldn’t use the service anyway, since they’re all a bunch of losers! At the time of the incident, we were living in a nice and very expensive part of Queens, New York. The housing collapse had just happened and was killing me. The babysitters we could find through Care.com would often either be too far away or quit on us unexpectedly. We finally found a girl nearby who was great with babies and super affordable. We hired her immediately, and we had no worries or stress about anything. The only thing out of the ordinary was that the babysitter asked us to sign a contract with her. It wasn’t an official legal document, just a signed agreement between us. We told her that we would rather now, and she didn’t object.
Soon after, the rent on our apartment increased, and my wife and I were going broke. We find a cheaper place owned by the same company, and we tell the babysitter we would continue to use her despite the commute. Payday for her was usually at the end of the week, but I was broke from the move. When she visited that day, something seemed wrong. She wanted me to sign a year-long contract for her services, and she suddenly wanted to be paid only in cash, rather than the checks that we had been writing. I tell her that she’s talking herself out of a job, but she won’t stop. I write her one last check and tell her that we were done with her services.
A few days later, my wife and I log onto Care.com to find another babysitter, but we get an error message. We receive an email from them saying that our membership had been terminated, and our annual fee had been refunded. We were banned from using their services in the future! A complaint had been lodged against us. Apparently, we had exhibited violent and aggressive behavior in the presence of children, and an anonymous member had feared for their safety in our presence. In further communications with the website, we learned that there was no way for us to dispute this! Great! Nothing better than getting banned for something that didn’t happen and not being able to challenge it.”
Paintball Panic
“I have been banned from the same paintball field four times, under two different names. The first time I was banned happened when I had just played at this local field, and I found out that the referees weren’t enforcing chronograph rules. A chronograph measures the speed of your paintballs, ensuring that you aren’t firing at too fast a speed. Usually, you want a paintball to travel below 285 feet per second (FPS). When a paintball travels in excess of 320FPD, there is a real danger of breaking finger bones on contact, delivering bloody welts, and damaging your goggles. There is also an insurance requirement that a chronograph is used by a referee before every game. This is a standard rule across all fields in the U.S. This field hadn’t even done this one. They just left things up to an honor system. I didn’t call out the establishment publicly for this. Instead, I sent them a friendly and professional email with some constructive criticism about this topic. From what I was told by an employee who I know, my email was read aloud in a mocking voice the following weekend. When that employee tried to defend me, they were told to tell me that I was banned.
The second time I was banned occurred during an altercation with the field owner. This was only months after I got banned myself, but the owner didn’t recognize my face. We were playing this game involving the owner’s team of regulars and everyone else. My team would win if we lasted twenty minutes. I had a timer on my gear and noticed that we were at twenty-three minutes, but the game was still going. I didn’t mention it, since my team was already winning. But then I noticed something when I shot the owner on the field. He wiped the hit off and just kept playing. I shot him again, and he wiped the hit off and kept playing again. I called him out, so he walked over to me and started swearing profusely. he told me to pack my bags and never return. The third time I was banned happened in the exact same scenario, only this time my friend was shooting the owner and calling him out. This time, it was much more public in front of the entire staff and the players.
The fourth time I was banned happened when I was asked to play for the owner’s team during a special event. A local NFL team was visiting and wanted to play, so the owner recruited me and my friends to join him. When the owner was elsewhere on the field, the rest of us talked and agreed that we couldn’t stand the owner, and we should have some fun with this game. We ripped off the jerseys he loaned us and annihilated the owner. It was hilarious. He was way too flustered and banned us again.
I want to add that paintball has been an outlet for me from life’s frustrations for a long time. I am so passionate about the sport that I have personally hosted and funded events to train new players. I have volunteered to teach players new techniques. This field’s owner was the antithesis of everything I believed in when it came to this game. But it was a nice field, so I couldn’t stay away from it forever.”
How Are Girl Scouts This Vicious?!
