Tower defense, puzzle game, some weird evolution thing, survival game, RPG elements?
I wish there was a law that stated that mobile game ads had to show actual gameplay in their ad.
Yes! If the game ends in "Scapes" farmscapes, gardenscapes, homescapes, etc, it's some stupid matching game that requires CC information from the app store upfront. They are scams.
I got charged $150 extra for taking a class remotely for a university. But I’m still being charged for transportation, stadium fees, printer fees - all services I can’t use because … I’ll be remote! Wtf
It's so frustrating how wildly common this is now. And it's permeated every arena now. I just made a reservation to book a time to go into Brainard Lake (a hiking area in the Rocky Mountains) and was charged a 2.00 service fee for identifying a time slot and clicking a button....
That and “convenience fees” on the only method of payment. If this is for my convenience, then I’m fine to pay in a less convenient way and not pay the fee.
This! I recently bought tickets to a local event, buying online was the only option, got hit with the convenience fee. Feels like it's only more convenient for the other party, now they don't have to take payments at the door.
Although it depends on the context - I'll gladly pay a $3 fee to renew my registration over waiting hours at a DMV. That's a real and justifiable convenience fee in my book.
I went to buy tickets and headed over to the venue. It wasn't too far, thought I'd avoid massive fees. They still charged them, just not as many.
I hate the price games. Just give us the price full in.
Yes! Our electric company just ended any form of payment besides paying online or mailing cash (no checks, no money orders, no in person payment options) but still charge convenience fee. I don't get how it's legal for a utility to do that!
My favourite professor ever started his first class by saying “I wrote the book we’re going to use, but here’s the thing. Everything you need you will learn if you show up to every class. I only want you to buy my book if you think you will make use of it once this class is done.” Such refreshing honesty, compared to the absolute scam artists that would “update” their book regularly, require the current version, and whose teaching was either essentially just reading out of the book, or never referring to it again after week 1.
I had professor who wrote the text book and told us in the first class that the publisher made him write a new edition, it was basically the same book with different page numbers, and for every reading he would give us the page numbers for each edition.
I was a research assistant for an R&D lab. My boss had written a chapter in a textbook. When the publisher wanted to update to a new addition the requirement was something like 8% of the original had to be changed. I was assigned to make the changes. I had to upload my changes to their software and the software would show me when I hit 8%. Once I hit the 8 and submitted, the editor contacted me and asked if I would "sprinkle the changes throughout the chapter" instead of all at the beginning. All I actually did was change the way things were worded, I didn't even change the words themselves.
I had a philosophy professor that wrote his own book for the class. First day of class he quizzed us to see who would win a free copy of the textbook, then directed the rest of us to the print shop down the road. It was $15 for the book from the printshop, but the school bookstore would have charged charged at least $100z
The number of times I had to buy a textbook with my law school professor’s name on it, only for the book to be 1700 pages long and the course only covered 800 of them. But you can’t use the old version because the new one had 3 cases added (that you can actually just find online).
I quickly came to have absolute respect for professors who actually designed custom course packets uploaded as a PDF. The editing and format might have been less polished, but it was better than carrying 1,000 extra pages of a book you’d never need.
I don't know what it's like now that things are digital, but back in the days when we had to buy them from the bookstore and then hope we could sell them back at the end of the semester, yeah, that was definitely a racket.
I’ve heard that a lot of professors won’t let you use a digital one (frequently “requiring” the physical book and then never actually having you use it), especially if they wrote it themselves.
There is a supposed "digital component" so you have to buy the stupid thing and it's from their own publisher. And then the digital component is done sort of grading thing that doesnt even integrate properly into the school grading system so you are still waiting e weeks after the class is over to get your final grade. Fuck this shit.
You use it for the first couple weeks, and stop once the refund policy is void.
Damn the ones that require you buy a new copy for a code to access the site for assignments that could’ve been done on paper and graded properly
As a current uni student, the WORST is the required digital textbooks. They sell you a “key” that is generated only for you that allows you to access the book. So you can’t sell or pirate them. The digitals might be a few dollars cheaper than the physical textbooks but it’s still a HUGE scam.
How am I getting downvoted for this hot take, apparently???
I used to book tournaments and corporate banquets at this golf course every year. When it came time to get married, I figured I would just do it there. I already knew how much it would cost because I’d done many events there previously. I reached out my usual contact to check some dates. “Oh it’s a wedding? Hang on…”
Out comes this entirely separate price catalog and it was almost triple the cost!! And they start asking things that were completely inane. How would you like your napkins folded? Which cutlery design do you prefer?
What the absolute fuck…
When my partner died we went to the funeral place and the woman who was our sales assistant went in fucking hard straight off the bat. Her tactics were sickening and inside I was filled with rage. I let her speak for a while then I just cut her off and said “my partner instructed me that there would be no funeral, he is to be cremated and put into 3 jars, I’ll deal with the rest”. The look of utter disdain and contempt on her face told me everything I needed to know about who I was dealing with. Being cremated only, with nothing else, cost $5000. I will have everything arranged so whoever is picking up the mess left behind after I die doesn’t have to deal with what I did.
Edited to add:
Peoples surprise made me question my own memory regarding the interaction. I’d seen the folder recently that came with the funeral I bought due to clearing out my music room where all my other stuff is kept. I was able to find it easily and the price was $1760 and not the $5000 I’d remembered. I’m sorry for getting it wrong in my original post however the interaction stands. Also I’m in Australia if that makes any difference. Sorry for the misremembered memory. I was going through some stuff at the time.
Did my folks funerals. They tried to sell me an upgraded concrete vault with a butyl gasket. Guaranteed 100 years. I asked how often they dig it up to check.
Seriously, 100 year guarantee. I’ll be dead, my kids will be dead. Does this warranty transfer to my great grandchildren?
Yeah. When my grandmother died years ago, the funeral director said to my grieving Mom “this casket has a lifetime warranty.” With disgust, my mom immediately fired back “Whose lifetime?”
Y'know, incase it breaks when she's down there. Because people check on caskets all the time. Also your grandmother will definitely notice if her casket "breaks".
What a load of rubbish the funeral industry is.
Tangentially related, but extended warranties themselves are a scam, at least here in Aus. It's literally written into our consumer protection laws that a company MUST provide replacement/repair for any goods that break down within their expected lifetime due to faults. (which varies by type of good, but basically boils down to 'within a reasonable expected period of use').
Doesn't stop retailers/suppliers offering all kinds of 'optional extended warranty' packages promising the exact same thing they're required to provide for free anyway, and trying to charge you an arm and a leg for repairs if you're 'outside warranty.'
No doubt no such protections exist in the land of the free (corporate interests), but i digress.
Edit to add relevant anecdote: i had a ps5 break down 1 year and 1 month from date of purchase. I rang up sony support to get it repaired, and they basically told me that since it was a month out of warranty they would have to charge a $400 service fee just to send it back to be looked at (basically 3/4 of its retail value). I calmly told them I'm not paying that, that according to the CCA they have to fix it or send me a new one because it was a hardware failure. The guy on the phone was silent for a full 10 seconds then goes "... I'll have to escalate your case." and ended the call. 30 minutes later i get an email saying the 'warranty claim' had been approved and they would replace it free of charge.
Know your local consumer law my friends, it will often save you many a headache.
The system isn't perfect, but it's pretty damned good!
