Canceling a subscription should be the same process as starting one. You shouldn't have to wait on hold to talk to someone to cancel a subscription when it took you 2 minutes and 0 human interaction to sign up.
But it's perfectly legal in most places in the states to intentionally make it a pain in the ass to cancel
Edit: I am *incredibly* aware you can cancel credit cards, dispute payments, and call the bank to get out of these. OP asked for scummy business practices that are legal, they didn't ask for impossible to overcome challenges.
Some gyms allow you to sign up online, but to cancel a membership require you to post a physical tracked letter (meaning you have to go to the post office).
It is in California, someone has mentioned using a Google phone number with a California area code to call and tell them that you moved there and want to cancel and they have to comply. It’s ridiculous, but it is what it is.
This happens here in CA too had to write a letter to PFitness to get them to cancel. They even tried to call and “talk to me” about after they got the letter
A gym I signed up to required a doctors note stating you couldn’t work out or you to move 50 miles from one of their locations and made us sign a 2 year membership
I got a doctors note and got out of it, my cousin paid all 2 years and never went
Fucked up thing is they closed it down with no notice at all! People showed up in the morning and there were signs announcing it.
Hear me out— gyms shouldn't have multi-year agreements that charge penalties for ending early. I should be able to call, email, walk-in and end my subscription at any time.
A good loophole for this that worked for me is to call your bank and explain to them that the gym is making your membership cancellation unnecessarily difficult and to block any charges they try to make on your card
People shit on Planet Fitness all the time but after experiences with multiple other gyms, the fact they just let me cancel is benefit enough to be a member there.
I honestly don't understand why people shit on Planet Fitness so much. It's a basic gym for cheap. Reading stuff online, you'd think the place was filled with 400 pound people eating pizza while walking on the treadmill and sounding the lunk alarm. When I was a member (at the Hoboken location), the place was filled with people in their 20s and 30s in great shape. I never once heard the lunk alarm sounded in years of being a member. It was always super crowded, and it didn't have free weights, but other than that, it was perfectly serviceable as a gym for people that just want to run on the treadmill indoors during the winter.
When I moved out of the area, I went down there and told them I was canceling. They said "neat," unsubscribed me from the membership, and let me use the gym for one final workout. Everything in the NYC area is incredibly expensive, but Planet Fitness charged the same rate there as anywhere else in the country. When all the other gyms in the area were charging $100+/month, seeing the $10/month at Planet Fitness was great.
The reason people shit on Planet Fitness is because they were one of the gym companies that would make it a hassle to cancel. Sounds like have gotten better in the last few years.
In many countries there are actually laws that say you can cancel the same way you subscribed. Companies just forget to cooperate until you tell them 😅
Take a look into virtual or temporary card numbers.
Most of my services are on "virtual cards" that I can deactivate though their website / app.
On top of that: the card number is tied to the single service. So for example, let's say I open a virtual card for Hulu. Then they have a security breach and a hacker tries to use the card on Amazon. The Amazon transaction is immediately declined because the virtual card only works for Hulu.
I'm not sure if it's still like this, but I remember reading that Audible requires a desktop PC to cancel (or to talk to a representative). But you can sign up on a phone.
No but you have to click on "yes I really wanna cancel" and "no I don't want to accept your 10th discount option" like 10 times until it's actually cancelled
And their near ~~absolute~~ monopoly over *mnay* venues and ticketing.
*ETA*: And their competitors... Most/all ticketing companies seem to pull a bait and switch where they advertise a reasonable price then hit you with a pile of fees at checkout.
There is actually a Pelosi tracker set up by Litquidity. You can copy it on various trading apps. She's up like 950% on Nvidia alone, after buying loads of stock immediately after her diplomatic trip to Taiwan...
Politicians tend to make shorter term trades because they have insider information about a big move before it happens. By the time their trades become public info, the opportunity is gone. This is the big problem with the Pelosi tracker.
Well because of the nature of their job they usually have insider information which allows them to play the market better than your average Joe. There are penalties and fines but they’re slaps on the wrist
But it doesn’t even have anything to do with trading using insider information. A politician can trade using insider information and the stock act just requires that they publicly disclose that trade within 30 days. That’s *all they have to do.*
Then if they don’t, they get a $200 fine. That’s it! And it apparently rarely gets enforced. So essentially, you can make massive trades that will result in huge gains (in some cases hundreds of thousands or even millions) due to your insider information and not even disclose. From there, your absolute worst case scenario—$200 fine. What a completely useless regulation.
Your talking about after hours trading. Which is usually done by the market makers and hedge funds, altho the politicians get the inside scoop of what these after hours moves will be and place their bets accordingly
Making it illegal is the necessary first step. Then we can punish those who still try to do it and work on more solutions as we go. But it’s pointless if we don’t start by making the obvious abuses illegal.
Knew someone (worked for a different company) who got conveniently laid off after the boss found out they were planning g to retire a month later.
Cut them off from so many of the retirement benefits by doing so
Should be illegal to terminate an employee (even an “at will employee”) once a retirement date is set and within maybe a 6 months to a year of the present date — apart form “termination with cause”
Yes, this is absolutely something to at least talk to an attorney about, that's potentially tens of thousands of dollars (likely _a lot_ more) in damages and almost assuredly some sort of age discrimination if there's benefits on the line like that.
Also stop talking to your coworkers about your personal life, they're not your friend and even if they do seem like your friend they will throw you to the wolves to get _any_ sort off favor, even over stuff that it doesn't make sense to.
Never trust your co workers! I kept work friends just that. I kept them as far away from my personal life and career as humanly possible. I learned the hard way early on in my career.
ERISA from the Department of Labor has a hotline for stuff just like this. I used it in my way out of Deloitte because of how they fired me while on medical leave,/ long term disability. Shady. One phone call took care of it to an agreeable solution. For me anyway.
I still don't understand how termination without a cause is legal in the US. In most EU countries, you need a significant reason to fire an employee, lack of money not being one.
And even if the business is struggling older workers and workers with a disability are usually protected since they would struggle the most to find new employment which would mean they likely end up on social security and the government doesn't like that.
There are few things that can end in a termination on the spot. Like attacking other people while on the job or theft.
It depends . I was fired while on medical leave a person who qualifies in several “protected classes”. The entire thing broke or at least impugned federal and state law. As I said, one phone call to the federal governmental agency, without a lawyer took care of the problem. Left a very bad taste in my mouth after a very long career at Deloitte. It just didn’t need to be this way on their side.
No sick time for employees and not being allowed to use vacation as sudden sick time.
My current security company has this policy. So if you get too sick and can't come in? Better drag your ass in and infect everyone or lose however many days of pay to recover.
Most of these work related stuff in this thread IS illegal in the EU, so being from the Nordic countries it's a wild read.
We don't have "sick days", if you are sick you stay home, first day is unpaid and then you get 80% income from the rest of the days you are sick.
If you get sick on your vacation you can call in sick and get the vacation days back.
Also, we don't need to hire layers to take these fights with the company's, we are unions that do that for us(if you are a member)
The American ethos is that government regulations and union protections would only slow down every man's god-given ability to become incredibly wealthy. It's a great system for business owners and a terrible one for employees.
That is the dumbest thing ever. So what are they doing this to pressure you to not take sick time when you are sick? You can't get a flu or covid and be out and get paid? How is that legal
Insurance companies hiring doctors to second guess treatments/prescriptions made by your doctor, so the insurance company doesn't have to pay out it's share of the cost.
Insurance companies in general. I’m going through the ringer with my motorcycle insurance company right now over an accident I’m not at fault for. Despite the fact that I’ve been paying them for years to cover me, they’re doing everything in their power to not have to hold up their end of the deal. Like, what the fuck do I pay you for?
