From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsob storyˈsob ˌstory noun [countable] informal SYMPATHIZEa story, especially one that is not true, that someone tells you in order to make you feel sorry for them a sob story about how she lost all her money
Examples from the Corpus
sob story• But I wouldn't consider myself to be a sob story.• In fact, he was brutally cynical, ruthlessly efficient and hardened to every sob story under the sun. 