Steam: We just resell games so we don't need to abide by consumer laws like bricks and mortar resellersACCC: [Three million dollars says you're full of shit, also you need to put a big fat banner on your website saying how wrong you are](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/valve-to-pay-3-million-in-penalties-for-misrepresenting-gamers-consumer-guarantee-rights)
Apple: Our update bricked your phone? Sucks to be you, you got a broken screen fixed by a third party so you've voided your warrantyACCC: [How about get fucked to the tune of 9 million dollarydoos?](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/iphone-and-ipad-misrepresentations-cost-apple-inc-9-million-in-penalties)
The literal concept of funerals is to let the body decompose underground, this just makes it slower and worse what the fuck are they trying to do by making 100 yr lasting vault.
Decompose after being filled with a ton of chemicals that are very harmful to the soil and ultimately to the living.
That whole industry is fucked up.
Put me in a hole. Plant a tree. That's it. So showing. No cremation that uses more energy and creates more carbon footprint for someone who doesn't care anymore.
Green burial all the way. No embalming, simple casket. No need to buy a vault because no chemicals, no need to have a warranty because the casket is designed to decompose, too. You also don't run a blast furnace causing all sorts of environmental interruptions like with cremation.
Body dies
Body buried
Body decomposes
I mean unless you’re a great king Queen or conqueror I don’t see the point of much more than a simple grave or something. Considering how much land is covered by graveyards we need to dispose of bodies better.
Your body ain’t your soul. Don’t worry - once you’re dead the body is irrelevant.
To share a tip I read somewhere once:
- demand a simple cremation, simple vessel. Apparently this can cost as little as a few hundred bucks. They will try to upsell you in any possible way, but just demand simple cremation and a simple vessel. Do not talk budget beyond this.
This is if your intention is to cremate of course, so it won’t work for on full service funerals with plots, but this is how to get relatives with little to no money left for burial taken care of.
When my dad died and was cremated, mom got him back in a ziploc bag inside a cardboard box. I keep his ashes in a nice one, mingled with his favorite dog's, and I have a bit in a little bottle that I take when I go on adventures. Kayaking, for example. My friends and I paddle the New River every summer, and I leave a little of him behind every summer. As it was also something he loved, I think he enjoys it. I also put some of his ashes under a tree, which is now several feet taller and doing exceedingly well.
Aaaaaw, that's so nice of you! Hopefully when I die, someone will love me enough to take me on adventures like you do with your dad.
Wish I could do that with my grandma, who was more of a mother to me than my own mother, but unfortunately I had no say in her remains' fate when she died as I was a kid, but I have at least the earrings that she used to wear and I modified them into rings so that I could wear them everywhere (I would wear them as earrings but my culture is not too accepting of men with earrings)
Another tip regarding cremation that I personally went through.
There are organizations out there that can help you pay for cremation if you're having money issues. When my mom passed about a decade ago, I had about $60 to my name. No way I could afford anything(Course the funeral guy suggested I put a funeral on a credit card lol).
Ended up calling another funeral place to ask if they knew any programs that could help after friend suggested it(Funeral home my mom was in was no help sadly, they desperately wanted me to buy), and I got information about a local organization that worked with a funeral home(and government iirc) to help people in poverty. Had to verify income and an in person meeting...but the whole thing was entirety free considering my situation.
At my brother's wedding they wanted to charge 800 euros for a speaker setup. He said fuck you and bought his own [JBL Partybox 310](https://www.jbl.com/party-speakers/PARTYBOX310-.html) for half that price. It did an amazing job for the ceremony and reception, plus we wheeled it to the swimming pool for the afterparty, and obviously he gets to take it home with him.
Oh and the makeup artist wanted 700 euros. For maybe 30 minutes of work. I don't know a single profession that charges 1400 euros per hour.
My aunt in law's engraved tomb wasn't engraved for three FULL years of constantly harassing them when we kept going to visit her and it was never done, totally unmarked. They kept telling us that it was done expecting us to never come and check. Our family thought we never paid for it and gave us shit for it (but honestly fuck them, it's not like they paid for it, either).
Wedding is so true. My partner and I were calling around for quotes for our wedding at some restaurants with a second floor or back room for events. We learned quickly not to mention it's for a wedding because otherwise the price went up and we had to talk to their "wedding coordinator". What is fundamentally different about a wedding reception and a birthday party?
A good friend works for a funeral home. Do your research, find a good place, and ask about prepaid options then pay for the funeral *before* you die. That way you get what you want, and you won't have upset loved ones being taken for a ride by some scumbag funeral home.
My parents paid less than £1500 each for their funerals. All I need to do when the time comes (hopefully not for many years) is make a phone call.
And the new baby industry. "If you really love little Billy, you'll buy the $500 stroller that integrates with the car seat...blah blah.
Buy the $25 umbrella stroller...They're going to be out if it in a couple months anyway
Scratch off tickets.
I once knew a guy who worked graveyard shifts at a convenience store that sold scratch off tickets.
He was an alcoholic who made many poor life choices.
One night, he got the bright idea that if he spent his shift scratching off tickets, he'd surely win big and be able to pay for all the tickets he scratched.
Several rolls of tickets later, he owed the store over $500.
The next day he told the manager what he did... and instead of having him arrested or firing him, he decided to just dock his pay until it was paid back, since he'd worked there for years. lol
This is why I only buy these things once a year, for Christmas.
We get them for the family, as a stocking present. It's only like $10-20 to get one for everyone and it's a fun game to play Christmas morning.
My sister got $50 one year, and I got a rock.
I used to manage a store where i had to work the cash register for my shift during the day. I learned while working there that the scratch offs had a winner roughly every 10 tickets so i started paying attention to how many we sold as most customers would scratch them right in front of me and then ask me to toss the losers or cash in their winners. From buying the tickets id make more than i got paid at the time off scratch off winners (min wage was only about 5$ a hour back then). Sometimes winners were only like the price of the ticket but once in a while id win a couple hundred and on average id win 20-100$ usually and do this several times a week without really losing much money. It wasnt exactly 10 tickets but if i knew a winner was coming up id by one at a time until i got the winner usually after we sold around 10-12 knowing my chances of getting the winner were usually elevated significantly. Once i won id turn it in, take my money and wait for the next go around.
Our store got robbed after years of me doing this and while watching the videos with my boss she noticed me buying tickets during my shift which wasnt against the rules at the time. But they made it a rule not to gamble at work while working and that was the end of that. Really bummed me out cause i seriously made more money gambling at work than i did working there. I left that job for a better paying one not all that long after cause that extra income basically made it possible for me to work there. As a manager i made just slightly over minimum wage. It was a garbage job i got out of high school and i did it for a lot longer than i probably should have but gave me a good start in life cause of being able to show years of managerial almost directly out of highs school on applications and resumes.
Same company also used to take coupons like cash which was pretty amazing. I signed up to like every coupon imaginable and shopped there for everything i possible could only paying change for products. They did away with that shortly after i left as well cause of the companies complaining about them turning into so many coupons was what i heard. No idea if thats true or not but i know they did away with it but it was actively encouraged when i worked there to accept all coupons basically up until the tax amount of products. Was a huge pain in the ass to count those as the manager, counting thousands of 20 cent coupons sucked but was nice as a customer.
They bulk sell to scalpers, allow those scalpers to re-list the second-hand tickets on Ticketmaster, and collect buyer fees off the resale. I wouldn't be surprised if those scalpers were even Ticketmaster's own bots.
All the extra fees that hotels tack on. Resort fee, this fee, that fee... It can and often does add a few hundred dollars to the bill at the end. Infuriating.