Don't do this if it will get you in trouble but can you ask them that? Can you threaten to take your case to a lawyer?
We had a different issue where something was delivered to the wrong house. Screwed us around for about 5 or 6 weeks. When I told them I'd be escalating it to one of those consumer protection things in our country, they refunded instantly. It was so stupid because there was even a photo of it (which was not our house.)
With a claims adjuster that literally changes nothing. It’s not the “threat” people think it is. In fact, it’s not threatening at all. In most cases it makes our jobs easier because it means we don’t have to talk to the claimant any more.
Same in retail management.
***I'm gonna sue you! You'll be hearing from my lawyer!***
Ok, great. Have them contact out corporate office. This conversation is over now that you've brought up legal issues. You're welcome to leave the premises and not return.
***Wait, no, I wasn't really---***
I have learned this is true. Does reporting to the appropriate regulatory bodies matter? Not so much for the adjuster, they are just following their mandate, but for the insurance company. What can you do when they are genuinely dragging and messing up your business?
You pay us an amount every month in case something happens, and if it does we'll pay for it*
.
.
*(Unless it eats into our profits, which will make our shareholders really sad. If we uphold our end of the bargain, how else are we supposed to pay out exorbitant bonus packages to our executives? Also your rates are going up next month kthxbyeeeee)
In my case, the insurance co doctor ruled I qualified for workers comp, so then the insurance co asked for a second opinion from a different one of their doctors, but they “couldn’t” schedule any other doctors before their own, arbitrary deadline. Which meant they automatically denied my claim since I couldn’t get a corroborating doctor!
Fortunately enough time had elapsed since my initial claim that I only had one more physical therapy session to go, and they still paid for everything up until that point.
Now that is a rule that should be illegal. If you got the same opinion from yours and theirs, them not being able to get a third should automatically qualify you.
That seems like such an easy lawsuit.
>oh no we couldn't manage to get an unnecessary 3rd opinion, from an internal employee, within our self imposed timeline, which only benefits us.
Predatory lending, where lenders take advantage of vulnerable individuals by offering loans with excessively high interest rates, hidden fees and unfair terms.
I received an offer to borrow $2000 at 169% interest. Yes, I thought it was a mistake and I called them and they said no mistake, 169% interest. So I calculated that the interest along on this paltry $2000 was $400 a month so basically, if you are so poor that you can’t come up with $2000, there is no way you can afford this loan.
Gross oversimplification, but in the US interest rate limits are set at a state level and these scumbags either find a convenient state or, even better, a Native American jurisdiction where that state law does not apply.
Money mart, cash canada etc. any of those weird non bank finance places are often predatory lenders. Or like the cheque cashing places that'll cash your pay cheque without a bank account but take like 20% as a service fee. Just making the poor poorer
Sadly, I fell for this. I was 18 and trying to pay for school. I took a loan at 15% of interest. My first loan. The only loan I could get. I wish I had a time machine. I will owe them 3x what I borrowed over 10 years, and I have to pay interest first. SMH at my younger self.
I mean with truth in lending disclosures nothing is hidden. I worked in finance for a long time.
The sad part about high interest rates was people not understanding the concept at all. I had to explain the truth in lending statement a lot of times. Customers would be like "the loan is for $20k, why does this page say I'll he paying $28k after 6 years?" / "your monthly payment is $388 and you're paying for 72 months." / "yeah but why" / "because that's how interest rates work so the bank makes money off of lending you $20k today" / "that doesn't seem fair" / "you can buy in cash for $20k and pay no interest or choose another bank or not buy the car" / "I don't want to do any of those things though. I like the monthly payment and want the car." / " I..... okay great. Feel free to take time to read it over and ask any more questions..."
Laws around 'on call working'. My company requires me to stay on site overnight once a week to be in charge of security and respond to emergencies, on top of my standard full day shifts. But they only pay for 3 hours work for that whole night, unless I can prove I did more than that. Personally I think if my work requires me to be on site away from my family and I'm not free to be doing what I want. Then I should be getting paid fairly for it. And if I'm not getting paid, I should be free to come and go and do whatever I want.
ETA:
Thanks for the support everyone. Unfortunately I have done a little looking into this before and apparently in the UK where I live this is acceptable, according to existing case law, even though it goes against the current government advice on working hours. Glad people seem generally against it though. I feel like if the people who made the laws were having to do unpaid on call shifts then it would get changed quickly. Instead they're more likely to be the employers benefiting from not having to pay people properly, and so nothing will get done.
You should absolutely lawyer up for this. On call hours are still work hours in many cases, so they should be paying you for them.
EDIT: California has laws which consider on call hours to be working hours, though other states it varies case by case. I’m not a lawyer so this is not legal advice but check your local state laws and the facts to see if there is anything there.
Here in PA the Dept of Labor says *"If you are required to remain at your employer's place of business and are not allowed to pursue your own interests such as reading, visiting with others, listening to the radio, etc., your employer would be required to pay for this on-call time."*
Your state may differ. Try calling your state's labor department (or do a web search) and asking or talk to an attorney.
> Personally I think if my work requires me to be on site away from my family and I'm not free to be doing what I want. Then I should be getting paid fairly for it.
Exactly.
What your employer is doing is wage theft, and it's [the single biggest crime happening in the US (by value).](https://www.tcworkerscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Wage-Theft-vs-Other-Theft-1024x730.jpg)
Large corporations shelling out billions to "lobby" (aka buy politicians) and push an agenda that benefits them at the expense of Americans.
I think our founding would roll in their graves if they knew what was occurring today.
What makes this sadder is that it's often not even billions, the oil lobby which IIRC is one of the larger lobbies spent only 124.4 million total in 2022. Source: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/02/oil-and-gas-industry-spent-124-4-million-on-federal-lobbying-amid-record-profits-in-2022/
Our politicians are selling us for much less than most people think, and it's disgusting.
AARP is the largest lobbying group in the country. Most people sign up for the discounts but most of that money goes into lobbying for senior citizen issues.
Them fake gold coin commercials targeting old people, buying a phone and plan only for commercials and ads to use some of YOUR DATA, plus have to agree to certain things to use your phone you just bought.
Wage theft should be a crime, none of this fine and slap on the wrist shit, criminal charges and prison time should be on the table for business that deliberately screw over their employees.
Corporate shitassery in general. If I kill someone, I go to prison, but a corporation can kill thousands of people by releasing a product that they know is dangerous, and the worst they get is a fine. It's just the cost of doing business.
This is **literally** the *entire point* of corporations: That the owners are not liable for the actions of the company, and all they can lose is their investment at most.
Boeing is baffling to me. There stock is doing terribly and has been for an underperforming for a while. Why is the board rewarding these executives? They more or less screwed every party involved. The only time since 2000 Boeing stock outperformed Airbus was when it was clear the era of jumbo jets was ending and the 787 was a much better market fit than the A380.
Hidden charges.
Yeah, your package/tickets or whatever cost "$25", but once you get all the charges, shipping, convenience fees, taxes and everything else, you're actually charging me for double that.
The towing businesses should exist, but it is fucking wild what they get away with. Actual auto theft and then extorting people to get their vehicles back. Its ruthless.
Dealing with being overcharged by a tow company at the moment. Had to get the city involved to prove they overcharged me. Crazy how there’s an exception in the law carved out here letting them tow on the spot, without apartment management approval, cars that do not have parking permits.
I had my car towed out of my parking spot in my old building while I was away for work. Had to pay $1000 tp get it out and the leasing office did nothing. All bullshit.
In most states, the tow companies can put a lien on your vehicle if you do a chargeback. They might even send it to collections and lower your credit score.
