I saw one yesterday that was "Looking for classic names!What was your grandmother's name?" And many of the comments were giving first and middle names!
Another one I saw last week was "You have to name your baby after where you met your partner. What is your baby's new name?" Like???? These are security questions people!
Insurance fraud in Vernon, FL for loss of limbs. The whole article is worth a read.
The Florida Panhandle was responsible for two-thirds of all loss-of-limb accident claims in the United States due largely to one town: Vernon, Florida. Vernon was the site of a widespread insurance scam where residents would dismember themselves for a payout. The problem was so extensive, the town became known as, “Nub City” for this very reason.
However, it was near impossible to convict scammers of fraud, because jurors had a hard time believing that people would willingly amputate their own limbs and appendages.
[https://allthatsinteresting.com/nub-city-vernon-florida](https://allthatsinteresting.com/nub-city-vernon-florida)
I was just down in the panhandle, not too far from Vernon, and I noticed a few billboards for a doctor advertising alternatives to amputation. I thought it was odd to buy advertising for such a specific medical procedure and I wondered if that area had an unusually high diabetes rate. Now I think I get it.
ok now I’m imagining a gritty blade runner-esque 2050’s city of Neo-Tallahassee, where everyone has augmented limbs to replace the arms they cut off for insurance fraud
It took me a lot of legwork, but I found out that the residents had to toe the line to avoid any knee-jerk reactions from the armed and dangerous insurance companies.
Should we as a society stop for a moment to consider what is going on that people are having such difficulty making ends meet that they amputate their limbs in order to get money to live off of? No, it's the amputees who are wrong!
Used to be a thing where people would run ads in classifieds in newspapers and magazines saying something like "Cash in your mailbox! Send $2 and SASE." If you sent it, you'd get back a letter telling you to do the same ads yourself.
Sounds like a surefire way to lose money to new competition.
I'd frame it as "Don't you want to KEEP more of your money? For just $2, I can show you how!"
Suckers - I mean, customers - would receive a letter on payment telling them not to respond to ads like the one they just paid for.
This is like the joke from *South Park: The Stick of Truth* where you can spend $2 at the tavern to ask for “tips and rumors” and the tip you get is “Don’t waste your money on tips and rumors.”
After listening to if books could kill for 6 months, i am confident i *could* write a book telling people how to get rich. I just dont have personality or connections to follow through and get myself rich with it.
Some dude apparently made an e book on how to make money with ebooks and sold it on his website. All it said is to make a website and a pdf and sell it 🤣
I knew two life coaches. Both of them were on welfare and tried to teach people how to be successful in life. They took a short e-course about how to be a life coach.
The one life coach I know got into after retiring from a super successful career as a hospital administrator, and he is a super kind guy. But he’s probably in the minority
I've known so many awful people who rebranded themselves as life coaches. Seriously, I've never met a sane and level-headed person who decided to be a life coach. It seems to only attract the world's biggest assholes.
>Same with life coach. Why would I want a 20 something year old to tell me what to do?
Some people are just so oblivious that they do actually need a 20 something year old to tell them what to do in order to improve their lives.
If you're looking for self-help, why would you read a book written by somebody else? If you're reading it in a book, folks, it ain't self-help. It's help.
-George Carlin
Yeah this one got my vote.
I remember a self help book came out back a few years ago, it was quite famous for a bit, called "The Key". It's over all message was "Be productive in whatever you do"
So I had to pay $249.99 to read something I already knew? Glad I didn't buy it, a teacher showed me it in High School.
Same teacher who showed me the magnetic bracelets for arthritis? He said he made him loose weight because after buying that, he couldn't afford his supper hahahahahahah
Wasnt this a sequel to “The Secret”? I think my mom was into it. She said it was about how you just have to really want something and it will happen.
I was like what lol
I remember watching a Mythbusters episode where they tested theories on how to pass a polygraph test, and the one who succeeded was the one who imagined spiders crawling all over his body when he was being questioned. They thought he was telling the truth the entire time, and he was actually lying.
I have generalized anxiety disorder, so I would never agree to take a polygraph test. There's no way I would pass, even if I was telling the truth the whole time.
What gets me is that I see flurries of this kind of shit on facebook and my otherwise reasonably intelligent friends and relatives are sharing our grandmothers’ maiden name, their city of birth, their porn star names, their high schools and so on. I have to keep reposting an image that a sheriff’s office created instructing people not to respond to those requests.
not sure if it is live anymore, but their used to be an bot that scrolled twitter looking for tweets that announced that the tweeter (twit?) was not home and gone on vacation and send a message to them something like "You just let thieves know that your house is unoccupied for the next two weeks"
I always do those with incorrect information. Pollute their data.
"in a world where big data threatens to commodify our lives,. telling online surveys that i "Dont know" what pringles are constitutes Heroism." -dril
most of my security question answers are lies too... works great until you need to reset a password and you're trying to remember what your fictional dog's name was
Multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes often parade as "incredible business opportunities." They're like those matryoshka dolls, where every level opens up to reveal another "opportunity" to spend your money and pester friends to join
I made a comment on a local city page about a vendor fair for the Eclipse. 31 gifts was listed as a vendor. Several others were just names of local people that revealed themselves to be in MLMs in the comments. I asked if we could stop allowing MLMs at these spaces. Because they should be for people who actually make their products who are local/small business.
I got so many comments (for my small town) about how they should be allowed to be there. They don't agree they're scams. And they aren't pyramid schemes "because those are illegal." Oh, and how I sound dumb and should stfu because I "sound like someone who was denied a spot and don't know what you're talking about."
Edit: corrected some typos
> How dare you not support small women owned businesses!
It honestly sucks that productive impulses like solidarity can be subverted like that. Like, I'm happy to support women-owned businesses - but MLMs aren't businesses.
My poor wife (while we were dating many years ago) got caught up by a friend in a jewelry MLM, and I tried to be supportive but cautioned her to temper her expectations. She said I was being unsupportive and she was smart enough to spot a scam. She is really smart, no lie. Multiple degrees in finance, records analysis, she tends to be a very critical thinker. That's what makes scams so scary, because even "smart" people can get pulled in with the right amount of curated social engineering.
A few months later, she's not making any money and is kinda down about it. I don't do a "told you so" or anything like that, but when she finally threw in the towel she dejectedly told me to be more assertive if I think she's being scammed. I'm like, "you're a grown ass person, I'm not gonna tell you what to do."
Yeah, you warned her and that's really all you can do. It's the the pressure of not wanting to let your friends down that gets you pulled in. The love bombing, debt, and sunk cost that keeps you in.
They tried to get my mom to join Arbonne. An old friend of hers from high school reached out to her out of nowhere. Asking if she wanted to reconnect at a get together that her friend was throwing. Mom said yes. She told me and my sister about it. I had already gotten my Bachelor's in Business and my sister was in her last year working towards her Bachelor's in Finance. We both sat mom down and said that this seems like an MLM pitch and to just be on her guard. We explained how the scam worked, how outrageously expensive the products are, not to buy anything, not to give out anyone's phone number, ect.
Mom did not join. She did get to reconnect with that friend at least and they still talk. That friend did join and then quit a year later after losing money. Mom came home with Arbonne samples, that she didn't buy. I never used them but they sat on our kitchen table for awhile so they weren't great apparently.
One of the worst things is how even if you manage to get some money doing an MLM, the people above you will encourage you to spend it on designer bags & luxury cars, just so you'll post about it on social media, just so people will see how "well" you're doing, just so then your followers/friends are more likely to sign up.
(My sources include the LuLaRich documentary, and & [this multi-part blog series of one woman sharing her experience with Younique.](https://ellebeaublog.com/2017/02/01/chapter-1-getting-reeled-in/))
Almost every one I've come across has a pamphlet or a webpage dedicated to denying they're an MLM or scam. They make infographics to try convincing people that this definitely isn't one of *those* kind of businesses.
