I had some hire thugs come after me recently outside of Whiterun. One had a note on them indicating that someone named Bor wanted them to teach me a lesson. I have no bounty and the total bounty I have paid is 100 gold. I had to look up Bor. It seems that I had a 40 gold bounty for stealing a pick in a mine. So this female orc does not like me taking her pick and sends some goons after me. I even left the pick in the mine because I was loaded with ebony. I didn't know orcs were so sensitive about their pick axes. I think I have stolen maybe a handful of items in over 130 hours of play.

Happened to me too while doing the side quest to go save that Whiterun folk in a fort. I start attacking and suddenly 3 folks coming out of nowhere start whacking me. I'm like WTF. I reload and don't attack and wait and surely the 3 folks are humming down the road towards me. So I dispatch them then resume the attack and I found that note too on one of the thugs but have no clue where I stole or did anything wrong before that point.

Same with the Thalmor thugs going around to get you on the roads.

Unfortunately the one who sent the goons doesn't acknowledge it. It;s still a great feature and surprised me the first time it happened.

Yeah Bor kept sending thugs after me for taking a pick axe. It seems I'm going to have to pay her a visit.

This game mechanic works quite well. Normally there are no repercussions on stealing items in games (if you do it undetected). Having to weigh up the fact that taking that guys food means three heavies are going to be breaking your skull, makes you think quite hard of wither you'll take the item. I like this a lot.

I think it is cool the game sends enforcers after your for committing a crime.

I just wish we had the option to make amends for our deeds.

Or slap the guy down for having the audacity to take offense at our petty larceny.

Yes, I've had this happen once to me. Turns out they were sent by one of those obnoxious nobles travelling the roads, because I stole everything from their pockets after they insulted me for the 99999999th time.

The Thalmor have attacked me a few times, until they finally got a note with them saying how much of a threat I am to them and yadda yadda. I was very honoured to read it, I'm still carrying the note as a keepsake. I'll gladly take them on from now on. ^^ Before the note, they seemed to be a random encounter, as they were replaced by something else every time I reloaded (when I was utterly destroyed by them, yesh :/).

Another, somewhat more annoying attack is that of the assassin. I meet him/her quite a lot, who was sent by Astrid every time (I already know who she is). Well, on the other hand, it's a good sparring partner for my dual-wielding sword character. And it's not the same assassin anymore either. In the beginning, it always was a female Khajiit, but now I've met an Argonian and other races too. So it's still cool. Only too bad I can't kill that Astrid, nobody should send assassins after my nice character!