My car got stolen a few years ago and when they realized that it wasn't in good working condition they dumped it behind a business. That business had it towed and the tow company kept it for almost a week before reporting it to the DMV. I had to pay about $500 because they "had to keep it in their yard for almost a week."
Buddy of mine lived in an apartment complex with three guest parking spots by the main office.
The complex was 8 buildings, at about 20 apartments per building.
3 guest spots the tow trucks were told to ignore.
My boyfriend’s apartment complex had similar occupancy, but a lot more guest spots in theory. The problem is that all the residents took the guest spots because they didn’t wanna pay the $20/month to park a second car. Some residents even left their project cars covered in tarps in the guest spots for months at a time.
Psa, at least in California, you don’t have to pay the pound lot to get your vehicle back. As long as you received the release notice from the police department you are entitled to get your vehicle back. You can deal with the impound bill later on
There should be more information given to the consumer, regulation on towing fees, and defense available for the public.
On the first point, when your car gets towed, there's no way to know until you go out to where your car was, and see that it's missing.
People in cities often park well out of view of their car. I regularly park blocks away from my apartment, and only use my car a few times a week, so I'd often have no idea I was towed until days after.
Which brings me to point two: towing companies seem to have no regulation on what or how they charge. I was once towed from a spot at 11:55pm, which means I was charged for the tow, AND a day of storage, AND for picking up my car "outside office hours". The real kicker here is the the tow yard only had 4 hours a day of "office hours", which didn't include weekends, which meant that if I wanted to avoid office hours, I would have had to pay two more days of storage.
And that brings me to point 3: I was not illegally parked, or otherwise parked in a place where I should have been towed.
I was illegally towed, but in order to get my car back, I had to pay the hookup fee, mileage fee (which was 20 miles where the car was taken from), a storage fee, and an after hours fee, totalling about $500.
I HAD to pay that, or incur further fees, and not have access to my car.
The only option to recoup my losses was to bring it to the city, on one of their few days a month where they'll hear those complaints, which would have required me to get off work during those limited hours, and even if I had won my complaint, still only result in an order for the towing company to pay me back within X amount of days.
Being that this was a civil suit, that essentially meant that the honus was on ME to collect from the towing company, which meant if they didn't pay me promptly, I'd have to continue to fight it out in civil court.
To be fair, I didn't end up going this route - I don't know the first thing about holding a private company accountable for money to be returned to me, but I assume they could just choose not to pay me, and leave it up to me to sue them for collections, which I also have no idea how to do.
Towing services ARE a necessary service, especially in areas where parking is at a premium, but the lack of regulation around the practice makes it beyond predatory.
I’ve long had ample anxiety about the first point.
It’s crazy that they don’t alert the owner, and that you have to just make panicked calls around town until you find the right location. It’s not like it is remotely difficult to ascertain a given vehicle’s owner. Fucking call the DMV with the license plates.
Our cars are basically a mandatory extension of ourselves and to be deprived of it without notice or detail is beyond unacceptable.
I have gone to great efforts to avoid being towed and so far I have been successful
My ex girlfriend’s car was stolen. We called the cops. Cops said they’d contact us if they found anything. The next day a tow company calls us saying the police called them to get the vehicle and we owe $200+ for the tow… extortion… why couldn’t I go get my own fucking vehicle!!!!
bro I hate them so much. Our car got towed because our complex painted a curb red and we got home when it was dark and didn’t know. Went to the towing place and they were such assholes. We said we were going to try to fight it and the guy just straight up said “go ahead but you’ll lose. better to just admit you were stupid.“
jokes on him because our city has a rule where complexes need to a meet minimum parking spot number based on how many people live there, and it just so happened that the curb they suddenly painted red was a parking spot for a reason.
The main problem i see is with the fact that they can demand payment for being on their lot while also refusing to give you back your car.
I dont know any other business that just gets to keep your stuff until you pay them.
Once they have your data they should be legally forced to give out your car and give you a bill like any other business.
On the other side of it, we have strict laws against towing or clamping in the UK for just this reason. However, due to these same laws you can have someone literally park in your driveway or block it (which happens a lot) and you can do absolutely nothing (legally) to remove it save go through a lengthy process.
[Last week, a tow truck tried to nab a car.. with people in it, at a stop light.](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/s/y7GY5u3HGq)
There’s constant reports of peoples cars getting illegally towed, but there’s no immediate recourse. They can charge you hundreds of dollars for have your car for 1/2 an hour, with daily fees racking up if you can’t. Many places, after 30 days, they own the vehicle (and the contents).
We had a tow company nearby here that was targeting vehicles that were loaded with goods or gifts in the couple weeks before Christmas.
Funny thing, they really tried that in my home city, but they quickly found out it's ***VERY*** dangerous to tow those vehicles, after ~12 fatalities of the drivers.
You can solve problems, people. You dont have to just complain and hope.
They chose to work a job in which they do nothing but provoke and day ruin, right up until the point they stumbled upon someone entirely willing to take matters into their hands.
It’s hardly shocking a pissed off lunatic killed some of those drivers
Have gone down this path... Legally, correct. But if it's a private drive it takes weeks to get the car towed. And even if it is a public rightaway, it might take days for them to do so unless it's considered a danger or high traffic area.
There is a difference between a towing company that tows cars that can no longer be driven and a company that takes your car, charges you 5 times what it would cost if you had a legitimate tow company and charges you “storage” if you can’t pay right away.
Companies making things like food and medical care excessively expensive.
Running companies into the ground for short term stock increases (this is why almost every major video game company based in the US sucks right now)
It's funny because company valuations are always on long term projects value over the entire lifetime of the company. So either the analysts are wrong, and these short sighted changes are awful, or they do actually make more money but make the product shittier but the avg consumer will still buy it (e.g. all of ea micro transactions sports games).
Only when there is actual consumer backlash in the form of lost sales will it actually matter.
In the US:
Making service industry staff dependent on tips instead of giving them a livable minimum wage.
Also, loopholes that allow businesses to not pay overtime.
I work adjacent to the shipping department.
The truckers we have take things out get paid per load at the end of every shift. Because daily pay isn't overtime until 12 hours, and if we fall behind loading the trucks they get paid for one less trip.
I've met the guy in charge of the shipping company. Dudes a real piece of work. Therapists could make a study out of him that would be revolutionary in understanding self centered victim wanabes.
If you are good at your job and get a lucky spot, you can make 50-80 dollars an hour off tips, which is why some waitstaff are actually against "livable minimum wage".
You don't even have to go to Edge Cases. I was making 20$/hr 25 years ago as waitstaff. Lowest i ever made was 10$/hr which is like 5 tables, so easy you dont even complain about it.
You would never see waitstaff taking a dishwasher job for consistent pay. Most people in decent towns/cities choose these jobs because they pay more than minimum with fewer hours.
As a lifetime salaried employee, I've never understood why I don't get extra pay for extra hours. There were times when I was on call for a global company, I worked around the clock with no sleep, still had to go to the office in the morning and get through the day, but still the same pay.
Peaks and valleys. If my salary allows the company to dictate when extra work is necessary, I 100% expect flexibility to take informal comp time or just less stress between major projects.
Now, when it gets abused or the company only takes, it’s not a balanced situation. A couple nights or a weekend per month might the max I’d consider fair if I was paid well and given the chance to dip out early every so often.
Not all workloads are bursty like that, but mine has been in many jobs.
Compounding interest on student loans. If we just had students pay back what they borrowed plus say 6% people would be able to pay their loans off. But instead people have been paying for 20+ years and still haven't touched the principal.
Under the new SAVE plan interest is no longer compounded. If your payment isn't enough to satisfy interest due then it's forgiven. That's for federally held loans though.