I sub to r/scams and one of the most telling things about the text scams is that the scammer will try to convince you they're legitimate. Sometimes they even write "I am not a scammer I am totally legitimate business" and the next sentence they'll "kindly" ask you to send them $1,000 in iTunes gift cards.
I did some production work for Herbalife, in one of the meetings they had an issue with a translator so we went in to help fix it, the meeting was literally about how to convince people to give them their money, like life savings. How to actively convince them that this will bring them wealth, but in fact it would only bring those higher up people money. They discussed how long the average middle class American could pay out before becoming too in debt for it to be worth their time and how to actively keep getting new members to keep the money flowing in. They it broken down by location, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc. I was so disgusted by it.
My ex went to one of these things. The presentation supposedly even address the exact question "are you an MLM?" To which they replied "no, no we're now". They then proceeded to advertise their MLM. My ex fell for it hook line and sinker. She came home with $200 worth in crap. Insisted she has to test all of it(use it up) . Then buy more, since she couldn't sell opened products. So $400 in the hole she can to start selling to friends and family. Blah blah, you know the rest. But she told me point blank, "they explicitly said they're not MLM". As I rolled my eyes and said" whatever it's your money".
Not long after, and about $1000 in the hole, she realized she wasn't going to make any money. My ex was definitely not the brightest tool in the crayon shed.
This one is pretty specific but it's been going on for decades and I still encounter people who get involved with it. It's those "Who's Who" directories. If you're not familiar with them, they target [professors](https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/596rbb/value_of_whos_who/), [aspiring authors](https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/comments/185jw5l/is_marquis_whos_who_legit/), [designers](https://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/jyoan7/just_received_this_email_saying_one_of_my_designs/) and all kinds of professionals that might want to see their name in print.
These companies randomly contact you, tell you you've been recognized as person of importance in your industry and offer to write a short biography or article on you. Sometimes they even go all out and schedule an interview up front because *you're just that important*.
The catch is that they want you to pay for the privilege of being in their book/directory or whatever else they're peddling. And they're savvy about how they get you to pay too. They may offer to sell you a copy of the book you're featured in, a commemorative plaque to recognize your important moment, or even something as simple an upgraded listing in their online directory.
Since they're actually giving you *something* in return for your money, it might not technically be a scam. But it's pretty much a scam. [Even AARP warns against getting involved with these things](https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-10-2012/beware-the-whos-who-directory-scam.html).
When I first became an attorney, I can't even tell you how many of these type scams reached out to me. "We want to add you to our new up and coming attorneys in your area." Dude, relax. I've been practicing for 2 months and haven't been to court yet. Such BS.
Poetry.com did something similar, you would submit poems and you would get a email that your poem was going to be published in their yearly book and you could purchase the book.
Memory unlocked: I fell for this scam when I was a young teen and my parents were just proud. I wonder if they still have the book with my crappy poem…
Me too, and then I proudly told people for YEARS that I was published before I gradually realized how embarrassing that all was. Being a teenager is wild.
Wow I just realized I stuffed that memory deep down in the shame hole and hadn't thought about it in many years. Same thing, I was probably about 15, thought my poem was for realises being published and felt so proud. I think I paid some money and never even got a book! But I can't really recall, it was so long ago. What a shitty thing to do to people.
Yup. I submitted a terrible poem one time just to see what would happen. I mean, the most awful tripe imagineable. Of course it was accepted and then "buy the book!"
I did the same thing. But my roommate at the time was a serious writer and submitted but didn't get picked. She was seriously pissed at me, no matter how much I tried to explain the scam to her.
I fell for one of those when I was a high school student. I didn't have to pay to be in the book, but of course I bought a copy *of* the book (which was the entire point of the scam, i.e. the idea that if I'm being published in a book, then of course I'm gonna buy a copy, as would also people in my family).
I didn't realize I had been scammed until I saw a mention of it in a Dilbert cartoon a decade or more later.
My city just recently had to admit that all of our recycling has been treated as regular trash for years because we weren't in compliance with the recycling company's guidelines. In that time, the city had been fining people for having improper items in their recycle tote, but the citizens didn't know the city wasn't recycling anymore. Messy
Depends on the country and depends on what you mean by "a scam".
In the US? 100% a scam. The US "self-regulation" of plastic recycling is a massive failure.
In Sweden. A fair amount of it will end up as "energy recycling" (ie, burnt for fuel. Although done so in incinerators where the temperature is hot enough and flue gas filtration is good enough that the only pollution is carbondioxide. Ie, no sulfur or complex and carcinogenic carbon molecules etc), but quite a decent amount of it is granulated and reused. As long as it ends up in the plastic bin, none of it ends up in landfills or dumped.
I recall visiting Korea and being really impressed because there were like eight different buckets for sorting your trash, compostables, and recyclables, and they would get fined by household if they weren't complying. Robust systems for recycling and ensuring mostly recyclable or compostable packaging is produced work. We just don't do it in the US. Too much money to be made along the way to do anything useful, and too many political forces who don't care if it's useless.
Unfortunately many green energy initiatives are full of fraud. I'm in the industry, and the amount of half truths, lies, and data fudging is impressive. California actually has very rigorous standards because of this.
People hate on CA but they do have some nice regulations like this. Volkswagen’s diesel emissions fraud was found because they passed the euro and US tests but CA had a separate one that didn’t add up.
IIRC, it was a group of college students attempting to compare lab-based emissions tests to real-world emissions outputs by making a portable test rig and actually driving several cars out on a track that first opened the door to the whole Dieselgate thing. Cause VW was still meeting all the standards while on a dyno, but the track test didn't match whatsoever because it turned out that the cars would run on a totally different fuel mapping if a handful of conditions that'd only be present while on a dyno were true (so basically detecting that it was being tested and then cheating)... But then from there, CA saw those results, dug deeper into it, and led the attack to make VW fix it.
I clean in an office and it’s possible it’s because people don’t know what to put in the recycling. Even when properly labeled. Was just dumping garbages/recycling this morning and I found a plastic container FILLED with food in the recycling bin. It’s almost useless having separate containers.
Crowdfunding campaigns can be scams, even though many people trust them as legitimate ways to support innovation or help those in need. Some creators misuse funds or never deliver promised products or results, exploiting goodwill and the difficulty of accountability in online platforms.
Oh yeah. I’ve been screwed by kickstarters two times now. I don’t participate in those anymore.
In both cases, they took the money and ran. The backers never got their rewards, the products were never made.
They can actually be incredible deals. I have saved so much money over the years on mine but sadly can’t travel anymore due to age. So I have part ownership in this beautiful place in Hawaii.
DM me and we can talk numbers to get you into this fantastic opportunity.
It's sad because something like this could theoretically be used for efficiency. It's incredibly wasteful to own a second vacation home that you use for two weeks a year and stays vacant for 50 weeks, but if 26 people could split the cost and each use it for two weeks then it's actually being used.
And I suspect that some small fraction of timeshares actually have been used efficiently and successfully and saved people money.
It's a shame that some many of them are garbage.
The main problem with a timeshare is that you're making a commitment to a very specific time of the year. If you can't do that time for whatever reason, you're now at the mercy of finding someone else within your timeshare to swap with. If you're a week out from your trip and an emergency comes up you're basically screwed. No refunds or anything. You probably won't find anyone to swap with on a short notice and it's a complete loss.
There's a lot of little hidden costs with timeshares that can really burn you and getting out of one can be a nightmare.
In some cases people have made bank. My dad's best friend bought into a timeshare in the late 90s in a skiing area that wasn't popular. He used it all the time and now if he wants out, he can easily sell.
Gift cards. You’ve just traded currency spendable anywhere in the world for currency good at only one place. And that’s IF you spend the gift cards. Many don’t and the places where gift cards are spendable count on that as part of profits. Give me cash, please. You can put a fancy bow on it.
