Have you ever been accused of something that wasn’t true, yet you had no way to prove your innocence?

More recent than the other posters here.

I had a job interview for a huge company that I was super excited about. I had applied to an entry-level job position, and they even contacted me and told me that my profile would match a non-entry position more closely, so my process was transferred. I was nervous, but excited!

The interview was remote, which was not usual (this was pre-pandemic! Around 2018 I believe). Once they arrived, I was surprised that they didn't want cameras on; it was a fully audio-based interview. Whatever, I thought, I'll just do the interview anyway.

It didn't go very well, as I was just a silly kid straight out of university with no interviewing experience, but I thought it wasn't catastrophic or anything. I still do. They asked me a couple of questions about my industry that I had no idea about unfortunately. I still tried to answer as best as I could, but I could tell my answers were not the ones they wanted. The dude was nice anyway and told me "that's OK" whenever I didn't know an answer.

A couple of days after the interview, I get a call from a very nice HR lady and she said "unfortunately you were not selected for this position, but feel free to apply for other positions in our company!". I was a bit sad but wanted to make use of this as a learning experience, so I asked "do you have information as to why I was not selected?" or something to that effect.

She said: "let me see... It says here they were not looking for someone with your profile...

... Oh! Also, you were googling the answers to questions you didn't know, as we heard you typing"

This broke me. I had done no such thing! I started trying to tell her that was not true (and that if it were, I would have gotten the answers right!). But I quickly realized that it was a losing battle. They had made their decision, and I was just wasting their time. If only they had turned on the camera I could have evidence that was not true. But I decided not to further sully my reputation and just said "Thank you for your time, I hope to talk to you again".

Since I did not get that job, I applied to and was accepted into a PhD programme so I guess that was a pretty important moment in my life. I am about to finish my PhD and that company is one of my options afterward, so I sometimes wonder if they still have that lie on file.

...what slight?

I got accused of rape my junior year of high school by a girl I had never met. She picked me out of the yearbook and made up a crazy story. This dragged on for months, countless meetings with police/principals with no evidence other than her word. Her mother even came into my work yelling and screaming at me, her brother was trying to find me to kick my ass. Turns out the whole time her boyfriend was sexually abusing her. She admits to randomly picking me and making up the whole thing. Pretty fucked up situation to put a random kid in high school through.

Ahh, I have one story. It's also kind of my own personal tin-foil-hat conspiracy.

I was living in a place where you could rent, but it was also a hotel. It had a Rent-a-Car inside, and I was working there. It was exceptional because I was 2 floors away from my job, so no need for commuting.

Ultimately, and to make this long story short, I decided to leave the company (it was a small company, just my boss, his wife ane me), because one week I started to get paid less than what I was working, they probably thought I wouldn't notice.

I immediately started looking for another job, and funnily enough, the hotel - where I lived - was hiring. They basically accepted me after the first interview, I told my boss' wife that I was leaving the company for the hotel so I gave my two weeks notice.

Next day, I am driving through the highway with my boss to pick up a customer when he starts SCREAMING at me about going to work for the hotel instead of him. One thing stood out from what he screamed at me:

"I will make sure that you don't get that job, or other jobs in the future, and you will never get this job back either, how are you going to live like that now? You just fucked up" - He said

Now this is the conspiracy/accusation part:

The hotel needed to do a drug test (they did that to everyone). The day of the drug test, I go to the place, do whatever I had to do, and they just told me to wait for an answer.

2 weeks goe by - no response. I call and ask, they say they "lost" my tests. Strange, but ok. I went to do another one.

2 days after the second one, they call me and tell me that the test was positive for weed. Now I'm not going to be a hypocrite and say I've never done weed. I have arthritis, so weed is something I sometimes need to handle tha pain and stress, but at that time I was clean for about 5-6 months.

However, I told them that it's impossible, that I've never done weed, that I didn't even have money to buy weed. They straight up tell me they don't care and hang up.

Exactly 20-30 minutes later, my former (rent a car company) boss -who I hadn't spoken to for more than a month- calls me, he doesn't even ask me how I am or anything, he just goes straight for "where you accepted for the job? How did the drug test go?"

