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People Who Had Signed NDAs That Have Now Expired Share What Secrets They Were Supposed To Protect (35 Answers)
A non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, is a legal document that keeps the lid on any sensitive information. Think of it as a way to keep things like secret recipes, proprietary formulas, and manufacturing processes under wraps. NDAs can be used to protect innovative ideas, maintain a competitive advantage, but also to cover more shady aspects of a business.
So when someone asked “people who have signed NDAs that have now expired or for whatever reason are no longer valid, ‘What couldn't you tell us but now can?’” on r/AskReddit, the thread blew up with 54k upvotes.
Employees of all industries are now spilling things that were not supposed to come out in broad daylight. Let’s see some of the most interesting corporate secrets right below.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I worked for a popular national pet store chain. We told our customers that we got our puppies from 'reputable breeders and not puppy mills'. We got them from puppy mills, and I can't express how many came in on the back of a large, pitch dark freight truck, malnourished, scared and sick.
We also adopted the cute kittens from the local sheltered and charged customers outrageous amounts of money. Most of whom just felt bad for the kittens.
Don't support national chain pet stores that sale puppies that do not come from local shelters folks.
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#2
I was a model for a few big name/well known make up companies. I did several print ads for magazines and a few television commercials.
The makeup artists do use the product advertised, but MINIMALLY. Like that mascara they're touting? It's over REALLY GOOD fake eye lashes and they also used another brand of mascara along with the one they're trying to sell you.
Also - the clothes in the ads you see are pinned to high heaven on the model. They fit nothing like they look. It's not you. It's not your body. It's fake advertising. Most of us models look just like you wearing that cr*p without all the pins and tucks and double sided tape.
#3
I was a translator (contractor) for the US military. I also translated Marvel comic books. Marvel had tighter security.
Samantha Power 3 years ago
That is very interesting, why such tight security for Marvel comics?
#4
I work tech conferences so I have to sign (agree to) NDA's all the time.
I saw the Google Chromecast before the public did, chrome books, phones, Apple phones, MacBooks, Nvidia shield, even some games like Call of duty, Titanfall, and have sat in some meetings with the worlds richest .01% or fundraisers with celebrities.
Most of the time it's boring the best one I can remember was meeting Robin Williams, he was at fundraiser for the local zoo, the biggest donor got to spend the day with just Robin in the zoo, and name their new baby Tiger. So I mic up Robin, he jumps up on stage and says let's start the bidding on naming the new baby Tiger, come on folks think about it, how many times do you get to officially name a pussy!? If I remember correctly the highest bidder got into a bidding war, Robin is running around getting the crowd pumped up and laughing their asses off as only Robin could do and the highest bid ended around $50,000.
It was one of the most memorable and fun things I've ever got to do at an event was work with magnificent man.
#5
Signed an NDA when I worked as a fit model for Katy Perry’s shoe line. Basically a fit model is used for their good proportions to test out the fit of garments. I’m a solid size 7.5 so hooray for being average. I was hired on two occasions and got to hang out and give her my opinion on the fit, feeling, and comfort of different shoes.
Didn’t think she’d actually be there but both times she was present and totally running the show. Super nice woman in person and remembered me when we met again.
#6
“House Hunters” guest checking in, I never made the show because I didn’t close on the house.
1: I had to have a house under contract before going on the show.
2: They would select the other houses we were “interested” in.
3: I was assigned another SO who was more “interesting” than my actual SO.
#7
I used to work at Frisch's as a hostess/busser/drive-thru attendant, that place was filthy and corrupt as f**k. No one in the kitchen wore gloves and the cooks loved making people eat old food/food that had been dropped on the disgusting floors. The manager loved to steal the waitresses tips and blame the customers or the sketchy looking bussers. The most corrupt thing the awful manager did while I was there was around Christmas time. He would take $100 out of each of the new/younger employees cash drawer, call your parents saying that their kid stole the money and they needed to be brought in to be questioned. When I went to work the next day I found out the same s**t happened to a few of the others, we all got pissed and snagged the key that locked the box to the camera controls, re-winded to the following day and watched until we saw the f***er start doing his thing. Every single one of us reported his a**. He got insta-fired. It was glorious.
