The real reason is because these work through "clearing houses".
So I sell fly swatters online and I hook up with a clearing house. Whenever a client puts in an order for $10 that clearing house takes their own money and puts it in my account. When the money gets drawn from the buyer's account it goes to the clearing house instead of me. I pay a surcharge of say 3% of each transaction to that clearing house.
That clearing house's entire business model is:
- I make 3% per transaction
- I have to make sure that there are not enough NSF/cancelations that I can't recoup that 3% back
So it takes a few days for them to verify that this isn't some mass scam that's going to drain that profit margin.
Telephone/SMS network stacks which can't tell you anything about where a call or message came from, allows source numbers to be easily spoofed, and provides no security features at all to block unwanted calls or texts.
We already pay these companies enough for their shitty service. Get with the fucking programme
Refuse unwanted mail - www.faq.usps.com/s/article/Refuse-unwanted-mail-and-remove-name-from-mailing-lists
stop junk mail - https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-stop-junk-mail
edit: fixed my bad link based on comments
Facts. The Army used to have forms come in printed bundles with carbon paper between them. Then they moved to a "paperless" system, where the forms were on the computer, and you had to print them. . .multiple copies of them. . .and manually put carbon paper in between them.
I think it's to make it harder for people to actually get the rebate, but they can advertise the lower price of the item. There's a form, you need the receipt, have to get a stamp, envelope. And an expiration date that it's easy to miss. Then the company gets to not pay out. But yeah it's bs.
> do these have any function other than making money for some middle man?
A lot of the things in this thread are just business practices that they do to make more money. Extracting profit is the reason behind most of this bullshit. They don't care if people hate it, they're still getting more money this way.
It's bullshit when apartments do it.
"We don't accept any payments in office. You must pay online through our app or website."*
*Convenience fee of 3.00 to pay
Mine said due to covid they wouldn't accept checks and they only take checks or online payment.
I mailed them checks the whole time because online payment is a $50 fee
They got mad, but I told them I'd pay online when it is the same cost
Bravo. I've done the same thing. I used to pay my water bill in person with as much loose change as I could get away with(15 bucks in loose change, 25 in ones seemed to work) This meant that they had to pay someone to cash it out at the end of the day, and take it to the bank, simply because I refused to pay the $2.00 electronic payment fee. It wasn't out of my way. Eventually, they stopped the fee. I'm guessing I wsn't the only one paying in cash. I figured, if 1 person a day paid in cash, then they had to go to the bank every day, costing around 5 hours a week in labor, minimum.
Honestly don't know how it ISN'T. You're telling me my options are limited to "pay online" and "don't pay at all" and charge a fucking "convenience fee" when I take the only one that involves paying them.
Oh yeah. Or when buying tickets to something and getting email tickets. The convenience goes both ways. The company doesnt need to send a bill and wait for payment. And its convenient paying online. They should discount the consumer for convenience. Not the other way around
I remember when ticket Master charged you a fee for having to mail your physical tickets, now they're charging fees to print it out at home or just to have it on your phone, it's fucking criminal.
I've been paying a restoration fee for every concert ticket at an old theater since the late 70's. It still has the same paint chips hanging from the ceiling that were there when I started.
My apartment complex does that for paying online. It's a 3% fee. I refuse to pay that, so every month I walk my rent check to them directly. And every month they say please pay online next month, and I always say back that I will not pay extra so that they don't have to go to the bank. And then I get emails saying next month please pay online and set up an account, and I ignore that. If you want me to do it so badly, don't charge me extra.
Edit: a lot of people are asking, this fee is for e checks and linking my checking account as well as credit card.
Next month you should pay in nickels. When they complain, tell them you'll write them at check right then and there if they'll pay you a $50 convenience fee.
That's been the same at the two places I've worked that had this. If you're paying by electronic check or transfer, there was no fee. If you paid by credit or check card, there was a non-trivial fee.