Now, call me crazy but...

1. I didn't tell him I was doing a drug test, and if the hotel had told him, they still woul't have known when I did the drug test.
2. How did he manage to call me exactly the day I got the results, almost at the same time?
3. I called the hotel after that call and they told me that they hadn't even received a call from the drug test place to tell them that it has been positive. That basically I was the one notifying them. However, they said that since it was positive, I couldn't get the job regardless, no exception.

At the end, I figured I was fighting a losing battle and searched for other jobs. 2 weeks later COVID-19 hit and the rent-a-car had to close, so that was good news for me.

Back in the day, I was stationed in South Korea when I was 18/19 years old. While it was legal for Koreans to drink by 18, US soldiers were expected to wait until they were 21. Soldiers 21 and over got ration cards in order to buy alcohol from the post's shoppettes. I was never 21 in Korea, so I never got one.

One day the Criminal Investigation Division shows up and starts asking around about me. Sure I guess I was technically drinking underage on base, but I was legal once I left. And I hadn't done anything else shady or dodgy, so I was getting a little concerned.

Turned out, I was being accused of buying liquor on base for cheap and then selling it to Koreans for profit because a bottle of real Jack Daniels was like $200 whereas I could have bought it for $20.

I told them that I couldn't have bought it because I don't have a ration card for alcohol. They didn't believe me, but somehow it got cleared up down the road because I never heard another word about it. And I doubt it was mistaken identity because my height kinda precludes me from being misidentified, and the only other guy on the base that looked even remotely like me never got in trouble either and he was never questioned in the first place.

When I was 13 walking home from school the day after a snow day I was berated by a driver that accused me of throwing a snowball at his car. I had done no such thing (that day). I mean message received, I don't think I've thrown a snowball at a car since, but it wasn't me. A few years later I realized it was probably nick.

I have a really good memory. I can recall whole conversations from 10 years ago.

Its so frustrating when people say one thing but do another. They love claiming that I'm making stuff up and "I didn't say that"

I learned to record every important conversation years ago...

Though they still say that I faked the recordings, etc if something comes up.

Yes, as I said in another post I was punched in the face by a policeman who then accused me of having done that to him. He falsified the medical report while I had no marks, he forced a courier to testimony in his favor and has the version confirmed by his partner. The prosecutor believes his story even if I presented evidence in the form of a recording where he admits to hitting me but in self defence (there's no mention of that in his report) he asks me if I have cameras (just so he can say whatever he wants if I don't have them), he admits to pushing me (another thing he denies in his report where he says he accompanied me gently in my garden). None of this was taken into consideration. I tried two times and was rejected by the prosecutor who wants to archive my demand. I'm waiting to be condemned for something I didn't do. I'm a pianist and I'd never use my hands to hit something and I'm disabled and visually impaired. Nothing seems to matter.

The burden of proof is on the side that accused you

My bf is convinced I have/had feelings for some other guys. Keeps pressing the issue and "Why can't you just admit it?". I can't admit something that isn't true...

I'm 8 years old. For some reason I'm out the front of the house with a friend and his mum on my bike. Again, for some reason that makes sense to children, I insist on showing them how 'far' I can cycle, and go off around a corner a little way from our houses to find some kind of loop back. Not important.

I find myself going down this fairly tight alleyway when a girl, maybe around 11/12, starts coming down the other way. There's just about enough space for us both to fit, but I'm not a very experienced cyclist and lose my balance, instinctively grabbing her handle bar to avoid falling into her bike. We're going slowly enough that we're both absolutely fine. I apologise profusely and remove my hand from her bike and back to mine, when she grabs my hand and forces it back into her handlebar. She loudly shouts 'DAD!!' and my heart absolutely sinks.

This big guy comes round the corner. He was fairly tall and muscular, with short hair and a tank top. The main thing I remember is that he had terrible teeth, something I'm about to get a good look at. The girl informs him that I am 'bullying' her. He is immediately aggressive, detaining me in this narrow alley and interrogating me about what I'm doing. He shouted directly at my face, letting me feel his spittle and see his black teeth clearly. Her mum comes round to see what's going on. She asks how old I am, and I say that I'm 8 and just trying to ride my bike. She says "8's very young to be bullying" as if there's a more acceptable time. I insist I'm not trying to bully anyone but they have none of it. After 5 minutes or so the dad asks me where I live and as some sort of self-preservation I say through tears that i "don't know". They let me go and I cycle off wiping away my tears.