#8
I worked at Dairy Queen, the collection box supporting children with cancer hanging out the drive-thru window was a discontinued charity, my manager pocketed all the donations. Disgusting in a different sense.
#9
Most American Idol contestants have agents that got them on the show, and 90-95% of it is pre-cast before the “audition tour”.
#10
When I was a kid, I visited the dentist for a cavity. While there, the dentist slipped while drilling my tooth and drilled a hole under my tongue. My mom saw me tense up, and my dentist said “oh, nicked her there a bit so you might see a little blood.” I got home and after an hour, my entire neck was swollen up like a frog and my voice was squeaky because of the air pressure. A pocket of air was pressing against my heart... dirty air, at that, because of the bacteria in my mouth. I was admitted to the hospital as a “code 4,” with a “code 5” being dead. When my mom tried to sue the dentist for damages, he claimed I was kicking and screaming and “out of control” during the appt, even getting his secretary to vouch for him and testify. (Total BS.. I liked the dentist, and I was a people pleaser. Also, laughing gas). My mom’s lawyer was super pessimistic and told her just to settle and sign an NDA because she had a “small chance” of winning. So my mom settled, being naive and scared to take on an office full of liars. She could never disclose who the dentist was, and we’ve heard other horror stories throughout the years about this dentist effing up other people’s’ mouths. It sucks because every lawyer we’ve talked to after-the-fact says we had a very strong case and it’s likely we would have won. Like really won.
#11
R Kelly's lawyer was on his death bed and told reporters R Kelly is "guilty as hell" regarding his child p*rnography case.
The NDA was still valid but he was given a short time to live and I guess as a lawyer, you need get this stuff off your chest.
#12
I was actually an actor in that commercial that said I wasn’t.
#13
A huge part of The Bachelorette was scripted. The company I worked for at the time was a major tourism service provider and featured prominently in one of the seasons. We were all pulled into meetings with the higher up managers, given a speel about what was in our best interest... and spilling any secrets was punishable by a $5mil lawsuit, "Please sign here".
The "Bachelorette" herself was clearly there to further her public profile or "acting" career. The scenes were always "set up" before filming. Behind the camera nothing was happening. The cast were told where to go, what to do and how to do it.
If half those guys weren't on their phones texting their real girlfriends most of the time, I would be surprised.
So fake... so 100% fake.
#14
I was an extra on Murder on The Orient Express, for the Istanbul scene (over a week of filming, and it's literally about 20 seconds of the film)
Michelle Pfeiffer had to be fed her line reading on each line by Kenneth Branagh, which I thought was weird. Like every line, she'd be like 'how do you want me to say this?'
And then at one point Johnny Depp snuck onto set the day before he was due to film with a baby doll's head in his hand and snuck up behind the car Michelle Pfeiffer was in to try and scare her with it. Weird dude.
#15
The fajitas sizzle because we pour oil and water on a hot plate not because we grilled anything.
#16
Worked for a self-storage place in Rocklin, CA. They made every customer sign a "lease agreement" that said that you wouldn't hold them responsible if your unit was broken into and things were stolen. I found out that we had 7-8 burglaries a year. The owners would get sued but they would always get off because they'd produce the "lease agreement" in court and the judge would dismiss the case. One day I came in from vacation to pick up my paycheck, and I found the owner and the manager loading up a truck with the contents from a unit that wasn't theirs. I went around the corner to an area where the fence allowed me to look in, and saw that they went to another storage space, cut off the lock, and proceeded to load up the truck with a telescope, big screen tv and some power tools. I came back the next day and asked one of my co-workers. He told me that the owners of the storage space would sell the stuff they stole from renters, and that the manager and owner did the same thing with another property that they owned in Granite Bay. I quit to go back to Sac State. I called the Rocklin cops to tell them what the owners were doing, and they said that there was nothing they could do unless they were caught in the act.
#17
I was in the first test screening audience for John Wick 3 (and I think the NDA has expired since the movie is now out). The visual effects were still unfinished (and several scenes had just placeholder cards that described what occurred in the missing scene). It was really interesting being able to see the animal handlers running along with the animals, wearing full-body black spandex suits, before they were digitally deleted from the final film.