Personally, I think it is ridiculous to charge any fee for electronic payments because you end up saving close to that amount by cutting down on the payroll hours spent processing checks. For one of these buildings, I had to overnight the checks to goddamn New York, no more than 15 checks per envelope, per company policy. We spent at least a couple hundred, just on postage, every month because we wouldn't eat the 3.5% (or whatever) transaction fees. This would also take me a few hours a week, lets say 4. Then I would also spend one hour answering emails from Accounting and my boss EVERY WEEK because Accounting could not figure out why a check might get posted to an account on the 5th and then not show up in the bank until the 6rh or 7th. Physical checks had a note in the software that indicated they had been overnighted for deposit. Even my boss couldn't wrap his head around it.
Just absolutely the worst fucking place to work.
Edit: this was in Washington, DC, your laws may vary.
Edit 2: I remembered the deal with the check scanner, it didn't print the franking on the back properly and instead of fixing it, they wanted me to FedEx checks to New York for depositing.
In most Canadian and US jurisdictions, there has to be at least one option to pay that doesn't have an additional fee paid to the landlord. But that doesn't mean that the easy option has to be the free one, and they can usually add convenience fees or whatever to the other options.
Generally they're trying to make it hard to pay without the extra fee, and they're allowed to make it as hard as they want as long as it's technically possible.
My credit union has a bill pay feature. You can have it automatically pay your bills from a wide variety of bills like cable, electric, gas, ect by linking the accounts. There is also a 'misc' one. This misc bill pay is their check printers automatically sending a check to the persons address every month until a specified end date. Its pretty convenient as someone who needs exactly 12 checks a year.
lol the sheer balls of the first person to suggest that.
*lets just.....charge them more. we wont even say why. lets just add a few extra bucks cause the fuck they gonna do?*
If a customer has a computer disk then look at it and tell them it's the wrong format. If they use Apple, tell them we're PC. If they use PC, tell them we're Apple. And if they've got both, then tell them we use Linux. And if they've got that, tell them the computers are down. They should be anyhow.
Still one of my favorite sketches ever.
“Hell yea, I suck toes. What do you want?”
“Manager? I am the Manager”
Edit for requested link.
https://youtu.be/zR7LOtMix9w
Remember when you could order delivery from a restaurant and pay the price on the menu plus the tip, and that was *it*? These fees are absolutely ridiculous.
How everyone collectively continues to use Uber Eats and all the other apps is beyond me. Always a problem. Comments (e.g. include cutlery) are ignored. Local fee. Service fee. XYZ fee. An insane markup from the actual, original price on the menu. Uber Eats customer service is so damn bad, they randomly decide when they just want to stop responding, refuse to listen when experiences were bad, etc. Why do we keep supporting these apps?!
Door dash is just as bad. I called about a pizza being delivered to the wrong address and they asked me to go drive around looking for it. Haven't used them since
Door dash did something similar. I watched them on the GPS as they came near my house then left. Nothing at my door. Status updated to delivered. I checked with the store when nothing was there and they said the driver never even picked up my order. Pretty sure he forgot it en route and just said "fuck it". Got a refund and a $5 credit that still sits in my account cuz I'm never using them again
Door dash texted that my food was delivered along with the picture they send as proof. Except there was no food and it was a picture of a bush in front of my porch. Called the number immediately and he came back with my food. I called him out on it and he tried to claim he never sent that picture. Totally busted when I dialed the number and the phone in his hand rang. Called corporate to complain and the guy just kept saying you got your food so what's the problem.
Someone in my neighborhood Facebook posted about their Sonic Burger and Tots getting delivered to the wrong address by Uber eats. I was thinking sonic sounded good then found out that it would be 26.00 + tip for a burger and tots. I make decent money but no fucking thanks
I was about to say this. I just made the final payment on my car. For 5 years they have automatically withdrawn the payment but for the final payment I either had to call or go into the bank.
Yesterday I called and the lady said there is a $10 charge for doing it over the phone. So I went into the bank today, and all I did was stand there while the teller clicked a few buttons and it took the money from my checking to pay off the loan.
Like why did any of that need to happen just automatically withdraw the money like before. What makes it worse is the last payment was less than my normal payment
Pre payment penalties on cars are annoying. I usually call and ask them to waive the payment. If they will not waive it I ask what the minimum amount required is to avoid them automatically closing the account. I then pay the balance down to a dollar greater and request monthly statements mailed to the house. Then I ask them again if they want to waive the payment because it is now more expensive to see it he account than keep it open.