I get back to my friend and essentially just say 'haha! I went a really long way', and that's the end of it. I never tell anyone for fear that they won't believe me, and I feel terrified that that girl or man will find me for the next year or two. Arseholes.

Last year my (then) gf got it into her head that I'd been unfaithful to her with my neighbour, and on one occasion snapped and physically assaulted me in my own home. She then claimed to friends and family that I assaulted her, presenting photos of bruises on her arms and face as "proof".

I don't even know where to start with this, it's happened so many times. Although I'm sure everyone has at some point in their lives. I mean the whole point of being framed is you can't prove your innocence. I will say though, it feels even worse when there actually has been proof of my innocence but the people who want to say I did something had such strong willpower that they were able to ignore the proof on a collective level and continue to accuse me of the thing I just proved my innocence about.

I was walking home from work late one evening 20+ years ago when someone in a big pick-up truck pulled up next to me, rolled down their window, and started berating me for "doing drugs and chasing girls".

I was not, at the time, doing drugs or chasing girls. I was working an IT job in a tiny New England town, had recently been dumped, and was convinced that I would never date again, oh woe is me. Some server had blown up and I'd been at the office late.

And for this I get hollered at by some stranger?

Best I can figure is they mistook me for someone they knew — who, for all I know, was doing drugs and chasing girls.

I get accused of not knowing about linguistics or history a lot.

I am a degreed linguist, and the people who accuse me of it tend to be ethnic nationalists or right-wingers. You can’t reason with them. People don’t like being told that their language isn’t the end-all be-all or that minorities (gasp) have their own speech patterns.

There was a notable incident on Reddit where someone complained that African-American Vernacular English wasn’t legitimate. I responded to the guy, who, in response, kept moving the goalposts. He asked if AAVE let Blacks “flourish”, I directly addressed it, then he took me to task because that was supposedly something he didn’t ask about. Then he spouted off about how Indigenous American languages were inferior because you couldn’t talk about quantum physics with them (which is false, but the hard Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a tough bug to kill). The kicker is my interlocutor was from Texas. He shut up when I pointed out that “y’all” is, by his own metric, “incorrect English”.

Watch their brains implode when they talk about how French is “legitimate”, and Latin is even more “legitimate”, and then you point out that French developed out of Latin via the same means and processes they demonize in minority speech.

Or when people bitch that “I could care less” is incorrect English. It’s not; it’s an idiom. “Brazen” as a descriptor of methods or attitudes is descended from an idiom (nobody says “bold as brass” anymore though, so its origin is obscured).

I even run into this on the fediverse (search my comment history).

It gets worse when people write sources and facts off because it’s inconvenient. I was into it today with a Turkish nationalist who claimed that Turkish was the mother of all languages (it’s not even the mother of Turkic generally) and then went on to deny the Armenian genocide. I also ran into someone who tried to deny that Russian was a legitimate Slavic language because I cited George Shevelov’s work and obviously his last name was Russian, so he was a propagandist…when Shevelov is Ukrainian-American and spent a long time teaching at Columbia.

Being a linguist on the Internet is an utterly Sisyphean task.

Quite a few times. Not much you can do about it except avoid the person forever. Spent 3-8 grade refusing to talk to a fellow student over them doing this to me.

I took the plea bargain

This happens to me all the time to where I don't even have a specific story I can think of that would be more interesting than another. I guess I just look guilty 🤷🏻‍♂️

Yes

Here on Lemmy multiple times. Taking a stand on digital freedom and the right to communication as a basic human right has gotten me labeled as a *phobe multiple times.

Little do they know...

Alot of internet debates devolve into ad hominem attacks, casting labels about, the worrisome ones access you of thought crime which is impossible to disprove.

Had a few in mind, but I got to thinking and remembered I actually did do it lol