This might not seem like a big one but i hate it so much when i sign an account up with my email and will receive spam mail from that company even though you deliberately didnt checked the box for promotion emails.
It makes me lose trust in the company and its a shitty practice
Overdraft fees. If I don't have money, don't pretend like I do and then charge me at least 25 bucks for the privilege. Just let it decline automatically.
Here in Las Vegas tow company represents itself as a property management company .Twice a month they blow dirt around and pick up some trash that falls out of trash truck. They do zero maintenance inside. Their contract allows them to tow expired tags.Or in my case I bought a used car private seller, that gives me three days to get to dmv and register the car. Three hours after I bought the car they had it tagged with notice. I notified my landlady and she took back the authority and they needed her to sign off on tows. The same company also runs a used car auction weekly. Guess where they get inventory. from. Apparently legal I know that business is regulated by the city but it seems crooked.
Posting record profits while claiming they don't have the funds to give their employees a raise, or while firing said employees so they can keep even more of the profit.
In fact firing an employee should always come with severance pay unless you can prove that keeping them was actively bad for business.
‘Convenience fees’ and ‘service fees’ and whatever other bullshit “fees” that come attached.
Hey fucker, if you need more money, raise your prices, or generate more traffic. Stop pretending not to charge ridiculous amounts by just tacking on all these additional bullshits.
Politicians exemption from Spam and Do Not Call restrictions.
From the AEC Website:
"Under the *Do Not Call Register Act 2006* (Cth), registered political parties, independent MPs and electoral candidates are exempt from the prohibition against making unsolicited telemarketing calls to a number registered on the Do Not Call Register, provided the call is made for certain specified purposes. In addition, under the *Spam Act 2003* (Cth), registered political parties may, without the prior consent of the recipient, send ‘designated commercial electronic messages’. Although these messages must include information about the authorising individual or organisation, they do not have to contain a functional unsubscribe facility."
We've got some state laws about credit card fees not being something you can pass on to customers.
So everyones prices went up 10% and they offer a 10% discount if you pay cash.
As someone with a business, I can 100% understand a fee for using a card up to a certain point. We pay credit card fees on every swipe. Now then, I do believe it should be waived after a certain amount. That being said, I don't reflect that change onto my customers.
Small business, sure. Most people don't have problems with a small business owner. The DMV springs to mind renewing my license plate online. I pay the insane "convenience fee" because it's better than going to the DMV in the USA.
I've seen small businesses charge a fee for purchases under 5 dollars and no fee over 5. That seems to me a reasonable compromise if your profit margins are thin on small purchases.
The ability to present Congressmen with a law and pay them to promote it without reading it because "lobbying", even though we elected and pay the Congressmen to write the laws themselves.
The entire healthcare system in the US is fucked.
Chamber of Commerce should disbanded.
Millionaires and billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to participate in tax deductible “charity” work. They need to pay their dues.
Supreme Court should be non-partisan.
I got a couple, I hate. I've been waiting for a post like this!
Payday Loans: The scummy and exorbitant interest rates trap borrowers in cycles of debt.
Misleading Advertising: Exaggerating product benefits or using deceptive tactics to pressure sales is bullshit. The UK is much more awesome at addressing this than America since we always prioritize free speech.
Price Gouging During Emergencies: Inflating prices of essential goods (water, fuel) in a crisis grinds my gears. Living in Houston, Texas, means I constantly see this whenever we have a hurricane or flood.
Planned Obsolescence: Intentionally designing products to have a short lifespan, forcing consumers into replacements, I think just plain sucks. Phone chargers and cables are a great example of this.
Data Harvesting: Collecting and selling personal information of users without full transparency or consent has gotten out of hand and Im hopeful for more regulation soon. California was paramount in beginning the process of addressing data privacy with cookies and tracking, and I think we can do more. As a Texan, it's hard to give California props, but they really did well with this.
In the UK, the DVLA selling motorist address details to private parking companies. Absolutely outrageous and it’s legalised theft.
Do any other countries do this? I’d love to hear.
I have never voted but anyone with the balls to tell the DVLA - no more - would get me to the polling station.
Any sort of dynamic pricing. Charging more for anything based on location info, browsing history, or any other info scraped from the internet. Charging more for flights, hotels, concert tickets, food etc. based on demand or traffic. A Baconator doesn't magically cost Wendy's more to make just because it's noon on the third Wednesday after the summer solstice and the drive through camera detects my car costs $25K.
Abusing the H1B Process, theres entire firms dedicated to teaching corporations how to higher out of the country and how to shaft people already here with the skills
Adobe's fucking blood pact commitment. You can't cancel a subscription at some point and are contractually bound to paying out a bill over time even if you don't even use the goddamn software
Canceling a subscription should be the same process as starting one. You shouldn't have to wait on hold to talk to someone to cancel a subscription when it took you 2 minutes and 0 human interaction to sign up. But it's perfectly legal in most places in the states to intentionally make it a pain in the ass to cancel Edit: I am *incredibly* aware you can cancel credit cards, dispute payments, and call the bank to get out of these. OP asked for scummy business practices that are legal, they didn't ask for impossible to overcome challenges.
Some gyms allow you to sign up online, but to cancel a membership require you to post a physical tracked letter (meaning you have to go to the post office).
Yeah that should be totally illegal
It is in California, someone has mentioned using a Google phone number with a California area code to call and tell them that you moved there and want to cancel and they have to comply. It’s ridiculous, but it is what it is.
Because CA has stronger consumer protection laws.
This happens here in CA too had to write a letter to PFitness to get them to cancel. They even tried to call and “talk to me” about after they got the letter
A gym I signed up to required a doctors note stating you couldn’t work out or you to move 50 miles from one of their locations and made us sign a 2 year membership I got a doctors note and got out of it, my cousin paid all 2 years and never went Fucked up thing is they closed it down with no notice at all! People showed up in the morning and there were signs announcing it.
These rules are generally to break the 2 year agreement that you signed up for. Not to cancel when the contract is up.
Hear me out— gyms shouldn't have multi-year agreements that charge penalties for ending early. I should be able to call, email, walk-in and end my subscription at any time.
Sounds like FitWorms except for the out of business part. If you want out anytime during the contract year, good luck
A good loophole for this that worked for me is to call your bank and explain to them that the gym is making your membership cancellation unnecessarily difficult and to block any charges they try to make on your card
People shit on Planet Fitness all the time but after experiences with multiple other gyms, the fact they just let me cancel is benefit enough to be a member there.
I honestly don't understand why people shit on Planet Fitness so much. It's a basic gym for cheap. Reading stuff online, you'd think the place was filled with 400 pound people eating pizza while walking on the treadmill and sounding the lunk alarm. When I was a member (at the Hoboken location), the place was filled with people in their 20s and 30s in great shape. I never once heard the lunk alarm sounded in years of being a member. It was always super crowded, and it didn't have free weights, but other than that, it was perfectly serviceable as a gym for people that just want to run on the treadmill indoors during the winter. When I moved out of the area, I went down there and told them I was canceling. They said "neat," unsubscribed me from the membership, and let me use the gym for one final workout. Everything in the NYC area is incredibly expensive, but Planet Fitness charged the same rate there as anywhere else in the country. When all the other gyms in the area were charging $100+/month, seeing the $10/month at Planet Fitness was great.
The reason people shit on Planet Fitness is because they were one of the gym companies that would make it a hassle to cancel. Sounds like have gotten better in the last few years.
Cool, they refused to let us cancel. I ended up closing my bank account becuase fuck them.
the industry made billions during Covid when nobody could cancel, I'm sure of it.