“I was banned from all Girl Scout troops as a child. When I was eight, our mom put me and my sister in a local Girl Scout troop. Growing up, my mom had a positive experience with Girl Scouts, so it seemed like a logical parenting decision. I enjoyed being a Brownie at first, but after three years I would move up to become a Junior. That’s when my sister and I began to resent to group. We had to move out of our fun Brownie troop into a much less fun Junior troop. One of the Juniors in that troop was the biggest Mean Girl. Her mother was the troop leader and took her daughter’s side, no matter what. The leader’s daughter bullied others without any punishment. If anyone tried to tell the leader, the matter was simply ignored. The leader’s daughter could do no wrong.
At one point, we were all staying overnight at a local campsite. We were all working on this craft, where we make little paper hats. We would then make little papier-mâché decorations we could trade and decorate each other’s hats with. The leader’s daughter was bullying some other girl during this process, and that’s when I had enough. I ran up to her, grabbed the hat off of her head, and threw it in the mud. I had reached a total breaking point with that bully, and how her behavior was never punished. I have no idea what sort of conversation happened between the troop leader and my mother, but I never had to go back to that troop ever again after that fateful camping trip. I was never forced to attend Girl Scouts events by my mother again. I was told many years later that the scout leader had banned me from her troop.”
Insidious Air Force Coup
“I am banned form ever rejoining the U.S. Air Force. I first enlisted in the USAF at age 17. I did really well in my training and was assigned to an amazing aircraft carrier. After some time, I had been doing so well that when my supervisor retired, they just left me in charge of the aircraft. It all seemed to be a dream come true, right? Well, it was, but only for a brief amount of time. It all went wrong when I received a tech order to ground all the planes for some scheduled maintenance. The part each plane needed was on back order, and I had no idea when it would finally come in. My first sergeant came by, and he asked me why the aircraft was being grounded for so long. I explained the tech order to him, but he told me to disregard that order and get the plane prepped for flights. I was stunned. I told him that as far as I knew, under no circumstances should the plane be allowed to fly until the part was exchanged. I got this frustrating lecture about how many stripes this guy had, how long he had been in service, and how I shouldn’t talk back to him like that. I held my ground. After all, my name would be on the flight log. If anything went wrong, I doubted that this sergeant would back me up. I refused this man and asked to see the squadron commander to sort out the issue. The sergeant backed down, but I knew I would be in for a world of hurt.
Over the next few months, this sergeant really had it out for me. He was petty and just plain nasty! At one point, my mother received a terminal cancer diagnosis. After talking with several of my fellow airmen, they suggested I ask for a hardship discharge to care for my mother in person. Honestly, I didn’t think that I needed the discharge. I have several siblings who were taking care of my mom, but being there for her would be really great. Just before my discharge papers came through, that nasty first sergeant called me into his office. He gave me a list of items that he claimed I had broken, such as a pool table and some doors. He said that before I could be discharged, I had to pay for all the items. I refused, saying that I didn’t break any of that stuff. He simply told me, ‘Well, you can ask for a hearing on all of thus, but that will take some time. You need to get home quick, don’t you?’
I held myself together as I left his office, but when I got to work, I broke down and told my squadron commander what had just happened. He got the base commander to intervene. They both agreed that I wasn’t responsible for any of those broken items, and the first sergeant was definitely being unfair to me. The two of them were able to sign my discharge papers, but then the first sergeant decide to deliver his final blow. He handed me a form, saying that I was not eligible to ever re-join the USAF again. The sergeant told me that if I signed this awful form, all the other charges would be dropped and I would be free to go with a hardship discharge under honorable conditions. All I could do was ask him if he had a pen. So there you have it. I am banned from ever re-joining the United States Air Force. It was such a shame. Fortunately, I didn’t have too long to mope. The U.S. Army recruited me to join them and train with their helicopters. They didn’t care about the U.S. Air Force ban thankfully.”