I thought it was really interesting and it's just not something you'd think about being there.
#18
My boss refuses to hire anybody but white women, and he uses rubbing alcohol to wipe the expiration date off of product if it expires. He just puts it back on the shelf. Including dairy product. I hate him.
WilvanderHeijden 3 years ago
I'm sure they could anonymously report the boss to the authorities. So I don't know who is the bigger jerk here.
#19
A small-business owner for whom I worked several years ago kept deducting the employees' health insurance premiums but never sent the payments in to the carrier. After 2-3 months of this, our insurance was cancelled, right before one lady's teenage son was in a fairly serious car accident. She finds out at the emergency room, during what is of course an extremely stressful time, that she has no insurance whatsoever when she and her dependents had been fully covered.
The next day she went into his office, very upset, to find out what happened. He gave his usual song-and-dance and made excuses for not having been able to send it in, and this normally mild-mannered lady picked up a stapler and threw it at him! (He wasn't even injured.) While doing that was of course unacceptable, I totally understood her frustration with this weasel. He spent thousands of dollars a month of company money (coding it to company expenses) at Sam's Club on groceries and big-ticket items for his house. On top of his already generous salary.
Then to top it all off, he actually TOOK HER TO COURT for the stapler-throwing incident. After hearing the story, the judge dismissed the weasel's case and made a comment to the effect that if he were in the same position as her, he probably would've done the same thing.
#20
I worked for a gelato shop that made us dig through the so-called "RECYCLING" bins to fish out used plastic cups and spoons to wash and give to new customers. Even if the spoons had bite marks from other customers and were coated in chewing gum, we were told to wash them up and only throw them out if they were really unpresentable, because "these things are expensive!" Furthermore, all the other stuff in the "recycling" bin that people so good-heartedly placed there.. yeah, ALL of it got thrown in the dumpster. Customers ATE IT UP and told us regularly how GLAD they were that we are a "Green" business who "cares about the environment enough to recycle". It didn't take long before I just couldn't keep doing this with a clean conscience, and I turned them in to the health inspectors, who were absolutely horrified this was happening. About two months later, I got laid off and the business closed it's filthy doors forever. :)
#21
I did some research on small scale agriculture in South Appalachia. As part of living with and studying the community I stayed with, I was sworn to secrecy for five years after submitting my research to the happenings and names of those I lived with.
I saw arson of federal property, and impersonating officers of the law and clergy. Grand theft auto, meth cooking and moonshining. Cockfights, kids getting coerced into pr****tution, dogs getting shot full of rocksalt for laughs. I had to sleep in a junkyard for a few nights and found dried human scalps hanging in an old bus, ate rotting meat from a dumpster and had to hide for my life from shotgun-wielding thieves in the dead of winter.
Its not all horror shows in the hills; theres good people, tightly knit communities, and beauty in nature I've never seen since. But whats there is very much real and very much a danger. When I finally returned, I submitted my write up and dropped the project at the advisement of my sponsor, delivered over a bottle of mezcal.
#22
I work in designer clothing retail. The clothes are quite expensive and the assistants are required to only wear full priced garments. So we (the whole team) just pick clothes off the rack, wear them all day (including lunch and bathroom breaks) and at the end of the shift, replace the tags and put the clothes back on the shelf for the customers to buy at full price.
I know I was grossed out my first day there.
#23
I worked for a vet in Vancouver and I ran a whole month of raffles, nail cuttings for donations and pet pics with Santa for the SPCA. When we added up the last of the money from the month, I put it in the safe. The practice owner's wife deposited the money and bought herself some new chanel makeup. W.T.F. I quit in disgust.
#24
A friend of mine got a job at a prominent local distillery that makes an extremely popular flavored whisky. They literally buy whisky from a 3rd party distillery and dump torani flavoring syrup into it.
Stein-Inge Kummeneje 3 years ago
Someone needs to take a whiskey course. This is common practice and a known fact. It's also common to mix liquors from different distilleries. All to get that certain taste.
#25
A government, in 1972, identified a terrorist by his wife's breasts.
From satellite images.