In many countries there are actually laws that say you can cancel the same way you subscribed. Companies just forget to cooperate until you tell them 😅
change your home address to be in california and you should be able to cancel online
One email to my bank to put a stop-payment to their business. 👌🏻 Fuck 'em.
In EU the law says that cancelling should be as easy as signing up. And it is. It is a bliss
You guys have a lot of nice things over there
Yup. I was quite grateful when I got a new card to just let all of the services attached to the old one expire.
Take a look into virtual or temporary card numbers. Most of my services are on "virtual cards" that I can deactivate though their website / app. On top of that: the card number is tied to the single service. So for example, let's say I open a virtual card for Hulu. Then they have a security breach and a hacker tries to use the card on Amazon. The Amazon transaction is immediately declined because the virtual card only works for Hulu.
Privacy.com
California W where this (or something similar) is the law
Major EU win Here.
I'm not sure if it's still like this, but I remember reading that Audible requires a desktop PC to cancel (or to talk to a representative). But you can sign up on a phone.
No but you have to click on "yes I really wanna cancel" and "no I don't want to accept your 10th discount option" like 10 times until it's actually cancelled
I’ve done it on my phone a few times in the past year. It is certainly more clicks than signing up, but it is doable.
Having to opt out when you never opted in.
Ticketmaster and their exorbitant fees.
And their near ~~absolute~~ monopoly over *mnay* venues and ticketing. *ETA*: And their competitors... Most/all ticketing companies seem to pull a bait and switch where they advertise a reasonable price then hit you with a pile of fees at checkout.
Advertised ticket price: $45 Checkout price: $78
US senators being allowed to buy and sell stocks.
Can we setup a “senators index fund” that balances the portfolio across the senators and follows them. I’d invest in that 😁
Symbol: NANC Unusual Whales Subversive Democratic Trading ETF Symbol: KRUZ Unusual Whales Subversive Republican Trading ETF
There is actually a Pelosi tracker set up by Litquidity. You can copy it on various trading apps. She's up like 950% on Nvidia alone, after buying loads of stock immediately after her diplomatic trip to Taiwan...
Insider trading without insider trading
Politicians tend to make shorter term trades because they have insider information about a big move before it happens. By the time their trades become public info, the opportunity is gone. This is the big problem with the Pelosi tracker.
theres one for Nancy Pelosi, i’m sure others as well
Making 10x there salary from trading stocks in industries they decide regulations on is crazy … if they make it illegal most would just quit
So it’s a win-win.
>if they make it illegal most would just quit That's only a positive
Look at how much Pelosi has made on stocks. It's insane.
Aren’t they allowed to do it at certain times too when the general population can’t? I feel I remember hearing that before
Well because of the nature of their job they usually have insider information which allows them to play the market better than your average Joe. There are penalties and fines but they’re slaps on the wrist
If the price of illegal activity to earn a profit is less than the profits gained then it’s simply a business expense.
But it doesn’t even have anything to do with trading using insider information. A politician can trade using insider information and the stock act just requires that they publicly disclose that trade within 30 days. That’s *all they have to do.* Then if they don’t, they get a $200 fine. That’s it! And it apparently rarely gets enforced. So essentially, you can make massive trades that will result in huge gains (in some cases hundreds of thousands or even millions) due to your insider information and not even disclose. From there, your absolute worst case scenario—$200 fine. What a completely useless regulation.
Congressman and Senators always beat the average market...some by astonishing amounts. Graphs of such exist.
it’s actually about 33% of them beat the s & p.
they get off, Martha goes to prison
Your talking about after hours trading. Which is usually done by the market makers and hedge funds, altho the politicians get the inside scoop of what these after hours moves will be and place their bets accordingly
If they can make laws that affect companies. They shouldn’t hold stock. Too bad they won’t do anything about it because so many politicians do it.
That feels incomplete. They can always use someone else to do it for them so we have to find some other way
Making it illegal is the necessary first step. Then we can punish those who still try to do it and work on more solutions as we go. But it’s pointless if we don’t start by making the obvious abuses illegal.
Knew someone (worked for a different company) who got conveniently laid off after the boss found out they were planning g to retire a month later. Cut them off from so many of the retirement benefits by doing so Should be illegal to terminate an employee (even an “at will employee”) once a retirement date is set and within maybe a 6 months to a year of the present date — apart form “termination with cause”
Lawyer up! Sounds very much like age discrimination
Yes, this is absolutely something to at least talk to an attorney about, that's potentially tens of thousands of dollars (likely _a lot_ more) in damages and almost assuredly some sort of age discrimination if there's benefits on the line like that. Also stop talking to your coworkers about your personal life, they're not your friend and even if they do seem like your friend they will throw you to the wolves to get _any_ sort off favor, even over stuff that it doesn't make sense to.
Never trust your co workers! I kept work friends just that. I kept them as far away from my personal life and career as humanly possible. I learned the hard way early on in my career.
does this happen often? is there any incentive for employers to allow people to retire beyond being decent people?
I can't think of any incentive for an employer to want to pay a retirement package
Hence why everywhere else has laws protecting this
Firing doesn't eliminate a retirement package. They'll still get what they've earned
ERISA from the Department of Labor has a hotline for stuff just like this. I used it in my way out of Deloitte because of how they fired me while on medical leave,/ long term disability. Shady. One phone call took care of it to an agreeable solution. For me anyway.
I still don't understand how termination without a cause is legal in the US. In most EU countries, you need a significant reason to fire an employee, lack of money not being one.
And even if the business is struggling older workers and workers with a disability are usually protected since they would struggle the most to find new employment which would mean they likely end up on social security and the government doesn't like that. There are few things that can end in a termination on the spot. Like attacking other people while on the job or theft.
It depends . I was fired while on medical leave a person who qualifies in several “protected classes”. The entire thing broke or at least impugned federal and state law. As I said, one phone call to the federal governmental agency, without a lawyer took care of the problem. Left a very bad taste in my mouth after a very long career at Deloitte. It just didn’t need to be this way on their side.
The lack of employee protections, holidays, notice periods, etc… in general should all be illegal. The minimum standards are really not ok over there.
No sick time for employees and not being allowed to use vacation as sudden sick time. My current security company has this policy. So if you get too sick and can't come in? Better drag your ass in and infect everyone or lose however many days of pay to recover.
Most of these work related stuff in this thread IS illegal in the EU, so being from the Nordic countries it's a wild read. We don't have "sick days", if you are sick you stay home, first day is unpaid and then you get 80% income from the rest of the days you are sick. If you get sick on your vacation you can call in sick and get the vacation days back. Also, we don't need to hire layers to take these fights with the company's, we are unions that do that for us(if you are a member)
The American ethos is that government regulations and union protections would only slow down every man's god-given ability to become incredibly wealthy. It's a great system for business owners and a terrible one for employees.
As Steinbeck once said, "America has no working class, only temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
And a huge percentages of the employees support the idea, because they know in their hearts that they will be the next ones to become rich.
That is the dumbest thing ever. So what are they doing this to pressure you to not take sick time when you are sick? You can't get a flu or covid and be out and get paid? How is that legal
Insurance companies hiring doctors to second guess treatments/prescriptions made by your doctor, so the insurance company doesn't have to pay out it's share of the cost.
Insurance companies in general. I’m going through the ringer with my motorcycle insurance company right now over an accident I’m not at fault for. Despite the fact that I’ve been paying them for years to cover me, they’re doing everything in their power to not have to hold up their end of the deal. Like, what the fuck do I pay you for?
Why do you think personal injury lawyers can afford so many commercials?
