Witnesses are supposed to be the "most honest people in the world". Most JWs I know of do not put business deals in writing. They simply "trust their brother".
Have you ever been taken advantage of by your "brothers or sisters"?
Did You Ever Get Screwed By A Jehovah's Witness?
by minimus 43 Replies latest jw friends
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Oubliette
Many, many times.
But the most ironic and profound instance was this one experience I had when trying to get reinstated. I was sitting in the KH minding my own business like a good little drone when a "Sister" came in and set in front of me. It was hard to contain myself. Why? I was DF'd and shunned and there she was sitting pretty like everything was just wonderful.
Why was I upset? What offense had this woman committed? She had hired me to do a job a few years before and stiffed me for the few hundred dollars that she was supposed to pay. I had actually forgotten about it until she sat down in front of me.
But then a curious thing happened: I began to look around the KH. You see, I had been an elder for over 20 years. I knew the dirt on just about everyone in the hall (and this wasn't even the congregation I used to attend). At that moment I had the profound revelation that JWs are no better than anyone else, in fact they are probably worse because they pretend to be better and loudly proclaim their "righteousness" at every opportunity.
This religion is corrupt just like all the others; maybe even worse.
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minimus
The worst offenders were elders. Everyone trusted them and some weren't so honest.
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AlphaMan
Nope....can't say I have. But then again I don't recall ever having any business dealings with the JW's.
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apostrate
I can't remember offhand actually being cheated by a JW. But, the memories that impact my mind the most are those when I was a teenager. I went to work for a couple of "brothers", elders in fact. They were bricklayers in the Dallas/Ft Worth area. They were absolutely the most obnoxious, filthy-mouthed, egotistical men that I have ever had the displeasure of knowing, JW or non-JW. Why did I continue working for them? Because I was a stupid, young, naive kid who didn't know any better, and didn't know "where else to turn".
Actually, every once in a while they would hire another "brother" from some congregation who would come out on the job and be so disgusted by their behavior that they would go tell the other elders on them. Then the "brothers" I worked for would kinda tone it down for a few weeks, but their bad boy behavior would always return.
Nowdays I'm a smart, old, wise, old man who figured out much too late that these two elders, being the successful entrepreneurs that they were, were just too important for the comgregations to take too much action against them. They contributed too much money to the Org so they got away with things the average JW would not have.
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AlphaMan
Before I joined the cong there evidently was a financial scandal where several families invested in a brother's business venture and they all lost their monies. This was always spoken of in hushed tones. I still don't know the whole story.
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TableForOne
Nice idea for a topic.
Back in 1993-ish. I was newly married and we were really skint.
My wife did some work for a brother in another congregation as a one-off, a favour to him. It was decided in advance how much she would get, but nothing in writing.
She received £50 less than was agreed.
In 1993 when we were skint, £50 was a big deal.
I was forbidden to challenge him about it - it was my wife's business and she wanted to drop the matter.
He wasn't an elder then, but he sure is now.
TF1
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LongHairGal
Minimus:
No, not literally or figuratively either.
However, I saw, up close, that others were - in the business sense. There were numerous stories of "friends" who were deceived and defrauded by other JWs and they were supposed to just absorb the problem and be silent. In fact, I think the problem is like the proverbial iceberg. Much is undetected so it's even worse than we imagine.
I realized I'd have to be out of my mind to ever get involved and I vowed never to have anything to do with these people on any level - and this was when I was an active Witness. I kept it to myself but felt they were to be avoided, like poison.
They have a built-in excuse (the religion "card") and "Adamic death", "imperfection", "bringing reproach on Jehovah" and any other number of thought/behavior stoppers to get logically minded people from getting justice or revenge on these irresponsible, hypocritical individuals who BELIEVE that not only are they owed something, but they can do anything and be forgiven for it.....Yet, one more reason to be glad I'm out of there.
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TableForOne
Just thought of another that I heard about within the last couple of years.
A single sister in a neighbouring congregation invested either £10,000 or £20,000 in a brother's business.
And that's pretty much the end of the story.
She got nothing back and the brother, an elder, kept his position.
No paperwork - one person's word against another that the cash was ever handed over.
As far as I was aware this is not common knowledge in the congregation. I only found out because of family ties on my wife's side.
There was more to the story, but as my wife and I are recently separated I can't ask her to tell me the details again.
TF1
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Aunt Fancy
We sure did and most of them were elders! We own a business and we got it on both sides, employees and customers. Our policy is we refer work out to others when they ask and we don't normally hire them either although we have a couple working with us now but one is a relative. We learned from our past mistakes. This is another thing I noticed, I have given them lots of clothes, appliances, household goods, food and other nice items and not once did I ever receive a thank you note and many times never a verbal thank you. I finally got sick of it and started taking things to charities instead. I could understand if I gave them junk but none of it was. It also use to bother me when you gave wedding gifts, shower gifts, graduation and get well gifts you very rarely receive a thank you. What is with that? I was raised to always send thank you notes which I still do to this day, even if someone buys me lunch I send a thank you note. (sorry I got a little off topic but to me they are closely related).