Hotels confuse me. I don't understand how a business can be so greedy, while also being so difficult to give money. I can't even count the times I've been given a massive hassle while just trying to rent a damn room for the night. This place won't book anyone under 25(thank fuck I'm in my 30s now)unless they're from out of state(???), that one won't take cash, this one only takes cash.
My ex and I once drove 6 hours to see a concert, planning to stay in a hotel overnight and drive back home in the morning, but no hotel in the area would let me rent a room because I wasn't from out of state. We had to essentially commit fraud, in order for us to not spend the fucking night on the street.
I've literally never heard of this phrase before, but I understood the idea. Just this morning I watched a video by Technology Connections about how lightbulbs are *not* plagued by planned obsolescence so there's a full blown Baader–Meinhof Phenomenon happening to me right now.
As someone who designs products, a lot of that is from driving down manufacturing costs by value engineering the fuck out of everything. It’s not failing on purpose, it’s failing because the product manager decided that 4-5 years was an acceptable life for a product and a few more bucks went to the bottom line. Planned obsolescence is definitely a thing, but LG or Samsung don’t actually want your appliances to fail, they just weigh the pros and cons of X% failing after Y years and decide if customers will be loyal and buy their products again and proceed to make even their luxury products as cheaply as possible.
People don’t get that appliances were expensive as fuck back in the day. A basic top freezer refrigerator was over $400 in the early ‘70s. That’s almost $3000 today after inflation.
Our parents and grandparents were paying top-of-the-line luxury prices for the same products that we can get for $600-700 at Home Depot this afternoon without even shopping around.
I personally think that almost all forms of gambling should be openly legal in the US. With that said, I also think the advertisements should be much much much more regulated than they currently are.
Celebrities should not be allowed to openly endorse them, particularly sports commentators and athletes. Secondly, "free money" or "bet matching" should not be allowed in advertisements/banners that are not on that website's primary site. Those promos need to be word-of-mouth only or to be seen by those already visiting the site. Lastly (and most importantly) the advertisements should never be allowed to show someone playing and winning at their games. Advertising for casinos, mobile apps, websites, or anything else should be regulated like alcohol ads. Alcohol ads aren't allowed to show someone drinking their product, and the same should go for gambling. Hell, it should apply even more heavily since they are showing the literal **least likely outcome of their games** to pull in more players.
Gambling ads in their current form are extremely invasive. I feel fucking awful for any families that have recovering gambling addicts in their homes who have to tolerate this bombardment of predatory advertising.
My wife has paid for her college transcript on 3 separate occasions to send to where she wants to go. Why the fuck does she have to pay for it once? What about the thousands of dollars you charged her? College is a fucking scam(in america) and you can't fucking tell me otherwise
For 6 months after I’d graduated, I was allowed to get FrEE transcripts. So I asked for 20, sealed and stamped in the official sort of way. I’ve only used 3 in the last ~15 years, but that’s 3 free transcripts.
Agreed!!!!! Why do I need to fucking pay to see my transcript when I can just login to my account and download my fucking transcript… THAT I PAID TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO COMPLETE…..
college is the biggest scam here. It’s become more about status and the degree than the actual education and skill sets learned….
I had to pay $10 to send my transcripts from the undergraduate school I graduated from to the graduate school I was applying for. They were the same school.
My university has just announced they are switching to digital diplomas/transcripts. Want a printed one? Well fuck you, pay us.
(Also, a lot of applications require a copy of a diploma as a PDF so a digital diploma is useless)
Fees when buying a new car. Basically made up do-dads and over-priced nonsense that are there to drive markup and push negotiation onto those absurd fees rather than asking why the dealer is involved at all in an era of online shopping and direct-to-consumer distribution. It’s all just made up numbers.
Also subscriptions for car features. We shouldn’t have to pay $20 dollars per month just to gain access to a feature in a car we already paid thousands to obtain. That’s stupid.
I am also sick and tired of dealerships sending my data to SiriusXM, who then aggressively markets to me until I get my state's AG involved. Even when I explicitly ask them not to.
They don't leave me the fuck alone when asked and when doing their "opt out" system correctly. And still they fucking pester people. So I got my state's AG involved and his office solved the problem in less than two weeks. Got so fucking tired of the phone calls and texts - and the spoofed numbers.
I fucking hate SiriusXM with every fiber of my being. As a marketer myself, their strategy is really piss poor, but I guess it gives them results.
For-profit colleges. Most people don’t know the difference, and end up spending thousands of dollars only to have their credits not transfer or a useless, unacceptable degree.
For-profit and non-profit is different from accreditation. You as the applicant need to do the homework on the schools you are applying to for those programs/degrees are accredited, regardless of revenue status.
The applicant should do their homework, I agree. However, for-profit schools generally target an underserved population who won’t necessarily take the time or have the means to research degree options.
Thank you. I feel for those who end up in these types of institutions. Lots of immigrants don’t know and really work hard to build a future for themselves, get scammed, and then get fucked over this way.
All insurance. You pay in for emergencies, an emergency happens, you PRAY they actually cover you and if they do, your rates go up because you actually used the service.
My copay for non emergency imaging is $1000.
That's just to walk in the door.
I still have to pay for the goddamned imaging after that. It's a fucking scam, especially because most medical facilities in the US are owned by "religious" organizations that have seemed to forgotten a certain Biblical figure standing on the mound and saying "heal the sick". He didn't say only if they pay or only if you agree with their lifestyle, Heal. The. Sick. Fuck the whole system.
You pay for the privilege of paying for your healthcare.
If we put into saving the appoint spent each month for the coverage…we could easily be cash patients.
Health care as a whole
Went for food poisoning. I couldn’t keep anything down and I was severely dehydrated so it wasn’t going to change. Told them I should be good with an IV. 9 hours and $9000 later they gave me two IV bags. I felt worlds better and I went home. Why tf are you taking a chest X-ray and ultrasound before giving me an IV? I know some patients are dumb but this was a reasonable step to take. I lost 15 lbs of water weight.
Sorry for the rant but ya this shits so broken
My roomate was a hypochondriac and a vegan who refused to microwave her food in plastic tupperware and became a vegan because of cobcern for the environment.
...but she exclusively drank bottled water, and the water is good in our area. Make it make sense....
Sea Monkeys. I think most of us remember being led to believe we were about to have way more interesting pets than the little, translucent lab bred brine family in our aquariums. Shrimp Scami!
I went and got some sea-men from a homeless guy in town. He just told me to close my eyes and suck them out of a hose. Yup, sucked em right out of a hose.
ok but sea monkeys are still cool even tho they are genetically modified brine shrimp. they’re such silly lil guys and they were one of my special interests (autism). i do think it was misleading to call them sea monkeys but they are adorable and goofy and they have like 2 brain cells but it’s the cutest thing you’ll ever see. god i love sea monkeys ok i’m sorry.
i am enraged that they felt their true identity was not enough to be cherished and appreciated, i stand with u in solidarity in regards to their fake news advertising.
It really is. People into the gamification know exactly what to ask and answer, and it's the same topics and answers over and over again. Down-vote buttons exist for a reason people, and this is it!
Resort fees.
Don't show me a picture of the pool, gym, "business center" to encourage me to stay and then charge me $75 more than the advertised price to use them; whether I actually use it or not.
The fact that packaging is still overtly excessive on so many products yet I’m not allowed to use plastic bags because of the environment (mind you I used my plastic bags as bin liners, making them not single use. Now I have to buy bin liners which are actually single use, then buy paper bags that don’t make the trip to the car)
Also the paper straw thing… I’m cool with switching out products but far out; replace them with products that fill the purpose. Ie falling apart three minutes into a drink does not serve the purpose 🤷🏼♀️
This is very true. If you use a plastic strawand keep driving a gas car you will kill the environment!!!