#26
Common knowledge now, but in early 2000's Hewlett Packard would have their inkjet printer cartridges turn off even though they weren't empty.
Each cartridge was put in a machine and a memory chip glued to it. The machine would make all the nozzles 'spit' on a piece of paper, a camera would look at it and then correction parameters would be programmed into it (some nozzles don't work, spit too little or too much, spit off to the side, etc.) The correction parameters were read off the chip and the printer would adjust the voltage and timing for the highest quality print. It was also trivially easy to write 'disable' to the chip after 4,000 pages and it wouldn't work in any HP printer. To ensure high print quality yadda yadda yeah right. And of course, only 'genuine' HP cartridges will work in the printer.
Got taken to court and lost which is why you can now buy much cheaper cartridges on eBay. But if you buy a used printer from the right years it still won't work with cheap ones.
Nat Hedley 3 years ago
Pretty sure this is still going on. I got tired of having to replace so many cartridges on my Epson printer (4 separate cartridges, blue, yellow, pink and black) so I set up to print just monochrome as it's just business paperwork. A couple of weeks later it notified that the blue had run out and wouldn't print the monochrome print job until I replaced the blue cartridge, which audibly sloshed when I shook it. OKAY THEN.
#27
That we can see you,
I look after instant photobooths remotely, I see all your stupid faces, all of them, everyday.
#28
Previous pharmacy chain I worked for. Always at risk of robbery for opiates, and we are always taught to give the robber what they want with no questions asked. Have heard of times that pharmacists instead gave bottles of oxy with Tylenol in it instead and other things that were reckless and dangerous due to possible retaliation when and if they figure out they have been duped.
New policy and nda comes out where specific opiates were placed in safe with GPS tracker and charger so when it is removed from radius of origin, it issues remote notification to third party that tracks location and works with local LEO to find the wanted party.
#29
Worked store security - there are peep holes above the ladies changing rooms at several major retailers. Supposed to be for female security agents to monitor the dressing rooms, but we had no female security agents. Lots of creepy voyeurism/ fapping going on.
#30
I just want to say that if you have ever worked at a water park, it will turn you off of visiting any kind of public pool or park for the rest of your life. The s**t we pulled out of those filters, man... no. Just pour so many chemicals into the water that literally nothing can live in it and call it a day.
#31
Mini Cooper/BMW replaced our car because the high pressure fuel pump failed 6 times within 6 months. However, the recorded reason for the replacement of the car was because of “stained interior from dirty mechanic hands”, so it wasn’t replaced via the lemon law.
#32
Early spy drones (large petrol powered remote control helicopters, back then), deliberately covered in a wire mesh with lights to make them look like UFOs, when up in the air. Tested in populated areas at night.
Well known base, in the north of Scotland.
Tracy Costa 3 years ago
This is a better conspiracy theory than the government is hiding UFOs. The government disguises high tech aerial weapons as UFOs to keep them secret because no one is going to believe that UFOs are just casually flying by.
#33
Amazon made me sign one when I worked with a company that painted their airplanes before the public knew they had them. (I did the FAA paperwork.)
I was literally only one of like 7 people to see their airplane fully purple with their logo on it.
I was actually taken off of the project for a day because they thought I lied about not having a facebook.
They meant business
WhoAreYouToSayPandasAreBored 3 years ago
Wow, be careful. You really narrowed down their search to know exactly who you are..
#34
In 2009 my professor was doing some consulting work for Blackberry and told us 'This doesn't leave this room, but Blackberry actually actively slows down the release of new products, because they are developing them so fast that they want the customer market to keep pace with the rate of change.'
WilvanderHeijden 3 years ago
That's what all manufacturers of electronic devices do, because otherwise they would become too expensive. They've go to recoup the development costs of every model and you can't do that when you release an improved new version before you sold all the old models.