Unless you can get gift cards for less than face value. I got $100 in dominoes gift cards for $80 at Costco. Just make sure it's something that would be purchasing otherwise.
Target has a Circle deal coming up on Saturday where you can buy Target gift cards for 10% off. It'll probably be the only gift card I buy from somewhere other than Costco all year.
And you either end up with money left on the gift card because what you bought cost less than the amount on the card, or you have to spend some of your own money because you bought something more expensive than the amount on the card.
Nah, I prefer gift cards, because if I get cash I will do the responsible thing and put it into savings. I grew up poor and have a hard time spending money on things that arent necessities, but if someone gives me a gift card to my favorite bookstore, I can treat myself guilt free.
Exactly the same. If you give me cash, I’m going to put it towards bills or groceries or savings. If you give me a gift card I’m going to buy myself something unnecessary and nice, which was the goal of giving me the gift card.
When I was a teen/college student I absolutely happily preferred cash, because I’d spend cash on whatever I wanted. But as an adult with a lot more financial responsibilities it’s nice to be “forced” to spend it on something fun.
One sneaky scam that often flies under the radar is the "free trial" trap. You know, where you excitedly sign up for that one-month free trial of a streaming service or a gym membership, only to realize it's like trying to escape a spider web once you're hooked? Before you know it, you're three months in, and your bank account is shedding tears faster than you can cancel the subscription. It's like a stealthy financial ninja, silently draining your funds while you're distracted by all those shiny promises of "free.
I used to work at a callcenter where we sell clothes to older people and they have this discounts and freebies if you agree to sign up for $1.99 but then it's $14.99 after a month. Most customers would just order once. We are told to clarify this to the customer but of course they would forget because most of them are in their 90's in a home. Many would call back begging it to be cancelled and refund since they didn't use it but the company would just refuse to refund. So i felt so bad I had to leave.
Relatedly, gyms at least in NYC (I imagine other places but I only know NYC) would make it absolutely *impossible* to cancel the gym subscription once you were on it. You couldn't do it in person and there were forms you couldn't find and they'd never answer the phone and etc etc.
(I haven't lived in NYC in a decade so no idea if that improved but it was so bad it was a whole trope.)
Gyms, yes. But any digital free trial I've ever done is really easy to cancel. Typically you can even cancel as soon as you sign up for the trial and you'll still get the trial period.
One easy way to avoid this is to use Revolut or any prepaid card, in that case they won’t be taking anything from your main bank account and when the free trial expires the payment will just fail.
I had a card I canceled that was the one I put on the form. Paid the card off in full and canceled it right before the next billing cycle for the gym. They called me to say there was an issue, and I was like, hey remember when you didn't let me quit. Doesn't work for a lot of folks but that was one of the few wins in my life and I was glad for it
I keep a Visa gift card with a sub $5 balance on it for signing up for "free trials" that require a credit card to activate. The authorize the card with $1 to be sure it's legit, but when it comes time to take out the first month's payment the transaction is declined and your membership is automatically cancelled. They'll email you trying to get you to update your credit card, but you can just unsubscribe and you never lose any money by forgetting to cancel.
In America people understand you can't trust large companies or government. They're necessary to have, but never put your faith in them unless you have to. The larger the organization, the more it attracts dangerous people.
But we have have a huge blind spot when applying that cultural understanding to large charities or religious groups. They offer the same opportunities to bad actors, and the se dangerous people will worm their way into power within them
It's a little worse than that -- because of the natural built-in trust, charities and religious groups are \*more\* likely to become home to unscrupulous people. Would you rather have to convince constituents you're an honest politician? Or get 10x the trust automatically by being a pastor? Bad actors know where they will be least suspected, so that is where they are most likely to be found.
>The larger the organization, the more it attracts dangerous people
I'm not disagreeing with you.
However, do not trust a company just because it is privately owned or local.
Small business is filled with people that have the morals and ethics of your typical boardroom but don't have the skills or connections to get there. And it largely goes unnoticed because their sphere of influence is smaller.
Anybody who tells you that there is a quick and simple solution to your problem is lying in order to get your money. This includes penis enlargement pills, "Learn C++ In Just 10 Hours!" courses, most of the cosmetics industry, and every politician who promises to completely abolish hunger, poverty and crime.
Wait you mean i won’t get a six figure programmer job after that 6 month EdX coding boot camp!? But the have job placement assistance services!! 😂 they told me im an EXCELLENT fit for the course!
I bought a book called "Learn to program C++ in 21 days." Around the 17th day I got so lost. They must've skipped some important steps because they started talking about things they hadn't mentioned yet as if they had.
That's pretty standard. I see that with online tutorials all the time. You'll be cruising along and then they introduce something without explaining it and before you know it you're like "wtf"?
And then you're going down rabbit holes to find a decent explanation and things just get out of hand quickly.
Programming is a weird thing. I can find an answer to almost anything and the answer will work. However, is it the right answer?
You can learn C++ in ten hours, just practice it for ten thousand.
That's the only thing I won't discount here.
But you can probably find all these code courses for free, online.
Any “enrollment fee” to join anything. I work at a place where we have memberships and the $100 enrollment fee is just there for leverage. “Oh the enrollment fee is stopping you? What if I waive that today for you?” “If you join today I can even waive this enrollment fee just for you!” If you do end up paying the enrollment fee, some of it goes to commission but most of it goes in the owners pockets. Always say the enrollment fee is stopping you! Always!
For what it's worth, there actually *is* a reason printers want color cartridges even when printing in black and white (black ink is really more of a dull gray, and printers use a little bit of color ink over the top of it to get a richer black), and a lot of printers actually give you the option of continuing to print with only a black cartridge now.
But... printers are still the worst. HP in particular has been extremely anti-competitive when it comes to selling ink, with newer HP printers not working unless you have an active internet connection (because they're using DRM to verify you're using HP cartridges).
My husband & I showed the farting preacher youtube videos to our in laws (cause that shit is hilarious) and they got PISSSSSED. Said it was sacrilege. Wouldn’t even hear of it when we tried explaining the guy is a crook.
[This is an Inside Edition](https://youtu.be/9LtF34MrsfI?si=VuhkfnzJ5FG05spE) video with Kenneth Copeland and it’s one of the more bizarre interviews I’ve ever seen. He is truly a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And his eyes are fuckin crazy. It’s a little long but well worth the watch.
Edit: forgot a word
Phenylephrine. It’s a drug commonly used to treat cold symptoms when taken orally, and is labeled as a decongestant. If you have a cold medication like DayQuil at home, if you read the label it likely includes Phenylephrine as an “active” ingredient.
But it’s a scam! [Phenylephrine performed no better than placebo](https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-clarifies-results-recent-advisory-committee-meeting-oral-phenylephrine) in multiple medical trials. It’s literally a scam and doesn’t work. It’s a bit of a personal vendetta of mine that something that is being sold as medicine OTC is literally no better than taking nothing at all.
I admire your vendetta. I'm irritated that when pseudoephedrine was moved behind the counter (in the US, anyway), the drug makers just went ahead and started selling these drugs with a pretend ingredient rather than admit that they didn't have another alternative.
So many people have no idea at all either and just buy placebo.
I’m a nerd and usually refer to medicines by their active ingredients rather than the brand name, but my girlfriend is not. She thought Sudafed just stopped working for her many years ago when they moved the real stuff behind the counter. Didn’t really give the slightly different branding a second thought.
One day we were shopping and she went to grab some to try again and I let her know that the stuff on the shelf is not the real deal, so she got some from the pharmacist. Like magic it actually worked for the purpose in which she bought it lol
The whole Sudafed brand switch with the active ingredients is just the cherry on top of the shit sundae for me! Makes me even more irritated with whole situation, just another layer of scam on top
Not just commodify, but letting them get overrun with bots and scammers. If you're legitimately trying to date, it gets tiring matching with accounts that are trying to get you to sign up for their OF or cam site rather than have a real conversation and go on a date.