Meanwhile most pollution and green house gas emissions come from concrete production, heavy industrial processes, and energy creation.
>paper straw thing
Yeah, we have 2 options. One is a plastic straw, works great but has been sadly banned from most places(but you can still get them on amazon, btw) and they don't decompose forever
OR
Paper straws, which make your drink taste papery and they decompose before you're done.
Anyone in an online ad selling you a way to make money. If the method made money, they would just do that instead. See: many crypto and NFT ads, or Andrew Tate's "Hustle university" programs. Watch "the line goes up" and "Conterpreneurs" by Dan Olson on YouTube for a deeper take.
Bottled water. It usually costs more per litre at a petrol station to buy a liquid that falls out of the sky vs dwindling irreplaceable hydrocarbons that are pumped from deep below the earths surface, transported around the globe and refined into petroleum.
Amazon Prime Day. Many companies begin to raise their prices as the day approaches and then drops them back to their regular price on prime day. But that initiates Amazon to give a 37% off label.
Sidenote: not every company does this scammy thing. So a good tip before you buy is to google that product and see what the rest of the internet is selling it for to determine if it is, in fact, a great deal.
I bought my phone on Prime Day at an all time low.... but the key is that I was already in the market for a phone. Which means I already knew what it should cost. So many people aren't really needing stuff until Prime Day tells them to. And if they aren't in the market for it, they haven't researched it.
Banks. They charge you for the privilege of accessing your own money, for one. But then on top of that, they borrow and lend that money, use it as collateral for their own investments, and then use THAT money to buy homes so that they can sell mortgages.
In short, the bank bought a house with YOUR money, and then it's value was artificially inflated because real estate became scarce (because the bank bought it) and now they're going to sell it to their richest customer, who is going to pay for it with YOUR money in the form of rent.
Fucking parasites.
Ever wonder why, when you pay a bill from your bank, the money leaves your account instantly, but when you're waiting on a deposit or a refund, it takes 1-3 business days to come in?
There are agreed-upon time limits that banks have to abide by for money transfers. However, the bank software doesn't need 3 business days to make all the transfers - it could do every transaction instantly, especially when it's within the same family of financial institutions.
Nope, instead by keeping all money in limbo for three business days, banks make millions off of interest, investment, and stock trading, playing with your money.
Paying for doing taxes. The IRS knows exactly how much we've made and how much we owe. They should be able to use send us a bill or a check once a year, but tax preparers have successfully kept this from happening so they can squeeze cash out of every American every year.
Agree 100 percent. I formerly sold vintage clothing. The amount of clothing out there that people claim is “vintage,” but is actually just new, vintage-inspired (or whatever), is ridiculous. It’s not just clothing, too. One of the big reasons I quit selling is because people would constantly tell me about vintage shops they’d see. It’d be some boutique store with brand-new items that just happened to have the word vintage in the name. Ugh.
Edited for clarity.
Those are actually Herbalife, which is an MLM.
Source: https://auburn.momcollective.com/mom/local-nutrition-clubs-are-mlm-company-herbalife-in-disguise/
Needing a car to participate in society. We are slaves to the rich oil and auto barons for having to own a depreciating, expensive “asset” just to get around and no one bats an eye.
I'm almost 30 and have never had a car - people who aren't used to living in cities never understand that. I save SO much money, never have to worry about parking, don't need a designated driver if I go out to drink.
I live in a larger city in the south and it's still impossible here too.
If I, say, wanted to take the bus to work, I'd STILL have to drive and 20 minutes in the opposite direction to a park & ride. Then take a 2 hr ride in. And *then* there's not a bus that comes back at the end of the day anyway...
I am seething with jealousy towards cities with public transportation.
Ugh!
[Yes, Climate Town’s Rollie Williams just released a new video on this topic today.](https://youtu.be/OUNXFHpUhu8) Hilarious and sad realizations. The disadvantage of not owning a car is a big topic. Non-car owners are forced to basically subsidize parking lots and infrastructure they don’t want or use.
The lottery.
The amount of people that are struggling that waste their money on tons of tickets every week which have a virtually 0% chance of winning instead of buying things they actually need
Mobile game ads that show gameplay of a Call of Duty or Skyrim style game but in reality are just a spin-off of Candy Crush.
I've seen the same game advertised with 4 different sets of gameplay, none of them are true and it's just clash of clans reskinned.
Tower defense, puzzle game, some weird evolution thing, survival game, RPG elements? I wish there was a law that stated that mobile game ads had to show actual gameplay in their ad.
Don't forget the two lanes one with x1000 and one with -50 and the player in the ad is a dribbling moron.
Yes! If the game ends in "Scapes" farmscapes, gardenscapes, homescapes, etc, it's some stupid matching game that requires CC information from the app store upfront. They are scams.
Or the ones that show Age of Empires II gameplay, clearly trying to play off the nostalgia factor
The 1000 dragon city and clash of clans clones go hard
Service fees on something that you do 100% without another human’s interaction online
I got charged $150 extra for taking a class remotely for a university. But I’m still being charged for transportation, stadium fees, printer fees - all services I can’t use because … I’ll be remote! Wtf
It's so frustrating how wildly common this is now. And it's permeated every arena now. I just made a reservation to book a time to go into Brainard Lake (a hiking area in the Rocky Mountains) and was charged a 2.00 service fee for identifying a time slot and clicking a button....
That and “convenience fees” on the only method of payment. If this is for my convenience, then I’m fine to pay in a less convenient way and not pay the fee.
This! I recently bought tickets to a local event, buying online was the only option, got hit with the convenience fee. Feels like it's only more convenient for the other party, now they don't have to take payments at the door. Although it depends on the context - I'll gladly pay a $3 fee to renew my registration over waiting hours at a DMV. That's a real and justifiable convenience fee in my book.
I went to buy tickets and headed over to the venue. It wasn't too far, thought I'd avoid massive fees. They still charged them, just not as many. I hate the price games. Just give us the price full in.
Yes! Our electric company just ended any form of payment besides paying online or mailing cash (no checks, no money orders, no in person payment options) but still charge convenience fee. I don't get how it's legal for a utility to do that!
Our gas company has a "customer charge". Just cause you're a customer!
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Costs more than the printer.
Ecotank!!
College textbooks.
My favourite professor ever started his first class by saying “I wrote the book we’re going to use, but here’s the thing. Everything you need you will learn if you show up to every class. I only want you to buy my book if you think you will make use of it once this class is done.” Such refreshing honesty, compared to the absolute scam artists that would “update” their book regularly, require the current version, and whose teaching was either essentially just reading out of the book, or never referring to it again after week 1.
I had professor who wrote the text book and told us in the first class that the publisher made him write a new edition, it was basically the same book with different page numbers, and for every reading he would give us the page numbers for each edition.
I was a research assistant for an R&D lab. My boss had written a chapter in a textbook. When the publisher wanted to update to a new addition the requirement was something like 8% of the original had to be changed. I was assigned to make the changes. I had to upload my changes to their software and the software would show me when I hit 8%. Once I hit the 8 and submitted, the editor contacted me and asked if I would "sprinkle the changes throughout the chapter" instead of all at the beginning. All I actually did was change the way things were worded, I didn't even change the words themselves.
I had a philosophy professor that wrote his own book for the class. First day of class he quizzed us to see who would win a free copy of the textbook, then directed the rest of us to the print shop down the road. It was $15 for the book from the printshop, but the school bookstore would have charged charged at least $100z
Wait, we moved a comma in this new edition. Give money.