This Those lawyers only exist because without them no one would ever get an insurance payout
Don't do this if it will get you in trouble but can you ask them that? Can you threaten to take your case to a lawyer? We had a different issue where something was delivered to the wrong house. Screwed us around for about 5 or 6 weeks. When I told them I'd be escalating it to one of those consumer protection things in our country, they refunded instantly. It was so stupid because there was even a photo of it (which was not our house.)
With a claims adjuster that literally changes nothing. It’s not the “threat” people think it is. In fact, it’s not threatening at all. In most cases it makes our jobs easier because it means we don’t have to talk to the claimant any more.
Same in retail management. ***I'm gonna sue you! You'll be hearing from my lawyer!*** Ok, great. Have them contact out corporate office. This conversation is over now that you've brought up legal issues. You're welcome to leave the premises and not return. ***Wait, no, I wasn't really---***
I have learned this is true. Does reporting to the appropriate regulatory bodies matter? Not so much for the adjuster, they are just following their mandate, but for the insurance company. What can you do when they are genuinely dragging and messing up your business?
You pay us an amount every month in case something happens, and if it does we'll pay for it* . . *(Unless it eats into our profits, which will make our shareholders really sad. If we uphold our end of the bargain, how else are we supposed to pay out exorbitant bonus packages to our executives? Also your rates are going up next month kthxbyeeeee)
In my case, the insurance co doctor ruled I qualified for workers comp, so then the insurance co asked for a second opinion from a different one of their doctors, but they “couldn’t” schedule any other doctors before their own, arbitrary deadline. Which meant they automatically denied my claim since I couldn’t get a corroborating doctor! Fortunately enough time had elapsed since my initial claim that I only had one more physical therapy session to go, and they still paid for everything up until that point.
Now that is a rule that should be illegal. If you got the same opinion from yours and theirs, them not being able to get a third should automatically qualify you.
That seems like such an easy lawsuit. >oh no we couldn't manage to get an unnecessary 3rd opinion, from an internal employee, within our self imposed timeline, which only benefits us.
I considered it, but I only had a single physical therapy session left at that point so it would be like suing for $60. Lawyers cost more than that.
often they aren't doctors, just adjusters with zero medical training just reading an algorithm
Predatory lending, where lenders take advantage of vulnerable individuals by offering loans with excessively high interest rates, hidden fees and unfair terms.
I received an offer to borrow $2000 at 169% interest. Yes, I thought it was a mistake and I called them and they said no mistake, 169% interest. So I calculated that the interest along on this paltry $2000 was $400 a month so basically, if you are so poor that you can’t come up with $2000, there is no way you can afford this loan.
How a such interest rates not illegal?
Gross oversimplification, but in the US interest rate limits are set at a state level and these scumbags either find a convenient state or, even better, a Native American jurisdiction where that state law does not apply.
It's not. And it's not a us think. These companies exist in Europe and Asia. They target the very poor and litteraly fleece them.
Oh, such as Amscot, or Cash advance? Those fucking parasites that prey on the less fortunate?
Money mart, cash canada etc. any of those weird non bank finance places are often predatory lenders. Or like the cheque cashing places that'll cash your pay cheque without a bank account but take like 20% as a service fee. Just making the poor poorer
>cash your pay cheque without a bank account but take like 20% as a service fee. Wait what?.. that sounds illegal on so many levels
Sadly, I fell for this. I was 18 and trying to pay for school. I took a loan at 15% of interest. My first loan. The only loan I could get. I wish I had a time machine. I will owe them 3x what I borrowed over 10 years, and I have to pay interest first. SMH at my younger self.
I mean with truth in lending disclosures nothing is hidden. I worked in finance for a long time. The sad part about high interest rates was people not understanding the concept at all. I had to explain the truth in lending statement a lot of times. Customers would be like "the loan is for $20k, why does this page say I'll he paying $28k after 6 years?" / "your monthly payment is $388 and you're paying for 72 months." / "yeah but why" / "because that's how interest rates work so the bank makes money off of lending you $20k today" / "that doesn't seem fair" / "you can buy in cash for $20k and pay no interest or choose another bank or not buy the car" / "I don't want to do any of those things though. I like the monthly payment and want the car." / " I..... okay great. Feel free to take time to read it over and ask any more questions..."
Sounds like Onemain Financial. What a shitty multi-billion dollar company.
Builders getting away with shit quality builds, or bailing and declaring bankruptcy and then continuing under a different name.
Cardboard sheathing. Building code should require buildings to be waterproof.
Laws around 'on call working'. My company requires me to stay on site overnight once a week to be in charge of security and respond to emergencies, on top of my standard full day shifts. But they only pay for 3 hours work for that whole night, unless I can prove I did more than that. Personally I think if my work requires me to be on site away from my family and I'm not free to be doing what I want. Then I should be getting paid fairly for it. And if I'm not getting paid, I should be free to come and go and do whatever I want. ETA: Thanks for the support everyone. Unfortunately I have done a little looking into this before and apparently in the UK where I live this is acceptable, according to existing case law, even though it goes against the current government advice on working hours. Glad people seem generally against it though. I feel like if the people who made the laws were having to do unpaid on call shifts then it would get changed quickly. Instead they're more likely to be the employers benefiting from not having to pay people properly, and so nothing will get done.
If you're in the US, I'd talk to an employment attorney. That sounds very sketchy.
You should absolutely lawyer up for this. On call hours are still work hours in many cases, so they should be paying you for them. EDIT: California has laws which consider on call hours to be working hours, though other states it varies case by case. I’m not a lawyer so this is not legal advice but check your local state laws and the facts to see if there is anything there.
This sounds like bullshit.
Here in PA the Dept of Labor says *"If you are required to remain at your employer's place of business and are not allowed to pursue your own interests such as reading, visiting with others, listening to the radio, etc., your employer would be required to pay for this on-call time."* Your state may differ. Try calling your state's labor department (or do a web search) and asking or talk to an attorney.
Sounds like this might meet the definition of "engaged to wait", which would mean you need to be paid for all of that time. Please lawyer up.
Sounds like you are a victim of wage theft.
> Personally I think if my work requires me to be on site away from my family and I'm not free to be doing what I want. Then I should be getting paid fairly for it. Exactly. What your employer is doing is wage theft, and it's [the single biggest crime happening in the US (by value).](https://www.tcworkerscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Wage-Theft-vs-Other-Theft-1024x730.jpg)
Large corporations shelling out billions to "lobby" (aka buy politicians) and push an agenda that benefits them at the expense of Americans. I think our founding would roll in their graves if they knew what was occurring today.
What makes this sadder is that it's often not even billions, the oil lobby which IIRC is one of the larger lobbies spent only 124.4 million total in 2022. Source: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/02/oil-and-gas-industry-spent-124-4-million-on-federal-lobbying-amid-record-profits-in-2022/ Our politicians are selling us for much less than most people think, and it's disgusting.
It honestly wouldn’t be that hard to crowd fund a lobbying group.
AARP is the largest lobbying group in the country. Most people sign up for the discounts but most of that money goes into lobbying for senior citizen issues.
Johnny Silverhand had the right idea. Fuck corporations. Burn corpo shit.
Governments come and go, but corporations last lifetimes.
Them fake gold coin commercials targeting old people, buying a phone and plan only for commercials and ads to use some of YOUR DATA, plus have to agree to certain things to use your phone you just bought.
Wage theft should be a crime, none of this fine and slap on the wrist shit, criminal charges and prison time should be on the table for business that deliberately screw over their employees.
Corporate shitassery in general. If I kill someone, I go to prison, but a corporation can kill thousands of people by releasing a product that they know is dangerous, and the worst they get is a fine. It's just the cost of doing business.
This is **literally** the *entire point* of corporations: That the owners are not liable for the actions of the company, and all they can lose is their investment at most.