#35
My dad did some top-secret contract work for the DOD back in the 1960s, and he signed a lifelong NDA as part of that job. He's dead now so I guess it's safe to talk about it. The thing is, he never did break the NDA in any context; the strange part was that the NDA specifically prohibited him from using certain words ever again. The trouble is, some of the words are common vocabulary and it became obvious over the years which words he did not use. Words I know he could not say (because he would find other ways of saying them instead) included ball, balloon, briefcase, bomb, and nuclear. It would have made more sense for him to just say "There's a balloon," instead of "There's an inflatable latex object," but you gotta do what you gotta do. Eventually he did gradually stop avoiding those words for the most part, although he would not discuss the NDA.
What do you think ?
Doctor Strange 3 years ago
NDA's do not cover anything illegal. You absolutely can and SHOULD report any company violating laws, regardless of any NDA you signed. If they try to bring you to court, the NDA absolutely can be ruled unenforceable.
Teufel Wulf 3 years ago
You serious under estimate how much law enforcement cares about this. Relative of mine reported the defense contractor he worked for all sorts of BAD stuff - fraud, sending restricted military docs out of the US for translation, etc. FBi/DoJ looks at it and decided the company not worth prosecuting because the owner had sunk most of the ill gotten gains into stuff that could not be recovered (food, vacations, shitty timeshare, etc.)
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A.M. Pierre 3 years ago
They did a home renovation show in my neighborhood where "homeless and needy" families competed to get a home. The "heartwarming twist" was they all got homes. Yay! Except... none of them were needy. Or homeless. The family that got the home near me never spent a day in it. They immediately sold everything that wasn't nailed down and then sold the house, as they already had a home. Also, the production crew came in and wrecked the house before filming to make it more of a transformation - they busted windows, pulled down gutters, killed the lawn, broke the garage door, you name it.
Freya the Wanderer 3 years ago (edited)
So-called reality shows are hella fake. I have read many articles revealing what takes place off-camera. A lot of situations are staged, people are coached, etc. Plus, people behave differently when they know they're on camera.
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iblowsheep 3 years ago
most of these don't mention the company, or location so how in the hell is it "spilling corporate secrets?"
Teufel Wulf 3 years ago
Even if the NDA is expired, big companies can still make a leaker life hell. Look at the stuff eBay did to a journalist who was getting leaked info... Mailing dead animals, bribing local police to harass them, etc. Yeah ebay got caught, but it was no big deal, a few employees got tossed under the bus. In certain sectors - if you cross one company, no other one will hire you because of interlocking boards, JVs, supply chains, etc.
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Doctor Strange 3 years ago
NDA's do not cover anything illegal. You absolutely can and SHOULD report any company violating laws, regardless of any NDA you signed. If they try to bring you to court, the NDA absolutely can be ruled unenforceable.
Teufel Wulf 3 years ago
You serious under estimate how much law enforcement cares about this. Relative of mine reported the defense contractor he worked for all sorts of BAD stuff - fraud, sending restricted military docs out of the US for translation, etc. FBi/DoJ looks at it and decided the company not worth prosecuting because the owner had sunk most of the ill gotten gains into stuff that could not be recovered (food, vacations, shitty timeshare, etc.)
Load More Replies... A.M. Pierre 3 years ago
They did a home renovation show in my neighborhood where "homeless and needy" families competed to get a home. The "heartwarming twist" was they all got homes. Yay! Except... none of them were needy. Or homeless. The family that got the home near me never spent a day in it. They immediately sold everything that wasn't nailed down and then sold the house, as they already had a home. Also, the production crew came in and wrecked the house before filming to make it more of a transformation - they busted windows, pulled down gutters, killed the lawn, broke the garage door, you name it.
Freya the Wanderer 3 years ago (edited)
So-called reality shows are hella fake. I have read many articles revealing what takes place off-camera. A lot of situations are staged, people are coached, etc. Plus, people behave differently when they know they're on camera.
Load More Replies... iblowsheep 3 years ago
most of these don't mention the company, or location so how in the hell is it "spilling corporate secrets?"
Teufel Wulf 3 years ago
Even if the NDA is expired, big companies can still make a leaker life hell. Look at the stuff eBay did to a journalist who was getting leaked info... Mailing dead animals, bribing local police to harass them, etc. Yeah ebay got caught, but it was no big deal, a few employees got tossed under the bus. In certain sectors - if you cross one company, no other one will hire you because of interlocking boards, JVs, supply chains, etc.
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