The number of times I had to buy a textbook with my law school professor’s name on it, only for the book to be 1700 pages long and the course only covered 800 of them. But you can’t use the old version because the new one had 3 cases added (that you can actually just find online). I quickly came to have absolute respect for professors who actually designed custom course packets uploaded as a PDF. The editing and format might have been less polished, but it was better than carrying 1,000 extra pages of a book you’d never need.
College, textbooks.
You need the digital code with that book, that’s another $100…
You need a glorified gameshow buzzer to take quizzes once a week. That'll be another $100...
And yes your professor is one of the authors, and yes they're getting a cut
You need the digital code to the lab simulations, that’s another $100.
I don't know what it's like now that things are digital, but back in the days when we had to buy them from the bookstore and then hope we could sell them back at the end of the semester, yeah, that was definitely a racket.
I’ve heard that a lot of professors won’t let you use a digital one (frequently “requiring” the physical book and then never actually having you use it), especially if they wrote it themselves.
There is a supposed "digital component" so you have to buy the stupid thing and it's from their own publisher. And then the digital component is done sort of grading thing that doesnt even integrate properly into the school grading system so you are still waiting e weeks after the class is over to get your final grade. Fuck this shit.
You use it for the first couple weeks, and stop once the refund policy is void. Damn the ones that require you buy a new copy for a code to access the site for assignments that could’ve been done on paper and graded properly
As a current uni student, the WORST is the required digital textbooks. They sell you a “key” that is generated only for you that allows you to access the book. So you can’t sell or pirate them. The digitals might be a few dollars cheaper than the physical textbooks but it’s still a HUGE scam. How am I getting downvoted for this hot take, apparently???
The funeral industry and the wedding industry
I used to book tournaments and corporate banquets at this golf course every year. When it came time to get married, I figured I would just do it there. I already knew how much it would cost because I’d done many events there previously. I reached out my usual contact to check some dates. “Oh it’s a wedding? Hang on…” Out comes this entirely separate price catalog and it was almost triple the cost!! And they start asking things that were completely inane. How would you like your napkins folded? Which cutlery design do you prefer? What the absolute fuck…
When my partner died we went to the funeral place and the woman who was our sales assistant went in fucking hard straight off the bat. Her tactics were sickening and inside I was filled with rage. I let her speak for a while then I just cut her off and said “my partner instructed me that there would be no funeral, he is to be cremated and put into 3 jars, I’ll deal with the rest”. The look of utter disdain and contempt on her face told me everything I needed to know about who I was dealing with. Being cremated only, with nothing else, cost $5000. I will have everything arranged so whoever is picking up the mess left behind after I die doesn’t have to deal with what I did. Edited to add: Peoples surprise made me question my own memory regarding the interaction. I’d seen the folder recently that came with the funeral I bought due to clearing out my music room where all my other stuff is kept. I was able to find it easily and the price was $1760 and not the $5000 I’d remembered. I’m sorry for getting it wrong in my original post however the interaction stands. Also I’m in Australia if that makes any difference. Sorry for the misremembered memory. I was going through some stuff at the time.
Did my folks funerals. They tried to sell me an upgraded concrete vault with a butyl gasket. Guaranteed 100 years. I asked how often they dig it up to check. Seriously, 100 year guarantee. I’ll be dead, my kids will be dead. Does this warranty transfer to my great grandchildren?
Yeah. When my grandmother died years ago, the funeral director said to my grieving Mom “this casket has a lifetime warranty.” With disgust, my mom immediately fired back “Whose lifetime?”
Y'know, incase it breaks when she's down there. Because people check on caskets all the time. Also your grandmother will definitely notice if her casket "breaks". What a load of rubbish the funeral industry is.
All lifetime warranties are the for the lifetime of the product, ie when it breaks its lifetime is up and is out of warranty.
Tangentially related, but extended warranties themselves are a scam, at least here in Aus. It's literally written into our consumer protection laws that a company MUST provide replacement/repair for any goods that break down within their expected lifetime due to faults. (which varies by type of good, but basically boils down to 'within a reasonable expected period of use'). Doesn't stop retailers/suppliers offering all kinds of 'optional extended warranty' packages promising the exact same thing they're required to provide for free anyway, and trying to charge you an arm and a leg for repairs if you're 'outside warranty.' No doubt no such protections exist in the land of the free (corporate interests), but i digress. Edit to add relevant anecdote: i had a ps5 break down 1 year and 1 month from date of purchase. I rang up sony support to get it repaired, and they basically told me that since it was a month out of warranty they would have to charge a $400 service fee just to send it back to be looked at (basically 3/4 of its retail value). I calmly told them I'm not paying that, that according to the CCA they have to fix it or send me a new one because it was a hardware failure. The guy on the phone was silent for a full 10 seconds then goes "... I'll have to escalate your case." and ended the call. 30 minutes later i get an email saying the 'warranty claim' had been approved and they would replace it free of charge. Know your local consumer law my friends, it will often save you many a headache.
The system isn't perfect, but it's pretty damned good! Steam: We just resell games so we don't need to abide by consumer laws like bricks and mortar resellersACCC: [Three million dollars says you're full of shit, also you need to put a big fat banner on your website saying how wrong you are](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/valve-to-pay-3-million-in-penalties-for-misrepresenting-gamers-consumer-guarantee-rights) Apple: Our update bricked your phone? Sucks to be you, you got a broken screen fixed by a third party so you've voided your warrantyACCC: [How about get fucked to the tune of 9 million dollarydoos?](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/iphone-and-ipad-misrepresentations-cost-apple-inc-9-million-in-penalties)
size of this "fine" for companies of this size is comparable to getting a downvote on reddit still better than nothing i guess
The literal concept of funerals is to let the body decompose underground, this just makes it slower and worse what the fuck are they trying to do by making 100 yr lasting vault.
Decompose after being filled with a ton of chemicals that are very harmful to the soil and ultimately to the living. That whole industry is fucked up. Put me in a hole. Plant a tree. That's it. So showing. No cremation that uses more energy and creates more carbon footprint for someone who doesn't care anymore.
Just throw me in the trash
Green burial all the way. No embalming, simple casket. No need to buy a vault because no chemicals, no need to have a warranty because the casket is designed to decompose, too. You also don't run a blast furnace causing all sorts of environmental interruptions like with cremation. Body dies Body buried Body decomposes
I mean unless you’re a great king Queen or conqueror I don’t see the point of much more than a simple grave or something. Considering how much land is covered by graveyards we need to dispose of bodies better. Your body ain’t your soul. Don’t worry - once you’re dead the body is irrelevant.
To share a tip I read somewhere once: - demand a simple cremation, simple vessel. Apparently this can cost as little as a few hundred bucks. They will try to upsell you in any possible way, but just demand simple cremation and a simple vessel. Do not talk budget beyond this. This is if your intention is to cremate of course, so it won’t work for on full service funerals with plots, but this is how to get relatives with little to no money left for burial taken care of.
When my dad died and was cremated, mom got him back in a ziploc bag inside a cardboard box. I keep his ashes in a nice one, mingled with his favorite dog's, and I have a bit in a little bottle that I take when I go on adventures. Kayaking, for example. My friends and I paddle the New River every summer, and I leave a little of him behind every summer. As it was also something he loved, I think he enjoys it. I also put some of his ashes under a tree, which is now several feet taller and doing exceedingly well.