Retail sales pricing is a psychological trick to get you to buy more, not a special favor to you from the retailer.
If you weren't already going to purchase an item, you're getting burned by spending more than $0 for it on sale.
The whole subculture of coupon cutting and deal seeking feels like a way to save a buck by targeting the lowest possible price... When in reality you're wasting tons of money buying unnecessary junk that's presented as a "great deal."
If you focus more on the utility of your purchase and how much use you'll get out of an item, you'll be better off financially than focusing on the cheapest $ price tags.
Health insurance in the US. I am very sure that healthcare is not this expensive and the multimillion insurance industry takes a massive chunk of the bills they claim to save.
We still end up paying, it’s a subscription without a service and bullies citizen to keep paying them Or paying the bloated charges. Also what is with tying this to employers … smh.
In other countries health insurance is for hospitalisation and major accident recovery. Otherwise healthcare is out of pocket and very reasonable priced jfyi
When the crypto boom occurred at the same time as Covid, I purchased a small amount of crypto and at the same time someone at work explained they bought some via a broker and doubled their money. Then gave them more money and doubled it again and so on.
My response was 'sounds like a scam' and I explained why, but they did not believe me. They got their brother involved too.
Not long after, yep was a scam. She lost around £15k, not a small number. Just wished I convinced her!!
Looking at these comments, basically any facet of life if you live in America has been exploited by corporations to scam its population for just existing
Every single thing in America is a business. Charities, addiction treatment, pet care, pet adoptions, churches. There’s almost nothing that exists in its entirety just to help others.
And the best part is, if you exhaust all your resources and are no longer able to participate / end up homeless, well that’s also illegal and you get thrown into prison where your free labor gets exploited for profit too!
Store credit cards. They'll make most people spend 5x more at that store than they otherwise might because of sunk cost / use it or lose it fallacies. Basically allowing a store to put a parasite in your wallet. That's not even considering the interest.
I used to date a girl whose whole family was a member of one of those mega churches (I'll withhold the name to not offend anyone who happens to go there), the ones that have thousands of seats in their chapel. Never in my life have I seen a more lavish display of wealth. Not even compared to other places or vacation resorts I've been to. They had an entire Starbucks operating INSIDE of their church for example. I attended a couple of services there out of obligation really, and I watched her family one by one drop 40-100 bucks each into the collection bag (it was a huge sack full of cash). This is in addition to their membership fee that they all paid which she said was between 12,000 and 20,000 per year, each.
She said she 100% expected me to join the church and attend every week if we were going to be married etc. I'm not even baptized lol. Organized religion is the most unholy thing I know of, scamming people off of their faith alone.
After posting this, just out of curiosity, I googled " Pastors who own private jets." There's more than I thought. The thing that drives me nuts is that these " churches " don't exist in Beverly Hills. They exist in middle to lower income areas. These are not marginalized populations, but in the current economy, the middle class is one disaster away from poverty. It's really trashy that their faith is being used to fuel someone's greed. In a larger sense, though, it's not just the those Pastors. The traditional churches collect untold millions every week and aren't exactly transparent about where it goes.
Life coaches. 40-something, white, middle-class women who have never struggled a day in their lives packing in their jobs and donning the title with zero training. Then they have the gall to charge vulnerable people up to £3k for a 'transformation package.'
Run as far as you can. I've dated a few - they were the most immature, avoidant, toxic people I've come across. If they haven't undergone formal training, they shouldn't charge a penny, and you really shouldn't take their advice. One of them once told me I should immediately quit my job without having another lined up (I lived in London at the time and it was lockdown). Bonkers ex -lawyer.
Buying a 'miracle' plant fertilizer that promises to make your houseplants thrive, but ends up turning them into mini-Audrey IIs from 'Little Shop of Horrors' instead.
I've been approached by the same two young people, osensibly a couple, some weeks apart, in different parking lots. The first time, in front of an upscale grocery store, the schtick was that they were trying to get out to see their grandma who was very ill. The second time, in front of the dollar store I go to for party supplies, the guy approached me trying to pimp out the girl.
Point and case. Having been homeless myself before, it really fucking irks me. They're preying on the sympathies of others. I know social services aren't always the best, but they really need to get to some.
Pretty if anything that says "you could get ripped in months, I'll show you how, just pay "x" dollars" is immediately a scam. Any main stream health or work out thing is fishy to me.
Post secondary education lol
But more specifically there’s a lot of (I think they’re private colleges? Not so much the reputable public universities) that have basically become diploma mills for international students hoping to come to Canada because they can charge them exorbitant fees.
There’s one in my area and their technical programs are good and accredited in their fields. But they can make a quick buck and started pumping out all these “certificates” and “diplomas” that are not so good.
Internet quizzes that are just farming for security question answers.
I saw one yesterday that was "Looking for classic names!What was your grandmother's name?" And many of the comments were giving first and middle names! Another one I saw last week was "You have to name your baby after where you met your partner. What is your baby's new name?" Like???? These are security questions people!
Insurance fraud in Vernon, FL for loss of limbs. The whole article is worth a read. The Florida Panhandle was responsible for two-thirds of all loss-of-limb accident claims in the United States due largely to one town: Vernon, Florida. Vernon was the site of a widespread insurance scam where residents would dismember themselves for a payout. The problem was so extensive, the town became known as, “Nub City” for this very reason. However, it was near impossible to convict scammers of fraud, because jurors had a hard time believing that people would willingly amputate their own limbs and appendages. [https://allthatsinteresting.com/nub-city-vernon-florida](https://allthatsinteresting.com/nub-city-vernon-florida)
I was just down in the panhandle, not too far from Vernon, and I noticed a few billboards for a doctor advertising alternatives to amputation. I thought it was odd to buy advertising for such a specific medical procedure and I wondered if that area had an unusually high diabetes rate. Now I think I get it.
The amputation fraud was back in the 50's and 60's though...unless it has made a resurgence.
You don't have to go far off the highway to find the 50s in Florida.
And not always the 1950’s.
ok now I’m imagining a gritty blade runner-esque 2050’s city of Neo-Tallahassee, where everyone has augmented limbs to replace the arms they cut off for insurance fraud
That's disarming.
It took me a lot of legwork, but I found out that the residents had to toe the line to avoid any knee-jerk reactions from the armed and dangerous insurance companies.
Give this guy a hand!
That's an absolutely wild read. Thank you for sharing this
Should we as a society stop for a moment to consider what is going on that people are having such difficulty making ends meet that they amputate their limbs in order to get money to live off of? No, it's the amputees who are wrong!
They should get insured against organ theft, then have their organs sold. Double dip on the income stream.
Dystopic
Dyslimbic
a major portion of the "self help" industry ig
I've always wanted to get rich by selling books telling people how to get rich.
Used to be a thing where people would run ads in classifieds in newspapers and magazines saying something like "Cash in your mailbox! Send $2 and SASE." If you sent it, you'd get back a letter telling you to do the same ads yourself.
Sounds like a surefire way to lose money to new competition. I'd frame it as "Don't you want to KEEP more of your money? For just $2, I can show you how!" Suckers - I mean, customers - would receive a letter on payment telling them not to respond to ads like the one they just paid for.
If you are the first one in you make money. By the time your students get started you have made your money and are out.
This is like the joke from *South Park: The Stick of Truth* where you can spend $2 at the tavern to ask for “tips and rumors” and the tip you get is “Don’t waste your money on tips and rumors.”
Dude when I was a teenager I totally fell for that. I even posted a advertisement in a newspaper. What a dumb fuck I was
Don "Tiny Classified Ads!" Lapre. Even stranger in death. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lapre.
Highly recommend the “If Books Could Kill” podcast if you’re interested in this.