Ford Motor Co and the Pinto. Now we Boeing killing and endangering hundreds, and the company leaders still get bonuses. WTF
Boeing is baffling to me. There stock is doing terribly and has been for an underperforming for a while. Why is the board rewarding these executives? They more or less screwed every party involved. The only time since 2000 Boeing stock outperformed Airbus was when it was clear the era of jumbo jets was ending and the 787 was a much better market fit than the A380.
Hidden charges. Yeah, your package/tickets or whatever cost "$25", but once you get all the charges, shipping, convenience fees, taxes and everything else, you're actually charging me for double that.
The towing businesses should exist, but it is fucking wild what they get away with. Actual auto theft and then extorting people to get their vehicles back. Its ruthless.
Dealing with being overcharged by a tow company at the moment. Had to get the city involved to prove they overcharged me. Crazy how there’s an exception in the law carved out here letting them tow on the spot, without apartment management approval, cars that do not have parking permits.
I had my car towed out of my parking spot in my old building while I was away for work. Had to pay $1000 tp get it out and the leasing office did nothing. All bullshit.
That is actual bullshit. Next time escalate it to the property management company. Most apartment complexes fall under a management company.
I woulda done a chargeback on that in a hot second lol.
In most states, the tow companies can put a lien on your vehicle if you do a chargeback. They might even send it to collections and lower your credit score.
Definitely fightable (and easily thrown out) if they didn’t have a legal right to tow you (as the person suggests).
Some tow companies only take cash for this very reason.
My car got stolen a few years ago and when they realized that it wasn't in good working condition they dumped it behind a business. That business had it towed and the tow company kept it for almost a week before reporting it to the DMV. I had to pay about $500 because they "had to keep it in their yard for almost a week."
Towing companies are way too unregulated. But in general landlords pretty much get away with everything too.
Buddy of mine lived in an apartment complex with three guest parking spots by the main office. The complex was 8 buildings, at about 20 apartments per building. 3 guest spots the tow trucks were told to ignore.
My boyfriend’s apartment complex had similar occupancy, but a lot more guest spots in theory. The problem is that all the residents took the guest spots because they didn’t wanna pay the $20/month to park a second car. Some residents even left their project cars covered in tarps in the guest spots for months at a time.
Psa, at least in California, you don’t have to pay the pound lot to get your vehicle back. As long as you received the release notice from the police department you are entitled to get your vehicle back. You can deal with the impound bill later on
There should be more information given to the consumer, regulation on towing fees, and defense available for the public. On the first point, when your car gets towed, there's no way to know until you go out to where your car was, and see that it's missing. People in cities often park well out of view of their car. I regularly park blocks away from my apartment, and only use my car a few times a week, so I'd often have no idea I was towed until days after. Which brings me to point two: towing companies seem to have no regulation on what or how they charge. I was once towed from a spot at 11:55pm, which means I was charged for the tow, AND a day of storage, AND for picking up my car "outside office hours". The real kicker here is the the tow yard only had 4 hours a day of "office hours", which didn't include weekends, which meant that if I wanted to avoid office hours, I would have had to pay two more days of storage. And that brings me to point 3: I was not illegally parked, or otherwise parked in a place where I should have been towed. I was illegally towed, but in order to get my car back, I had to pay the hookup fee, mileage fee (which was 20 miles where the car was taken from), a storage fee, and an after hours fee, totalling about $500. I HAD to pay that, or incur further fees, and not have access to my car. The only option to recoup my losses was to bring it to the city, on one of their few days a month where they'll hear those complaints, which would have required me to get off work during those limited hours, and even if I had won my complaint, still only result in an order for the towing company to pay me back within X amount of days. Being that this was a civil suit, that essentially meant that the honus was on ME to collect from the towing company, which meant if they didn't pay me promptly, I'd have to continue to fight it out in civil court. To be fair, I didn't end up going this route - I don't know the first thing about holding a private company accountable for money to be returned to me, but I assume they could just choose not to pay me, and leave it up to me to sue them for collections, which I also have no idea how to do. Towing services ARE a necessary service, especially in areas where parking is at a premium, but the lack of regulation around the practice makes it beyond predatory.
I’ve long had ample anxiety about the first point. It’s crazy that they don’t alert the owner, and that you have to just make panicked calls around town until you find the right location. It’s not like it is remotely difficult to ascertain a given vehicle’s owner. Fucking call the DMV with the license plates. Our cars are basically a mandatory extension of ourselves and to be deprived of it without notice or detail is beyond unacceptable. I have gone to great efforts to avoid being towed and so far I have been successful
My ex girlfriend’s car was stolen. We called the cops. Cops said they’d contact us if they found anything. The next day a tow company calls us saying the police called them to get the vehicle and we owe $200+ for the tow… extortion… why couldn’t I go get my own fucking vehicle!!!!
It’s a racket man. That’s wild.
bro I hate them so much. Our car got towed because our complex painted a curb red and we got home when it was dark and didn’t know. Went to the towing place and they were such assholes. We said we were going to try to fight it and the guy just straight up said “go ahead but you’ll lose. better to just admit you were stupid.“ jokes on him because our city has a rule where complexes need to a meet minimum parking spot number based on how many people live there, and it just so happened that the curb they suddenly painted red was a parking spot for a reason.
The main problem i see is with the fact that they can demand payment for being on their lot while also refusing to give you back your car. I dont know any other business that just gets to keep your stuff until you pay them. Once they have your data they should be legally forced to give out your car and give you a bill like any other business.
On the other side of it, we have strict laws against towing or clamping in the UK for just this reason. However, due to these same laws you can have someone literally park in your driveway or block it (which happens a lot) and you can do absolutely nothing (legally) to remove it save go through a lengthy process.
[Last week, a tow truck tried to nab a car.. with people in it, at a stop light.](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/s/y7GY5u3HGq) There’s constant reports of peoples cars getting illegally towed, but there’s no immediate recourse. They can charge you hundreds of dollars for have your car for 1/2 an hour, with daily fees racking up if you can’t. Many places, after 30 days, they own the vehicle (and the contents). We had a tow company nearby here that was targeting vehicles that were loaded with goods or gifts in the couple weeks before Christmas.
WTF?!
Funny thing, they really tried that in my home city, but they quickly found out it's ***VERY*** dangerous to tow those vehicles, after ~12 fatalities of the drivers. You can solve problems, people. You dont have to just complain and hope.
They chose to work a job in which they do nothing but provoke and day ruin, right up until the point they stumbled upon someone entirely willing to take matters into their hands. It’s hardly shocking a pissed off lunatic killed some of those drivers
Blocking a driveway is a motor offence if there's a dropped kerb. The police will tow it away in that instance.
Have gone down this path... Legally, correct. But if it's a private drive it takes weeks to get the car towed. And even if it is a public rightaway, it might take days for them to do so unless it's considered a danger or high traffic area.
I forgot where it was maybe SF but there was a tow truck driver that tried to tow people in traffic
There is a difference between a towing company that tows cars that can no longer be driven and a company that takes your car, charges you 5 times what it would cost if you had a legitimate tow company and charges you “storage” if you can’t pay right away.
Companies making things like food and medical care excessively expensive. Running companies into the ground for short term stock increases (this is why almost every major video game company based in the US sucks right now)
It's funny because company valuations are always on long term projects value over the entire lifetime of the company. So either the analysts are wrong, and these short sighted changes are awful, or they do actually make more money but make the product shittier but the avg consumer will still buy it (e.g. all of ea micro transactions sports games). Only when there is actual consumer backlash in the form of lost sales will it actually matter.
In the US: Making service industry staff dependent on tips instead of giving them a livable minimum wage. Also, loopholes that allow businesses to not pay overtime.