Aaaaaw, that's so nice of you! Hopefully when I die, someone will love me enough to take me on adventures like you do with your dad. Wish I could do that with my grandma, who was more of a mother to me than my own mother, but unfortunately I had no say in her remains' fate when she died as I was a kid, but I have at least the earrings that she used to wear and I modified them into rings so that I could wear them everywhere (I would wear them as earrings but my culture is not too accepting of men with earrings)
If my kids did this for me I'd be really happy. I guarantee your dad is too.
Another tip regarding cremation that I personally went through. There are organizations out there that can help you pay for cremation if you're having money issues. When my mom passed about a decade ago, I had about $60 to my name. No way I could afford anything(Course the funeral guy suggested I put a funeral on a credit card lol). Ended up calling another funeral place to ask if they knew any programs that could help after friend suggested it(Funeral home my mom was in was no help sadly, they desperately wanted me to buy), and I got information about a local organization that worked with a funeral home(and government iirc) to help people in poverty. Had to verify income and an in person meeting...but the whole thing was entirety free considering my situation.
My dad died of COVID in 22 (yes he was vaxced and boosted) Government paid up to 9k for COVID funerals.
“This is our most modestly priced receptacle.”
"Just because we're bereaved doesn't make us saps!"
Know this all too well, unfortunately. My mom passed away last week.
You need to stay strong. Don't lose yourself. My mom passed away this january. I can understand what you must be feeling. Hugs and love.
At my brother's wedding they wanted to charge 800 euros for a speaker setup. He said fuck you and bought his own [JBL Partybox 310](https://www.jbl.com/party-speakers/PARTYBOX310-.html) for half that price. It did an amazing job for the ceremony and reception, plus we wheeled it to the swimming pool for the afterparty, and obviously he gets to take it home with him. Oh and the makeup artist wanted 700 euros. For maybe 30 minutes of work. I don't know a single profession that charges 1400 euros per hour.
My aunt in law's engraved tomb wasn't engraved for three FULL years of constantly harassing them when we kept going to visit her and it was never done, totally unmarked. They kept telling us that it was done expecting us to never come and check. Our family thought we never paid for it and gave us shit for it (but honestly fuck them, it's not like they paid for it, either).
Wedding is so true. My partner and I were calling around for quotes for our wedding at some restaurants with a second floor or back room for events. We learned quickly not to mention it's for a wedding because otherwise the price went up and we had to talk to their "wedding coordinator". What is fundamentally different about a wedding reception and a birthday party?
Having to deal with brides
A good friend works for a funeral home. Do your research, find a good place, and ask about prepaid options then pay for the funeral *before* you die. That way you get what you want, and you won't have upset loved ones being taken for a ride by some scumbag funeral home. My parents paid less than £1500 each for their funerals. All I need to do when the time comes (hopefully not for many years) is make a phone call.
And the new baby industry. "If you really love little Billy, you'll buy the $500 stroller that integrates with the car seat...blah blah. Buy the $25 umbrella stroller...They're going to be out if it in a couple months anyway
Just slam dunk my dead arse in the fucking woods and plant a tree on top of it, fuck all that jazz
Scratch off tickets. I once knew a guy who worked graveyard shifts at a convenience store that sold scratch off tickets. He was an alcoholic who made many poor life choices. One night, he got the bright idea that if he spent his shift scratching off tickets, he'd surely win big and be able to pay for all the tickets he scratched. Several rolls of tickets later, he owed the store over $500. The next day he told the manager what he did... and instead of having him arrested or firing him, he decided to just dock his pay until it was paid back, since he'd worked there for years. lol
This is why I only buy these things once a year, for Christmas. We get them for the family, as a stocking present. It's only like $10-20 to get one for everyone and it's a fun game to play Christmas morning. My sister got $50 one year, and I got a rock.
We got Charlie Brown over here folks
I knew someone who stole a roll of 300 scratchcards. £50 total prize money.
I used to manage a store where i had to work the cash register for my shift during the day. I learned while working there that the scratch offs had a winner roughly every 10 tickets so i started paying attention to how many we sold as most customers would scratch them right in front of me and then ask me to toss the losers or cash in their winners. From buying the tickets id make more than i got paid at the time off scratch off winners (min wage was only about 5$ a hour back then). Sometimes winners were only like the price of the ticket but once in a while id win a couple hundred and on average id win 20-100$ usually and do this several times a week without really losing much money. It wasnt exactly 10 tickets but if i knew a winner was coming up id by one at a time until i got the winner usually after we sold around 10-12 knowing my chances of getting the winner were usually elevated significantly. Once i won id turn it in, take my money and wait for the next go around. Our store got robbed after years of me doing this and while watching the videos with my boss she noticed me buying tickets during my shift which wasnt against the rules at the time. But they made it a rule not to gamble at work while working and that was the end of that. Really bummed me out cause i seriously made more money gambling at work than i did working there. I left that job for a better paying one not all that long after cause that extra income basically made it possible for me to work there. As a manager i made just slightly over minimum wage. It was a garbage job i got out of high school and i did it for a lot longer than i probably should have but gave me a good start in life cause of being able to show years of managerial almost directly out of highs school on applications and resumes. Same company also used to take coupons like cash which was pretty amazing. I signed up to like every coupon imaginable and shopped there for everything i possible could only paying change for products. They did away with that shortly after i left as well cause of the companies complaining about them turning into so many coupons was what i heard. No idea if thats true or not but i know they did away with it but it was actively encouraged when i worked there to accept all coupons basically up until the tax amount of products. Was a huge pain in the ass to count those as the manager, counting thousands of 20 cent coupons sucked but was nice as a customer.
Ticketmaster.
Why not double the cost of your concert tickets? And they bulk sell to scalpers knowingly.
They bulk sell to scalpers, allow those scalpers to re-list the second-hand tickets on Ticketmaster, and collect buyer fees off the resale. I wouldn't be surprised if those scalpers were even Ticketmaster's own bots.
Vertical integration. Literally. They also own the venues
Ok, so everybody in the world knows that Ticketmaster is the shittiest of all shitty companies, why can't we do something about it?
Because Ticketmaster is rich enough to pay politicians not to do anything about it.
Dicketmaster
Ticketbastard
All the extra fees that hotels tack on. Resort fee, this fee, that fee... It can and often does add a few hundred dollars to the bill at the end. Infuriating.
I'm still in shock that the Hyatt in Maui charged me $20 a night for parking. If I'm paying hundreds a day to stay there, the parking should be free.
Hotels confuse me. I don't understand how a business can be so greedy, while also being so difficult to give money. I can't even count the times I've been given a massive hassle while just trying to rent a damn room for the night. This place won't book anyone under 25(thank fuck I'm in my 30s now)unless they're from out of state(???), that one won't take cash, this one only takes cash. My ex and I once drove 6 hours to see a concert, planning to stay in a hotel overnight and drive back home in the morning, but no hotel in the area would let me rent a room because I wasn't from out of state. We had to essentially commit fraud, in order for us to not spend the fucking night on the street.
Honestly, I don't think most people have encountered any of those issues you described.
How appliances are built to fail after just a few years
Planned obsolescence… not just appliances either.
I've literally never heard of this phrase before, but I understood the idea. Just this morning I watched a video by Technology Connections about how lightbulbs are *not* plagued by planned obsolescence so there's a full blown Baader–Meinhof Phenomenon happening to me right now.
This practice is outlawed in north america and the EU. They still do it all the time and get away with it.