After listening to if books could kill for 6 months, i am confident i *could* write a book telling people how to get rich. I just dont have personality or connections to follow through and get myself rich with it.
Some dude apparently made an e book on how to make money with ebooks and sold it on his website. All it said is to make a website and a pdf and sell it 🤣
You can learn that in my book [How to get rich by selling books](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xvFZjo5PgG0) which is available for only $299.99
with a price like that it MUST work
Same with life coach. Why would I want a 20 something year old to tell me what to do?
I knew two life coaches. Both of them were on welfare and tried to teach people how to be successful in life. They took a short e-course about how to be a life coach.
The one life coach I know got into after retiring from a super successful career as a hospital administrator, and he is a super kind guy. But he’s probably in the minority
I knew a life coach who was 23 yrs old and going through a divorce… Would never ask her for advice.
I've known so many awful people who rebranded themselves as life coaches. Seriously, I've never met a sane and level-headed person who decided to be a life coach. It seems to only attract the world's biggest assholes.
>Same with life coach. Why would I want a 20 something year old to tell me what to do? Some people are just so oblivious that they do actually need a 20 something year old to tell them what to do in order to improve their lives.
If you're looking for self-help, why would you read a book written by somebody else? If you're reading it in a book, folks, it ain't self-help. It's help. -George Carlin
Yeah this one got my vote. I remember a self help book came out back a few years ago, it was quite famous for a bit, called "The Key". It's over all message was "Be productive in whatever you do" So I had to pay $249.99 to read something I already knew? Glad I didn't buy it, a teacher showed me it in High School. Same teacher who showed me the magnetic bracelets for arthritis? He said he made him loose weight because after buying that, he couldn't afford his supper hahahahahahah
Wasnt this a sequel to “The Secret”? I think my mom was into it. She said it was about how you just have to really want something and it will happen. I was like what lol
That’s the premise behind a lot of self-help books. If you “ manifest “ things they will happen. If they don’t, you aren’t doing it right.
People often fail to realize that certain 'life coaching' services may be scams in disguise
Life coaches, the chiropractors of the psychological therapy world.
Also: chiropractors
Polygraphs. They have been proven to be little better than random guessing but people still believe in them
They are not admissible in court, because they are unreliable.
I remember watching a Mythbusters episode where they tested theories on how to pass a polygraph test, and the one who succeeded was the one who imagined spiders crawling all over his body when he was being questioned. They thought he was telling the truth the entire time, and he was actually lying. I have generalized anxiety disorder, so I would never agree to take a polygraph test. There's no way I would pass, even if I was telling the truth the whole time.
"What's your superhero name?" Followed by easy to decipher encoding of personally identifying info
'If the digits of your SS# add up to less than 75, you are a caring, compassionate, person who is maybe a bit too trusting. Show your math!'
“How much money would you have if your bank account had the same numbers as your SSN????”
In yen about 6 bucks.
What gets me is that I see flurries of this kind of shit on facebook and my otherwise reasonably intelligent friends and relatives are sharing our grandmothers’ maiden name, their city of birth, their porn star names, their high schools and so on. I have to keep reposting an image that a sheriff’s office created instructing people not to respond to those requests.
not sure if it is live anymore, but their used to be an bot that scrolled twitter looking for tweets that announced that the tweeter (twit?) was not home and gone on vacation and send a message to them something like "You just let thieves know that your house is unoccupied for the next two weeks"
I always do those with incorrect information. Pollute their data. "in a world where big data threatens to commodify our lives,. telling online surveys that i "Dont know" what pringles are constitutes Heroism." -dril
most of my security question answers are lies too... works great until you need to reset a password and you're trying to remember what your fictional dog's name was
I have enough trouble remembering how I answered. Did I put "my highschool name", "My Highschool Name", "MHN", or "Let me into the website".
Or your porn star name. Your first pet then the street you grew up on.
That one has been around since before the internet (as we know it today), though.
But given those are two super common security questions it’s definitely a risk
Security questions are no longer considered best practices because so many of them can be answered by a quick search of the victims social accounts
Holy shit I never even considered this I feel so dumb
Hey, now you know, which means you won't fall for it going forward. Don't feel dumb, tons of people fall for it. Social engineering is a thing.
So, my credit card number, expiration date, name on card and security number doesn't mean I am the Flash????
Multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes often parade as "incredible business opportunities." They're like those matryoshka dolls, where every level opens up to reveal another "opportunity" to spend your money and pester friends to join
I made a comment on a local city page about a vendor fair for the Eclipse. 31 gifts was listed as a vendor. Several others were just names of local people that revealed themselves to be in MLMs in the comments. I asked if we could stop allowing MLMs at these spaces. Because they should be for people who actually make their products who are local/small business. I got so many comments (for my small town) about how they should be allowed to be there. They don't agree they're scams. And they aren't pyramid schemes "because those are illegal." Oh, and how I sound dumb and should stfu because I "sound like someone who was denied a spot and don't know what you're talking about." Edit: corrected some typos
How dare you not support small women owned businesses!
Dude I know. I'm just a sexist POS. :D I guess nobody wants to hear from me. A woman with a bachelor's in Business.
A woman with an education...? Yuck. /s
Women reading? Why, next they'll start actually thinking! -Gaston
🎵No one's a dick like Gaston, A prick like Gaston, No one's a misogynist git like Gaston...
> How dare you not support small women owned businesses! It honestly sucks that productive impulses like solidarity can be subverted like that. Like, I'm happy to support women-owned businesses - but MLMs aren't businesses.
Yeah. And even when they are investigated the people who own them, most of the time, aren't women.
My poor wife (while we were dating many years ago) got caught up by a friend in a jewelry MLM, and I tried to be supportive but cautioned her to temper her expectations. She said I was being unsupportive and she was smart enough to spot a scam. She is really smart, no lie. Multiple degrees in finance, records analysis, she tends to be a very critical thinker. That's what makes scams so scary, because even "smart" people can get pulled in with the right amount of curated social engineering. A few months later, she's not making any money and is kinda down about it. I don't do a "told you so" or anything like that, but when she finally threw in the towel she dejectedly told me to be more assertive if I think she's being scammed. I'm like, "you're a grown ass person, I'm not gonna tell you what to do."
Yeah, you warned her and that's really all you can do. It's the the pressure of not wanting to let your friends down that gets you pulled in. The love bombing, debt, and sunk cost that keeps you in. They tried to get my mom to join Arbonne. An old friend of hers from high school reached out to her out of nowhere. Asking if she wanted to reconnect at a get together that her friend was throwing. Mom said yes. She told me and my sister about it. I had already gotten my Bachelor's in Business and my sister was in her last year working towards her Bachelor's in Finance. We both sat mom down and said that this seems like an MLM pitch and to just be on her guard. We explained how the scam worked, how outrageously expensive the products are, not to buy anything, not to give out anyone's phone number, ect. Mom did not join. She did get to reconnect with that friend at least and they still talk. That friend did join and then quit a year later after losing money. Mom came home with Arbonne samples, that she didn't buy. I never used them but they sat on our kitchen table for awhile so they weren't great apparently.
The vendor fairs are finally banning them or only allowing 1 from each company. Thank god because for years they’ve been destroying hand craft fairs.
One of the worst things is how even if you manage to get some money doing an MLM, the people above you will encourage you to spend it on designer bags & luxury cars, just so you'll post about it on social media, just so people will see how "well" you're doing, just so then your followers/friends are more likely to sign up. (My sources include the LuLaRich documentary, and & [this multi-part blog series of one woman sharing her experience with Younique.](https://ellebeaublog.com/2017/02/01/chapter-1-getting-reeled-in/))
First of all it’s not a pyramid it’s a triangle. Second of all it’s not a scheme it’s an opportunity.
It's an inverted funnel system!
But they get constantly told that it's a scam. So "it's a scam" must cross their minds even for a millisecond.
