Pretty much anything starts to seem normal if you see it, hear it, or do it often and for long enough.
Like staying at home and going nowhere and cleaning your groceries, for example.
Sometimes people stop and take stock of life, though, and realize things that everyone is doing are actually a scam – which is the case in these 15 instances.
15. Just say no.
Payday loans.
I used to work as a debt collector for a payday loan company in the UK… I was not a very good debt collector… people used to find out about the various loopholes that stopped interest being added really easily…
I worked there just before christmas… it is the job that made me go back into education… because.. my soul
14. Make print stores the new normal.
Ink cartridges. printer company’s make barely any profit off of actual printers, they’re just vessels to make you buy unreasonably priced cartridges
“Hey please print this document in black and white” “F*ck you give magenta”
13. Smart phones are the future.
Back to base security system monitoring
Huge scam.
My smart home security system alerts me faster than ADT ever did (biggest offenders) When you don’t answer the call, they will send out someone and will charge you a fee
And every-time your system messes up, it will send false error codes to the monitoring station, which they will charge you a huge fee to fix
And oh if you want to disconnect it, they guy i spoke to from ADT was going to charge me $250 call out + $50 for every 15 minutes he was at my house, and the job would of taken at least an hour he they said, they may need to go into the roof
no i just called a security installation Electrictian and he said $50 call out and $30 for every 30 minutes he was there but that was depending on the type of job
He was at my house for 5 minutes
Power off Remove power wires from control box* Protect the wires so its safe Replace cover on control box Done
He only charged $50. Compared to ADTs service which would of cost about $450
(ADT Hardwired it into our power system… without telling us what circuit they plugged into, basically one flip of a switch outside and the system turns off)
12. Artificially inflated.
The diamond industry, specifically as it relates to jewelry.
Everything that the average person “knows” about it stems from propaganda and advertisements created by DeBeers.
They aren’t rare, they aren’t worth what you pay for them, they don’t appreciate in value and are a terrible investment. They aren’t special.
11. There’s no magic pill.
EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the Internet that sells some sort of „millionaire education“ it’s all bullsh%t.
Every single one of them. They are all liars, most of them are not even rich to begin with! They fake it enough that some idiots buy it. You are customers to them. Nothing more.
10. Nothing is truly unlimited.
Internet Data Cap. F*cking scammers.
We’re living in our RV, and “unlimited” cellular internet is a fraudulent lie.
They all throttle your speed and de-priorize your data packets for using too much of your “unlimited” data. I hate these f*ckers with the fire of a thousand suns.
9. Why are there no other options?
Ticketmaster.
Basically scammers adding huge marks up but making it impossible to use anyone else.
Not to mention allowing mass purchasing bots to scoop up tickets only to offer a third-party market platform for those same scalpers to resell the tickets at increased prices to the fans actually going to the show — TM takes a cut twice!
8. No way around it.
Those Keymaster games that usually have something like a Switch and a pair of Beats and stuff.
I work part time at an arcade and you physically cannot win a prize until the machine has taken it’s retail equivalent in cash.
7. When you do the math…
Starbucks. I pay $9.99 for 51 oz of Folgers Ground Coffee, roughly 380 8 oz cups. That comes out to about $0.02 per cup of coffee. At Starbucks, a Tall Dark Roast costs $1.85.
I could have 92.5 cups of Folgers at home before I pay for 1 Starbucks.
My tub of Folgers is worth $703.00 if I were to sell it at the same price as Starbucks. AND I’m using reusable cups every day.
6. Just walk away.
I just paid for the privilege of setting up my router.
My cable company recently started trying to charge me for my router. Which I own.
I got a notice saying “we noticed an error in billing and we will be charging you for the equipment rental starting in December”.
The f*ck you will, I have every receipt from every cable or phone transaction I’ve ever done for that exact reason. I paid outright for my router so I wouldn’t be renting their sh%tty equipment at $12/month.
Now they want to charge me for my own property. After receiving that notice I hopped right on to customer service to get it resolved, and they directed me to their “loyalty department” because “they could best handle it over there”.
I cut off the conversation and just cancelled my service. Cable companies are pure scum.
5. Human nature.
What’s worse is when the companies try to do right and we force them back into scamming.
Stores like JC Penney sell $10 shirts for $20 at a %50 discount. They also inflate the price of belts, wallets, and underwear but then lower the price of pants. It all evens out but the customer gets the satisfaction of getting a deal.
Once they tried to get rid of that with a “fair and square” pricing strategy but it almost bankrupted the company and it never fully recovered. People don’t want to buy cheap stuff. They want to buy “expensive” stuff at a discount so they feel like they’re getting a bargain.
4. No idea why these are still a thing.
The school picture industry. $80 for an awkward picture of my baby? Nah, thanks.
3. Not a good deal.
Rent-to-own furniture and appliances.
There was an episode of Hotel Impossible where the owner rented the couch in her lobby on a weekly basis for years. She could have bought multiple couches with the money she spent on that one couch she doesn’t even get to keep.
2. And it’s no better than tap water.
Bottled water, like Dasani.
Especially in places like an amusement park that mark ups the price a shocking amount. Also the average markup of bottled water is 4000%, which is outrageous, bc water is literally free most places
1. Definitely should be widely available.
Scientific journal memberships.
Where academics pay journals to publish their papers which are than peer reviewed by volunteers and the journals themselves are then sold by subscription?
Not to mention that a huge part of scientific research, breakthroughs, and discoveries are often subsidized by the tax payer. So even though I helped indirectly fund their research through the NIH, I can’t read the results without a $200 monthly subscription.
I’m sure some academic ethicist could probably speak to this issue in more detail that I can, but that’s always bothered the fuck out of me.
Wow, I have to say, my mind is kind of blown on some of these.
Is there something you would add to the list? Share in the comments!
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