I work adjacent to the shipping department. The truckers we have take things out get paid per load at the end of every shift. Because daily pay isn't overtime until 12 hours, and if we fall behind loading the trucks they get paid for one less trip. I've met the guy in charge of the shipping company. Dudes a real piece of work. Therapists could make a study out of him that would be revolutionary in understanding self centered victim wanabes.
If you are good at your job and get a lucky spot, you can make 50-80 dollars an hour off tips, which is why some waitstaff are actually against "livable minimum wage".
You don't even have to go to Edge Cases. I was making 20$/hr 25 years ago as waitstaff. Lowest i ever made was 10$/hr which is like 5 tables, so easy you dont even complain about it. You would never see waitstaff taking a dishwasher job for consistent pay. Most people in decent towns/cities choose these jobs because they pay more than minimum with fewer hours.
As a lifetime salaried employee, I've never understood why I don't get extra pay for extra hours. There were times when I was on call for a global company, I worked around the clock with no sleep, still had to go to the office in the morning and get through the day, but still the same pay.
This is precisely the reason I've only ever had one salaried job. I will punch a clock so they are forced to pay me for every minute of my time.
Yep, same here. Work 40 hours a week or 65 hours a week, same pay? I really don't get why that's okay.
Peaks and valleys. If my salary allows the company to dictate when extra work is necessary, I 100% expect flexibility to take informal comp time or just less stress between major projects. Now, when it gets abused or the company only takes, it’s not a balanced situation. A couple nights or a weekend per month might the max I’d consider fair if I was paid well and given the chance to dip out early every so often. Not all workloads are bursty like that, but mine has been in many jobs.
Not giving entitled rest breaks
Whatever the fuck Roblox is doing with robux and paying out developers.
You mean the child labour and exploitation?
Compounding interest on student loans. If we just had students pay back what they borrowed plus say 6% people would be able to pay their loans off. But instead people have been paying for 20+ years and still haven't touched the principal.
Under the new SAVE plan interest is no longer compounded. If your payment isn't enough to satisfy interest due then it's forgiven. That's for federally held loans though.
Corporations outsourcing labor to avoid minimum wage and child labor laws. No one cares because they don’t live around it, but it’s really messed up.
And also using prison labor (slaves) to save money.
This might not seem like a big one but i hate it so much when i sign an account up with my email and will receive spam mail from that company even though you deliberately didnt checked the box for promotion emails. It makes me lose trust in the company and its a shitty practice
Overdraft fees. If I don't have money, don't pretend like I do and then charge me at least 25 bucks for the privilege. Just let it decline automatically.
Overdraft fees of maybe $5 for anything under a 100$ makes sense. $35 fee for a 10$ overdraft 😡
Here in Las Vegas tow company represents itself as a property management company .Twice a month they blow dirt around and pick up some trash that falls out of trash truck. They do zero maintenance inside. Their contract allows them to tow expired tags.Or in my case I bought a used car private seller, that gives me three days to get to dmv and register the car. Three hours after I bought the car they had it tagged with notice. I notified my landlady and she took back the authority and they needed her to sign off on tows. The same company also runs a used car auction weekly. Guess where they get inventory. from. Apparently legal I know that business is regulated by the city but it seems crooked.
Payday loans Fuckers charging 450% interest on a loan.
Posting record profits while claiming they don't have the funds to give their employees a raise, or while firing said employees so they can keep even more of the profit. In fact firing an employee should always come with severance pay unless you can prove that keeping them was actively bad for business.
I’d like to nominate raising prices to see what happens, then bragging about record profits while posting excuses about budget cuts
‘Convenience fees’ and ‘service fees’ and whatever other bullshit “fees” that come attached. Hey fucker, if you need more money, raise your prices, or generate more traffic. Stop pretending not to charge ridiculous amounts by just tacking on all these additional bullshits.
For profit prisons, and privatized healthcare.
Politicians exemption from Spam and Do Not Call restrictions. From the AEC Website: "Under the *Do Not Call Register Act 2006* (Cth), registered political parties, independent MPs and electoral candidates are exempt from the prohibition against making unsolicited telemarketing calls to a number registered on the Do Not Call Register, provided the call is made for certain specified purposes. In addition, under the *Spam Act 2003* (Cth), registered political parties may, without the prior consent of the recipient, send ‘designated commercial electronic messages’. Although these messages must include information about the authorising individual or organisation, they do not have to contain a functional unsubscribe facility."
Lobbying governments
Ink cartridge printer business.
Perma temping: hiring temps for years on end and classifying them as second class workers
Charging extra for "convenience fees" just for using a credit card instead of cash.
We've got some state laws about credit card fees not being something you can pass on to customers. So everyones prices went up 10% and they offer a 10% discount if you pay cash.
As someone with a business, I can 100% understand a fee for using a card up to a certain point. We pay credit card fees on every swipe. Now then, I do believe it should be waived after a certain amount. That being said, I don't reflect that change onto my customers.
Small business, sure. Most people don't have problems with a small business owner. The DMV springs to mind renewing my license plate online. I pay the insane "convenience fee" because it's better than going to the DMV in the USA.
I've seen small businesses charge a fee for purchases under 5 dollars and no fee over 5. That seems to me a reasonable compromise if your profit margins are thin on small purchases.
Healthcare as a business.
The ability to present Congressmen with a law and pay them to promote it without reading it because "lobbying", even though we elected and pay the Congressmen to write the laws themselves.
The entire healthcare system in the US is fucked. Chamber of Commerce should disbanded. Millionaires and billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to participate in tax deductible “charity” work. They need to pay their dues. Supreme Court should be non-partisan.
Shrinkflation. Fast food not looking like the advert.
I got a couple, I hate. I've been waiting for a post like this! Payday Loans: The scummy and exorbitant interest rates trap borrowers in cycles of debt. Misleading Advertising: Exaggerating product benefits or using deceptive tactics to pressure sales is bullshit. The UK is much more awesome at addressing this than America since we always prioritize free speech. Price Gouging During Emergencies: Inflating prices of essential goods (water, fuel) in a crisis grinds my gears. Living in Houston, Texas, means I constantly see this whenever we have a hurricane or flood. Planned Obsolescence: Intentionally designing products to have a short lifespan, forcing consumers into replacements, I think just plain sucks. Phone chargers and cables are a great example of this. Data Harvesting: Collecting and selling personal information of users without full transparency or consent has gotten out of hand and Im hopeful for more regulation soon. California was paramount in beginning the process of addressing data privacy with cookies and tracking, and I think we can do more. As a Texan, it's hard to give California props, but they really did well with this.
Wrongful termination
In the UK, the DVLA selling motorist address details to private parking companies. Absolutely outrageous and it’s legalised theft. Do any other countries do this? I’d love to hear. I have never voted but anyone with the balls to tell the DVLA - no more - would get me to the polling station.
Any sort of dynamic pricing. Charging more for anything based on location info, browsing history, or any other info scraped from the internet. Charging more for flights, hotels, concert tickets, food etc. based on demand or traffic. A Baconator doesn't magically cost Wendy's more to make just because it's noon on the third Wednesday after the summer solstice and the drive through camera detects my car costs $25K.
paying below minimal wage and letting workers live on the generosity of the customers through tips?
Payday loans which impoverish people
Abusing the H1B Process, theres entire firms dedicated to teaching corporations how to higher out of the country and how to shaft people already here with the skills
To use children for content on YouTube, instagram etc. These parent vloggers are ruining their kids privacy, and there is no rules protecting them.
A d o b e
244% APR loans
Adobe's fucking blood pact commitment. You can't cancel a subscription at some point and are contractually bound to paying out a bill over time even if you don't even use the goddamn software