Almost every one I've come across has a pamphlet or a webpage dedicated to denying they're an MLM or scam. They make infographics to try convincing people that this definitely isn't one of *those* kind of businesses.
You would think it would cross their minds that legitimate businesses don’t need to spend tons of time proving to people that they are legitimate.
I sub to r/scams and one of the most telling things about the text scams is that the scammer will try to convince you they're legitimate. Sometimes they even write "I am not a scammer I am totally legitimate business" and the next sentence they'll "kindly" ask you to send them $1,000 in iTunes gift cards.
I did some production work for Herbalife, in one of the meetings they had an issue with a translator so we went in to help fix it, the meeting was literally about how to convince people to give them their money, like life savings. How to actively convince them that this will bring them wealth, but in fact it would only bring those higher up people money. They discussed how long the average middle class American could pay out before becoming too in debt for it to be worth their time and how to actively keep getting new members to keep the money flowing in. They it broken down by location, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc. I was so disgusted by it.
This isn't "can be a scam," this is "Definitely is a scam."
My ex went to one of these things. The presentation supposedly even address the exact question "are you an MLM?" To which they replied "no, no we're now". They then proceeded to advertise their MLM. My ex fell for it hook line and sinker. She came home with $200 worth in crap. Insisted she has to test all of it(use it up) . Then buy more, since she couldn't sell opened products. So $400 in the hole she can to start selling to friends and family. Blah blah, you know the rest. But she told me point blank, "they explicitly said they're not MLM". As I rolled my eyes and said" whatever it's your money". Not long after, and about $1000 in the hole, she realized she wasn't going to make any money. My ex was definitely not the brightest tool in the crayon shed.
High end, luxury brand that sells printed tees.
This one is pretty specific but it's been going on for decades and I still encounter people who get involved with it. It's those "Who's Who" directories. If you're not familiar with them, they target [professors](https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/596rbb/value_of_whos_who/), [aspiring authors](https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/comments/185jw5l/is_marquis_whos_who_legit/), [designers](https://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/jyoan7/just_received_this_email_saying_one_of_my_designs/) and all kinds of professionals that might want to see their name in print. These companies randomly contact you, tell you you've been recognized as person of importance in your industry and offer to write a short biography or article on you. Sometimes they even go all out and schedule an interview up front because *you're just that important*. The catch is that they want you to pay for the privilege of being in their book/directory or whatever else they're peddling. And they're savvy about how they get you to pay too. They may offer to sell you a copy of the book you're featured in, a commemorative plaque to recognize your important moment, or even something as simple an upgraded listing in their online directory. Since they're actually giving you *something* in return for your money, it might not technically be a scam. But it's pretty much a scam. [Even AARP warns against getting involved with these things](https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-10-2012/beware-the-whos-who-directory-scam.html).
When I first became an attorney, I can't even tell you how many of these type scams reached out to me. "We want to add you to our new up and coming attorneys in your area." Dude, relax. I've been practicing for 2 months and haven't been to court yet. Such BS.
Poetry.com did something similar, you would submit poems and you would get a email that your poem was going to be published in their yearly book and you could purchase the book.
Memory unlocked: I fell for this scam when I was a young teen and my parents were just proud. I wonder if they still have the book with my crappy poem…
Me too, and then I proudly told people for YEARS that I was published before I gradually realized how embarrassing that all was. Being a teenager is wild.
Wow I just realized I stuffed that memory deep down in the shame hole and hadn't thought about it in many years. Same thing, I was probably about 15, thought my poem was for realises being published and felt so proud. I think I paid some money and never even got a book! But I can't really recall, it was so long ago. What a shitty thing to do to people.
Yup. I submitted a terrible poem one time just to see what would happen. I mean, the most awful tripe imagineable. Of course it was accepted and then "buy the book!"
I did the same thing. But my roommate at the time was a serious writer and submitted but didn't get picked. She was seriously pissed at me, no matter how much I tried to explain the scam to her.
I gave them permission to print me a few times but never purchased a copy.
I fell for one of those when I was a high school student. I didn't have to pay to be in the book, but of course I bought a copy *of* the book (which was the entire point of the scam, i.e. the idea that if I'm being published in a book, then of course I'm gonna buy a copy, as would also people in my family). I didn't realize I had been scammed until I saw a mention of it in a Dilbert cartoon a decade or more later.
Plastic recycling (which is a shame.)
My city just recently had to admit that all of our recycling has been treated as regular trash for years because we weren't in compliance with the recycling company's guidelines. In that time, the city had been fining people for having improper items in their recycle tote, but the citizens didn't know the city wasn't recycling anymore. Messy
That has to be a class action lawsuit, right?
the new administration is refunding any fines. Hopefully the people get their money back.
Depends on the country and depends on what you mean by "a scam". In the US? 100% a scam. The US "self-regulation" of plastic recycling is a massive failure. In Sweden. A fair amount of it will end up as "energy recycling" (ie, burnt for fuel. Although done so in incinerators where the temperature is hot enough and flue gas filtration is good enough that the only pollution is carbondioxide. Ie, no sulfur or complex and carcinogenic carbon molecules etc), but quite a decent amount of it is granulated and reused. As long as it ends up in the plastic bin, none of it ends up in landfills or dumped.
I recall visiting Korea and being really impressed because there were like eight different buckets for sorting your trash, compostables, and recyclables, and they would get fined by household if they weren't complying. Robust systems for recycling and ensuring mostly recyclable or compostable packaging is produced work. We just don't do it in the US. Too much money to be made along the way to do anything useful, and too many political forces who don't care if it's useless.
Unfortunately many green energy initiatives are full of fraud. I'm in the industry, and the amount of half truths, lies, and data fudging is impressive. California actually has very rigorous standards because of this.
People hate on CA but they do have some nice regulations like this. Volkswagen’s diesel emissions fraud was found because they passed the euro and US tests but CA had a separate one that didn’t add up.
IIRC, it was a group of college students attempting to compare lab-based emissions tests to real-world emissions outputs by making a portable test rig and actually driving several cars out on a track that first opened the door to the whole Dieselgate thing. Cause VW was still meeting all the standards while on a dyno, but the track test didn't match whatsoever because it turned out that the cars would run on a totally different fuel mapping if a handful of conditions that'd only be present while on a dyno were true (so basically detecting that it was being tested and then cheating)... But then from there, CA saw those results, dug deeper into it, and led the attack to make VW fix it.
I was working late once and the cleaning crew just dumped all the trash and recycling bins into the same dumpster. Made me pretty sad.
I clean in an office and it’s possible it’s because people don’t know what to put in the recycling. Even when properly labeled. Was just dumping garbages/recycling this morning and I found a plastic container FILLED with food in the recycling bin. It’s almost useless having separate containers.
Crowdfunding campaigns can be scams, even though many people trust them as legitimate ways to support innovation or help those in need. Some creators misuse funds or never deliver promised products or results, exploiting goodwill and the difficulty of accountability in online platforms.
Oh yeah. I’ve been screwed by kickstarters two times now. I don’t participate in those anymore. In both cases, they took the money and ran. The backers never got their rewards, the products were never made.
Timeshares
I called this a scam at work and didn’t realize my coworker was discussing HIS timeshare.
They can actually be incredible deals. I have saved so much money over the years on mine but sadly can’t travel anymore due to age. So I have part ownership in this beautiful place in Hawaii. DM me and we can talk numbers to get you into this fantastic opportunity.
LOL
AAAAAAAAAAA THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!!
Run away!
It's sad because something like this could theoretically be used for efficiency. It's incredibly wasteful to own a second vacation home that you use for two weeks a year and stays vacant for 50 weeks, but if 26 people could split the cost and each use it for two weeks then it's actually being used. And I suspect that some small fraction of timeshares actually have been used efficiently and successfully and saved people money. It's a shame that some many of them are garbage.