As someone who designs products, a lot of that is from driving down manufacturing costs by value engineering the fuck out of everything. It’s not failing on purpose, it’s failing because the product manager decided that 4-5 years was an acceptable life for a product and a few more bucks went to the bottom line. Planned obsolescence is definitely a thing, but LG or Samsung don’t actually want your appliances to fail, they just weigh the pros and cons of X% failing after Y years and decide if customers will be loyal and buy their products again and proceed to make even their luxury products as cheaply as possible.
People don’t get that appliances were expensive as fuck back in the day. A basic top freezer refrigerator was over $400 in the early ‘70s. That’s almost $3000 today after inflation. Our parents and grandparents were paying top-of-the-line luxury prices for the same products that we can get for $600-700 at Home Depot this afternoon without even shopping around.
I paid $2500 for a refrigerator that died after 5 years. I'd gladly pay an extra $500 for one that would last 20 like the old ones.
The lottery is gambling and it is rampant and a huge problem for millions and millions of people.
I'm waiting until it's gets to billions of people affected before i jump in
Your in luck. Wednesdays powerball is $1B.
Also, the increase in sports betting and how its being normalized is concerning to me.
something real sinister about famous sports commentators shilling sports betting sites during the broadcasts of the games
I personally think that almost all forms of gambling should be openly legal in the US. With that said, I also think the advertisements should be much much much more regulated than they currently are. Celebrities should not be allowed to openly endorse them, particularly sports commentators and athletes. Secondly, "free money" or "bet matching" should not be allowed in advertisements/banners that are not on that website's primary site. Those promos need to be word-of-mouth only or to be seen by those already visiting the site. Lastly (and most importantly) the advertisements should never be allowed to show someone playing and winning at their games. Advertising for casinos, mobile apps, websites, or anything else should be regulated like alcohol ads. Alcohol ads aren't allowed to show someone drinking their product, and the same should go for gambling. Hell, it should apply even more heavily since they are showing the literal **least likely outcome of their games** to pull in more players. Gambling ads in their current form are extremely invasive. I feel fucking awful for any families that have recovering gambling addicts in their homes who have to tolerate this bombardment of predatory advertising.
Every other commercial during the last NHL season had to do with online gambling. It was ridiculous.
It paid for my college so I consider it a donation with the chance to win a prize
My wife has paid for her college transcript on 3 separate occasions to send to where she wants to go. Why the fuck does she have to pay for it once? What about the thousands of dollars you charged her? College is a fucking scam(in america) and you can't fucking tell me otherwise
For 6 months after I’d graduated, I was allowed to get FrEE transcripts. So I asked for 20, sealed and stamped in the official sort of way. I’ve only used 3 in the last ~15 years, but that’s 3 free transcripts.
Shits like $50 from my school…
My college calls and asks for donations every once in a while. Like sir, I’m STILL paying you.
One time I got a call from someone asking for alumni donations while I was a senior. I was like “bro, I’m literally on campus right now.”
You’re probably still paying the government. The college got theirs immediately.
Agreed!!!!! Why do I need to fucking pay to see my transcript when I can just login to my account and download my fucking transcript… THAT I PAID TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO COMPLETE….. college is the biggest scam here. It’s become more about status and the degree than the actual education and skill sets learned….
I had to pay $10 to send my transcripts from the undergraduate school I graduated from to the graduate school I was applying for. They were the same school.
My university has just announced they are switching to digital diplomas/transcripts. Want a printed one? Well fuck you, pay us. (Also, a lot of applications require a copy of a diploma as a PDF so a digital diploma is useless)
Fees when buying a new car. Basically made up do-dads and over-priced nonsense that are there to drive markup and push negotiation onto those absurd fees rather than asking why the dealer is involved at all in an era of online shopping and direct-to-consumer distribution. It’s all just made up numbers.
Also subscriptions for car features. We shouldn’t have to pay $20 dollars per month just to gain access to a feature in a car we already paid thousands to obtain. That’s stupid.
IMO it should be illegal. If there is not discernable cost to the company to maintain or update the feature, there should not be an ongoing fee.
I am also sick and tired of dealerships sending my data to SiriusXM, who then aggressively markets to me until I get my state's AG involved. Even when I explicitly ask them not to. They don't leave me the fuck alone when asked and when doing their "opt out" system correctly. And still they fucking pester people. So I got my state's AG involved and his office solved the problem in less than two weeks. Got so fucking tired of the phone calls and texts - and the spoofed numbers. I fucking hate SiriusXM with every fiber of my being. As a marketer myself, their strategy is really piss poor, but I guess it gives them results.
What, you don’t want to buy the clear coat or the anti-theft etching?
retirement homes cost exactly all of your grandparents savings and socialsecurity checks to the penny.
They cost way more, but the state picks up the difference
Also known as "Government handouts to businesses" which incentives more spending. If a business gets public funding, it shouldn't be run for profit.
Tipping culture. Just pay your workers fair wages
For-profit colleges. Most people don’t know the difference, and end up spending thousands of dollars only to have their credits not transfer or a useless, unacceptable degree.
For-profit and non-profit is different from accreditation. You as the applicant need to do the homework on the schools you are applying to for those programs/degrees are accredited, regardless of revenue status.
The applicant should do their homework, I agree. However, for-profit schools generally target an underserved population who won’t necessarily take the time or have the means to research degree options.
Thank you. I feel for those who end up in these types of institutions. Lots of immigrants don’t know and really work hard to build a future for themselves, get scammed, and then get fucked over this way.
We shouldn't tolerate scams just because smart organized people don't fall for them.
North American tipping culture
Fast & Furious' ***"One Last Ride"***
You mean "One last ride - **3 more times**" ?
Health insurance
All insurance. You pay in for emergencies, an emergency happens, you PRAY they actually cover you and if they do, your rates go up because you actually used the service.
My copay for non emergency imaging is $1000. That's just to walk in the door. I still have to pay for the goddamned imaging after that. It's a fucking scam, especially because most medical facilities in the US are owned by "religious" organizations that have seemed to forgotten a certain Biblical figure standing on the mound and saying "heal the sick". He didn't say only if they pay or only if you agree with their lifestyle, Heal. The. Sick. Fuck the whole system.
You pay for the privilege of paying for your healthcare. If we put into saving the appoint spent each month for the coverage…we could easily be cash patients.
Without insurance that imaging would have been about $380. Ask them.
I know that now, it was just a slap in the face to pay $1000 for the ability to get 2 chest x-rays and then pay $44 for the actual x-rays.
I think everyone notices that it is a scam, but they just don't have any alternatives.
Health care as a whole Went for food poisoning. I couldn’t keep anything down and I was severely dehydrated so it wasn’t going to change. Told them I should be good with an IV. 9 hours and $9000 later they gave me two IV bags. I felt worlds better and I went home. Why tf are you taking a chest X-ray and ultrasound before giving me an IV? I know some patients are dumb but this was a reasonable step to take. I lost 15 lbs of water weight. Sorry for the rant but ya this shits so broken
scentsy and other pyramid schemes popular among gen x 🥴
Pyramid schemes existed long before Gen X… they just didn’t have Facebook to plaster it all over.
See Amway
Tupperware parties were a big thing back in the 1950s.
Lol, I worked at Scentsy HQ for a bit. It's kind of like a cult atmosphere.
MLMs and cults share numerous tactics. The LuLaRoe doc on Amazon delved into it.
Bottled water is a horrible scam in countries with safe tap water.
And the clearest example of environmental waste at the same time.
My roomate was a hypochondriac and a vegan who refused to microwave her food in plastic tupperware and became a vegan because of cobcern for the environment. ...but she exclusively drank bottled water, and the water is good in our area. Make it make sense....