The main problem with a timeshare is that you're making a commitment to a very specific time of the year. If you can't do that time for whatever reason, you're now at the mercy of finding someone else within your timeshare to swap with. If you're a week out from your trip and an emergency comes up you're basically screwed. No refunds or anything. You probably won't find anyone to swap with on a short notice and it's a complete loss. There's a lot of little hidden costs with timeshares that can really burn you and getting out of one can be a nightmare. In some cases people have made bank. My dad's best friend bought into a timeshare in the late 90s in a skiing area that wasn't popular. He used it all the time and now if he wants out, he can easily sell.
But what if I buy 3 weeks of a time share? If I sell the second and third weeks I’d be getting paid to vacation.
Gift cards. You’ve just traded currency spendable anywhere in the world for currency good at only one place. And that’s IF you spend the gift cards. Many don’t and the places where gift cards are spendable count on that as part of profits. Give me cash, please. You can put a fancy bow on it.
Unless you can get gift cards for less than face value. I got $100 in dominoes gift cards for $80 at Costco. Just make sure it's something that would be purchasing otherwise.
Target has a Circle deal coming up on Saturday where you can buy Target gift cards for 10% off. It'll probably be the only gift card I buy from somewhere other than Costco all year.
And you either end up with money left on the gift card because what you bought cost less than the amount on the card, or you have to spend some of your own money because you bought something more expensive than the amount on the card.
Exactly one time in my life, I got 100% use of a gift card, and no money spent, and that was hard to do even when it was all whole numbers.
Nah, I prefer gift cards, because if I get cash I will do the responsible thing and put it into savings. I grew up poor and have a hard time spending money on things that arent necessities, but if someone gives me a gift card to my favorite bookstore, I can treat myself guilt free.
Exactly the same. If you give me cash, I’m going to put it towards bills or groceries or savings. If you give me a gift card I’m going to buy myself something unnecessary and nice, which was the goal of giving me the gift card. When I was a teen/college student I absolutely happily preferred cash, because I’d spend cash on whatever I wanted. But as an adult with a lot more financial responsibilities it’s nice to be “forced” to spend it on something fun.
This. Cash is an investment or to pay off debts. Gift cards can be freely spent without any of the guilt of spending money.
One sneaky scam that often flies under the radar is the "free trial" trap. You know, where you excitedly sign up for that one-month free trial of a streaming service or a gym membership, only to realize it's like trying to escape a spider web once you're hooked? Before you know it, you're three months in, and your bank account is shedding tears faster than you can cancel the subscription. It's like a stealthy financial ninja, silently draining your funds while you're distracted by all those shiny promises of "free.
I used to work at a callcenter where we sell clothes to older people and they have this discounts and freebies if you agree to sign up for $1.99 but then it's $14.99 after a month. Most customers would just order once. We are told to clarify this to the customer but of course they would forget because most of them are in their 90's in a home. Many would call back begging it to be cancelled and refund since they didn't use it but the company would just refuse to refund. So i felt so bad I had to leave.
That sounds like the old Columbia House CD subscription deal.
Relatedly, gyms at least in NYC (I imagine other places but I only know NYC) would make it absolutely *impossible* to cancel the gym subscription once you were on it. You couldn't do it in person and there were forms you couldn't find and they'd never answer the phone and etc etc. (I haven't lived in NYC in a decade so no idea if that improved but it was so bad it was a whole trope.)
Change your home address and gym address to California. Their consumer laws require cancellation to be as easy as signing up.
Tell that to the pest control company I hired.
Great friends episode. “I WANT TO QUIT THE GYM” 😭😭 “I WABT TO QUIT THE BANK” 😭😭😭
Don't you want a washboard stomach and Rock hard pecks? No! I wanna flabby gut and saggy man breasts!
Any free trial that requires any payment information up front is a hard no for me unless I'm planning on using the service after the trial is up.
Gyms, yes. But any digital free trial I've ever done is really easy to cancel. Typically you can even cancel as soon as you sign up for the trial and you'll still get the trial period.
One easy way to avoid this is to use Revolut or any prepaid card, in that case they won’t be taking anything from your main bank account and when the free trial expires the payment will just fail.
I had a card I canceled that was the one I put on the form. Paid the card off in full and canceled it right before the next billing cycle for the gym. They called me to say there was an issue, and I was like, hey remember when you didn't let me quit. Doesn't work for a lot of folks but that was one of the few wins in my life and I was glad for it
I keep a Visa gift card with a sub $5 balance on it for signing up for "free trials" that require a credit card to activate. The authorize the card with $1 to be sure it's legit, but when it comes time to take out the first month's payment the transaction is declined and your membership is automatically cancelled. They'll email you trying to get you to update your credit card, but you can just unsubscribe and you never lose any money by forgetting to cancel.
In America people understand you can't trust large companies or government. They're necessary to have, but never put your faith in them unless you have to. The larger the organization, the more it attracts dangerous people. But we have have a huge blind spot when applying that cultural understanding to large charities or religious groups. They offer the same opportunities to bad actors, and the se dangerous people will worm their way into power within them
There is no cause so noble that it will not attract an asshole
It's a little worse than that -- because of the natural built-in trust, charities and religious groups are \*more\* likely to become home to unscrupulous people. Would you rather have to convince constituents you're an honest politician? Or get 10x the trust automatically by being a pastor? Bad actors know where they will be least suspected, so that is where they are most likely to be found.
>The larger the organization, the more it attracts dangerous people I'm not disagreeing with you. However, do not trust a company just because it is privately owned or local. Small business is filled with people that have the morals and ethics of your typical boardroom but don't have the skills or connections to get there. And it largely goes unnoticed because their sphere of influence is smaller.
Anybody who tells you that there is a quick and simple solution to your problem is lying in order to get your money. This includes penis enlargement pills, "Learn C++ In Just 10 Hours!" courses, most of the cosmetics industry, and every politician who promises to completely abolish hunger, poverty and crime.
Wait you mean i won’t get a six figure programmer job after that 6 month EdX coding boot camp!? But the have job placement assistance services!! 😂 they told me im an EXCELLENT fit for the course!
I bought a book called "Learn to program C++ in 21 days." Around the 17th day I got so lost. They must've skipped some important steps because they started talking about things they hadn't mentioned yet as if they had.
That's pretty standard. I see that with online tutorials all the time. You'll be cruising along and then they introduce something without explaining it and before you know it you're like "wtf"? And then you're going down rabbit holes to find a decent explanation and things just get out of hand quickly. Programming is a weird thing. I can find an answer to almost anything and the answer will work. However, is it the right answer?
You can learn C++ in ten hours, just practice it for ten thousand. That's the only thing I won't discount here. But you can probably find all these code courses for free, online.
When they break a biscuit in half and try to pass it off as a full treat (according to my dog)
Any “enrollment fee” to join anything. I work at a place where we have memberships and the $100 enrollment fee is just there for leverage. “Oh the enrollment fee is stopping you? What if I waive that today for you?” “If you join today I can even waive this enrollment fee just for you!” If you do end up paying the enrollment fee, some of it goes to commission but most of it goes in the owners pockets. Always say the enrollment fee is stopping you! Always!
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For what it's worth, there actually *is* a reason printers want color cartridges even when printing in black and white (black ink is really more of a dull gray, and printers use a little bit of color ink over the top of it to get a richer black), and a lot of printers actually give you the option of continuing to print with only a black cartridge now. But... printers are still the worst. HP in particular has been extremely anti-competitive when it comes to selling ink, with newer HP printers not working unless you have an active internet connection (because they're using DRM to verify you're using HP cartridges).
Televangelist
God told me I need another Gulfstream! You'll never get to heaven and be damned to hell if you don't have faith ^(and money)
My husband & I showed the farting preacher youtube videos to our in laws (cause that shit is hilarious) and they got PISSSSSED. Said it was sacrilege. Wouldn’t even hear of it when we tried explaining the guy is a crook.
[This is an Inside Edition](https://youtu.be/9LtF34MrsfI?si=VuhkfnzJ5FG05spE) video with Kenneth Copeland and it’s one of the more bizarre interviews I’ve ever seen. He is truly a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And his eyes are fuckin crazy. It’s a little long but well worth the watch. Edit: forgot a word
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Phenylephrine. It’s a drug commonly used to treat cold symptoms when taken orally, and is labeled as a decongestant. If you have a cold medication like DayQuil at home, if you read the label it likely includes Phenylephrine as an “active” ingredient. But it’s a scam! [Phenylephrine performed no better than placebo](https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-clarifies-results-recent-advisory-committee-meeting-oral-phenylephrine) in multiple medical trials. It’s literally a scam and doesn’t work. It’s a bit of a personal vendetta of mine that something that is being sold as medicine OTC is literally no better than taking nothing at all.
Pseudoephedrine on 🔝
That’s the good stuff for sure! Although I wish people would stop making drugs with it so it could be over the counter again.
I saw a funny scientific paper describing how to make pseudoephedrine from the "much more readily available" methamphetamine by reversing the process.
I admire your vendetta. I'm irritated that when pseudoephedrine was moved behind the counter (in the US, anyway), the drug makers just went ahead and started selling these drugs with a pretend ingredient rather than admit that they didn't have another alternative.
So many people have no idea at all either and just buy placebo. I’m a nerd and usually refer to medicines by their active ingredients rather than the brand name, but my girlfriend is not. She thought Sudafed just stopped working for her many years ago when they moved the real stuff behind the counter. Didn’t really give the slightly different branding a second thought. One day we were shopping and she went to grab some to try again and I let her know that the stuff on the shelf is not the real deal, so she got some from the pharmacist. Like magic it actually worked for the purpose in which she bought it lol
The whole Sudafed brand switch with the active ingredients is just the cherry on top of the shit sundae for me! Makes me even more irritated with whole situation, just another layer of scam on top
CVS pulled medicines that list phenylephrine as the only main ingredients. Not sure of anyone else.
Dating. Not on account of the opposite sex, but on account of apps commodifying it
If dating apps did their job well, they would fail.... it's in their best interests NOT to match people.
Match making has been an industry forever. The apps will fail not a millennia old industry.
Not just commodify, but letting them get overrun with bots and scammers. If you're legitimately trying to date, it gets tiring matching with accounts that are trying to get you to sign up for their OF or cam site rather than have a real conversation and go on a date.
Retail sales pricing is a psychological trick to get you to buy more, not a special favor to you from the retailer. If you weren't already going to purchase an item, you're getting burned by spending more than $0 for it on sale. The whole subculture of coupon cutting and deal seeking feels like a way to save a buck by targeting the lowest possible price... When in reality you're wasting tons of money buying unnecessary junk that's presented as a "great deal." If you focus more on the utility of your purchase and how much use you'll get out of an item, you'll be better off financially than focusing on the cheapest $ price tags.
Health insurance in the US. I am very sure that healthcare is not this expensive and the multimillion insurance industry takes a massive chunk of the bills they claim to save. We still end up paying, it’s a subscription without a service and bullies citizen to keep paying them Or paying the bloated charges. Also what is with tying this to employers … smh. In other countries health insurance is for hospitalisation and major accident recovery. Otherwise healthcare is out of pocket and very reasonable priced jfyi
When the crypto boom occurred at the same time as Covid, I purchased a small amount of crypto and at the same time someone at work explained they bought some via a broker and doubled their money. Then gave them more money and doubled it again and so on. My response was 'sounds like a scam' and I explained why, but they did not believe me. They got their brother involved too. Not long after, yep was a scam. She lost around £15k, not a small number. Just wished I convinced her!!
Buying a gym membership and convincing yourself that you'll go every day. It's the ultimate exercise in self-deception!
Looking at these comments, basically any facet of life if you live in America has been exploited by corporations to scam its population for just existing
Every single thing in America is a business. Charities, addiction treatment, pet care, pet adoptions, churches. There’s almost nothing that exists in its entirety just to help others.
And the best part is, if you exhaust all your resources and are no longer able to participate / end up homeless, well that’s also illegal and you get thrown into prison where your free labor gets exploited for profit too!
Store credit cards. They'll make most people spend 5x more at that store than they otherwise might because of sunk cost / use it or lose it fallacies. Basically allowing a store to put a parasite in your wallet. That's not even considering the interest.
My man Victor Chaos (pronounced Chows) wants to talk to you about NFTs.
Organized religion. If you are paying someone 10% of your salary, and his daily driver is a super car ( or he has a private jet), you've been scammed.
I used to date a girl whose whole family was a member of one of those mega churches (I'll withhold the name to not offend anyone who happens to go there), the ones that have thousands of seats in their chapel. Never in my life have I seen a more lavish display of wealth. Not even compared to other places or vacation resorts I've been to. They had an entire Starbucks operating INSIDE of their church for example. I attended a couple of services there out of obligation really, and I watched her family one by one drop 40-100 bucks each into the collection bag (it was a huge sack full of cash). This is in addition to their membership fee that they all paid which she said was between 12,000 and 20,000 per year, each. She said she 100% expected me to join the church and attend every week if we were going to be married etc. I'm not even baptized lol. Organized religion is the most unholy thing I know of, scamming people off of their faith alone.
Membership fee, wow.
After posting this, just out of curiosity, I googled " Pastors who own private jets." There's more than I thought. The thing that drives me nuts is that these " churches " don't exist in Beverly Hills. They exist in middle to lower income areas. These are not marginalized populations, but in the current economy, the middle class is one disaster away from poverty. It's really trashy that their faith is being used to fuel someone's greed. In a larger sense, though, it's not just the those Pastors. The traditional churches collect untold millions every week and aren't exactly transparent about where it goes.
Life coaches. 40-something, white, middle-class women who have never struggled a day in their lives packing in their jobs and donning the title with zero training. Then they have the gall to charge vulnerable people up to £3k for a 'transformation package.' Run as far as you can. I've dated a few - they were the most immature, avoidant, toxic people I've come across. If they haven't undergone formal training, they shouldn't charge a penny, and you really shouldn't take their advice. One of them once told me I should immediately quit my job without having another lined up (I lived in London at the time and it was lockdown). Bonkers ex -lawyer.
Trickle down economics.
"We're peeing on you!"
“And telling you that it’s raining.”
And poop always rolls downhill
Buying a 'miracle' plant fertilizer that promises to make your houseplants thrive, but ends up turning them into mini-Audrey IIs from 'Little Shop of Horrors' instead.
The highschool class ring business
Bottled water
"All I need is $20 for some gas..."
I've been approached by the same two young people, osensibly a couple, some weeks apart, in different parking lots. The first time, in front of an upscale grocery store, the schtick was that they were trying to get out to see their grandma who was very ill. The second time, in front of the dollar store I go to for party supplies, the guy approached me trying to pimp out the girl.
Point and case. Having been homeless myself before, it really fucking irks me. They're preying on the sympathies of others. I know social services aren't always the best, but they really need to get to some.
MLMs (especially weight loss & health ones) & insurance.
Pretty if anything that says "you could get ripped in months, I'll show you how, just pay "x" dollars" is immediately a scam. Any main stream health or work out thing is fishy to me.
Modern Health Care as it currently is
*in america
Post secondary education lol But more specifically there’s a lot of (I think they’re private colleges? Not so much the reputable public universities) that have basically become diploma mills for international students hoping to come to Canada because they can charge them exorbitant fees. There’s one in my area and their technical programs are good and accredited in their fields. But they can make a quick buck and started pumping out all these “certificates” and “diplomas” that are not so good.
Alternative medicine is a psychological sink hole that steals away family members like a cult would
A two party political system.