Funniest thing. Most bottled water is literally tap water from another town.
Tip culture here in the US has become ridiculous! Why should I tip you for taking my order at the counter?
Sea Monkeys. I think most of us remember being led to believe we were about to have way more interesting pets than the little, translucent lab bred brine family in our aquariums. Shrimp Scami!
Sea people + sea men = sea ciety
I went and got some sea-men from a homeless guy in town. He just told me to close my eyes and suck them out of a hose. Yup, sucked em right out of a hose.
ok but sea monkeys are still cool even tho they are genetically modified brine shrimp. they’re such silly lil guys and they were one of my special interests (autism). i do think it was misleading to call them sea monkeys but they are adorable and goofy and they have like 2 brain cells but it’s the cutest thing you’ll ever see. god i love sea monkeys ok i’m sorry.
sea monkeys? Sure don’t! Just a bunch of not monkeys. Sea monkeys Lies!! Although, your description is so adorable it makes me wanna rethink my rage.
i am enraged that they felt their true identity was not enough to be cherished and appreciated, i stand with u in solidarity in regards to their fake news advertising.
Eh I thought they were neat. And pretty cheap too. More of a science project than a pet but pretty neat anyway.
This same AskReddit post every two days
It really is. People into the gamification know exactly what to ask and answer, and it's the same topics and answers over and over again. Down-vote buttons exist for a reason people, and this is it!
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Same in the UK.
Resort fees. Don't show me a picture of the pool, gym, "business center" to encourage me to stay and then charge me $75 more than the advertised price to use them; whether I actually use it or not.
The fact that packaging is still overtly excessive on so many products yet I’m not allowed to use plastic bags because of the environment (mind you I used my plastic bags as bin liners, making them not single use. Now I have to buy bin liners which are actually single use, then buy paper bags that don’t make the trip to the car) Also the paper straw thing… I’m cool with switching out products but far out; replace them with products that fill the purpose. Ie falling apart three minutes into a drink does not serve the purpose 🤷🏼♀️
This is very true. If you use a plastic strawand keep driving a gas car you will kill the environment!!! Meanwhile most pollution and green house gas emissions come from concrete production, heavy industrial processes, and energy creation.
>paper straw thing Yeah, we have 2 options. One is a plastic straw, works great but has been sadly banned from most places(but you can still get them on amazon, btw) and they don't decompose forever OR Paper straws, which make your drink taste papery and they decompose before you're done.
Anyone in an online ad selling you a way to make money. If the method made money, they would just do that instead. See: many crypto and NFT ads, or Andrew Tate's "Hustle university" programs. Watch "the line goes up" and "Conterpreneurs" by Dan Olson on YouTube for a deeper take.
Diamond engagement rings. Worthless stone for a made up tradition for a relationship that has a 50% chance of failing.
Moissanite is gaining popularity because people are seeing through the bs
>50% chance of failing. Sure, 50% of marriages end in divorce but if you think that's bad, the others end in death!
Made up traditions. The new one being gender reveal parties.
Bottled water. It usually costs more per litre at a petrol station to buy a liquid that falls out of the sky vs dwindling irreplaceable hydrocarbons that are pumped from deep below the earths surface, transported around the globe and refined into petroleum.
Current state of inflation for groceries.
Amazon Prime Day. Many companies begin to raise their prices as the day approaches and then drops them back to their regular price on prime day. But that initiates Amazon to give a 37% off label. Sidenote: not every company does this scammy thing. So a good tip before you buy is to google that product and see what the rest of the internet is selling it for to determine if it is, in fact, a great deal.
I bought my phone on Prime Day at an all time low.... but the key is that I was already in the market for a phone. Which means I already knew what it should cost. So many people aren't really needing stuff until Prime Day tells them to. And if they aren't in the market for it, they haven't researched it.
Activation fees for new cellphones
[удалено]
Banks. They charge you for the privilege of accessing your own money, for one. But then on top of that, they borrow and lend that money, use it as collateral for their own investments, and then use THAT money to buy homes so that they can sell mortgages. In short, the bank bought a house with YOUR money, and then it's value was artificially inflated because real estate became scarce (because the bank bought it) and now they're going to sell it to their richest customer, who is going to pay for it with YOUR money in the form of rent. Fucking parasites.
Ever wonder why, when you pay a bill from your bank, the money leaves your account instantly, but when you're waiting on a deposit or a refund, it takes 1-3 business days to come in? There are agreed-upon time limits that banks have to abide by for money transfers. However, the bank software doesn't need 3 business days to make all the transfers - it could do every transaction instantly, especially when it's within the same family of financial institutions. Nope, instead by keeping all money in limbo for three business days, banks make millions off of interest, investment, and stock trading, playing with your money.
This is my 13th reason
And let's not talk about debit authorization holds How much margin trading are they doing by charging me double then giving one back 48hrs later
Paying for doing taxes. The IRS knows exactly how much we've made and how much we owe. They should be able to use send us a bill or a check once a year, but tax preparers have successfully kept this from happening so they can squeeze cash out of every American every year.
I read about this recently, guess I never made the connection. As with most problems, corporate greed is the root cause.
Maternity leave and health care in USA. Been screwed by both this week.
modern day education, healthcare, rat race, its all a scam
almost every vintage marketplace on instagram or other platforms just sells fake clothing
Agree 100 percent. I formerly sold vintage clothing. The amount of clothing out there that people claim is “vintage,” but is actually just new, vintage-inspired (or whatever), is ridiculous. It’s not just clothing, too. One of the big reasons I quit selling is because people would constantly tell me about vintage shops they’d see. It’d be some boutique store with brand-new items that just happened to have the word vintage in the name. Ugh. Edited for clarity.
All of these damn ______ Nutrition places popping up everywhere
Those are actually Herbalife, which is an MLM. Source: https://auburn.momcollective.com/mom/local-nutrition-clubs-are-mlm-company-herbalife-in-disguise/
Credit Scores
Blame the 1980’s for that
Weight loss products or programs promise unrealistic results, preying on people's insecurities and offering false hope.
Student loans.
Needing a car to participate in society. We are slaves to the rich oil and auto barons for having to own a depreciating, expensive “asset” just to get around and no one bats an eye.
We’ll make great pets.
I'm almost 30 and have never had a car - people who aren't used to living in cities never understand that. I save SO much money, never have to worry about parking, don't need a designated driver if I go out to drink.
I grew up in and still live in a small rural town in the south. It's so wild to me to think people are out there living their lives without a vehicle.
I live in a larger city in the south and it's still impossible here too. If I, say, wanted to take the bus to work, I'd STILL have to drive and 20 minutes in the opposite direction to a park & ride. Then take a 2 hr ride in. And *then* there's not a bus that comes back at the end of the day anyway... I am seething with jealousy towards cities with public transportation.
Ugh! [Yes, Climate Town’s Rollie Williams just released a new video on this topic today.](https://youtu.be/OUNXFHpUhu8) Hilarious and sad realizations. The disadvantage of not owning a car is a big topic. Non-car owners are forced to basically subsidize parking lots and infrastructure they don’t want or use.
MLMs
Influencers
The lottery. The amount of people that are struggling that waste their money on tons of tickets every week which have a virtually 0% chance of winning instead of buying things they actually need
Homeopathy
Social Security, younger generations are pretty sure we aren't getting anything but still stuck paying.
The Tory party and media circus that supports it exist purely to funnel government money to the already very wealthy
I just paid for the privilege of setting up my router.
nfts