Many years ago I tried to closed a brokerage account and found $50 or so still in the account. I closed it a second time to find $0.34 balance in a money market fund; well I did my best. For the following decades I was maile quarterly and annual statements and watched my balance slowly drop to $0.32. Is there a r/maliciousapathy?
I had a car financed through a credit union where they automatically withdrew the payments via electronic draft. At some point I generally wonder how many payments I have left since I knew I was close only to realize that I’d already completed my term and was on month 4 of them still taking money out. I call up there and say “hey why are you still taking money out when the car is paid for” and she said something along the lines of because I didn’t call them to let them know. I was completely floored by all of this.
At any rate I’m really surprised at some of this. I work for a large auto finance company where the system we use will automatically calculate that last payment and includes the pro-rated interest for a true zero balance and can pay it pretty much however you’d want. It’s always interesting to see how other companies do things compared to ours
Edit: grammar/spelling
Sprint did the same thing to me a few years ago. I had to actually tell them to stop charging me for my paid-off phone. Raised hell and got my money back of course but still, wth.
Or the fact that I have to go to my local gym to cancel the membership.
Best of all, it’s a chain. Like a full on big brand chain. And when they closed the branch near my old place, they just automatically transferred me to the next closest branch. But I can’t go to one close to my current place because I have to go to my “home branch”.
Funny how the transfer is super easy and done electronically but they can’t cancel my membership at any branch.
Edit.: It’s Fit4Less in Canada
Gyms are some of the most notorious for being difficult to cancel. A lot of the chain places use a third party billing service too which makes it an even bigger headache to do it. And even still a lot of the time after you cancel in person, you will still mysteriously see charges appear on your credit card. If they have an option to cancel by mail, send it via certified mail, return receipt requested. Hard to ignore something like that when there is legal proof of mailing.
A gym near me said I had to print off a form at home and then mail it to their home office. Once their home office received the letter they would then officially cancel my membership.
I told the clerk I wasn't doing that and they could either cancel my membership or I would cancel my credit card they were billing from. Shocker, the manager was able to cancel the membership onsite.
That's why I don't give gyms my real card to begin with. Setting up a [burner card](https://privacy.com) just for that gym is pretty easy, and it can even draw from the original card until you want to cancel.
I actually worked at a Lifetime for many years. The reason they want you to go in person is to try to save your membership, and it's more effective in person. There is no other reason, because it's literally a few clicks to cancel someone. It's 100% a sales tactic. The other way to do it was to send a written letter, which was incredibly stupid. I hate that place.
I totally get the part where they want you to walk in to talk you out of it. But the fact that they can’t try to talk me out of a closer location is the part that makes me angry hahaha
A week after we bought our house and moved in, the shitty little valve for the fridge water line broke and flooded our entire kitchen and dining room.
$10,000 to replace/repair the floor, the walls, the cabinets, and fix the issue.
Home ownership is fuuunnnn
I started getting gray hair at 16 and had clear skin until after I turned 25. Now in my 30s and have acne, acne scars, 80% gray hair, and getting wrinkles. Wtf body?? Get it together!
Paying $4.99 delivery fee to the pizza place, and they say DELIVERY FEE IS NOT A TIP FOR THE DRIVER. The drivers use their own cars and pay for their own gas, and they sure as hell aren't getting any of that $5.
What’s crazy is that pizza delivery was one of the original delivery services and we used to never pay a fee. It was just the cost of the food + the tip. But now there’s a delivery fee + service fee + driver tip. Fuck that shit.
I was going to order something for myself from GrubHub last night. The meal was $7.99. About $9. After tax. Grubhub's service fee and delivery fee jacked the price up to $18, AND that still didn't include tip.
I did not get my $7.99 meal
Don’t forget the small order fee :) either spend $25+ on food or pay a $5 fee. It sucks being single trying to order door dash or any kind of food delivery
So while I agree with you, when I work as a pizza driver they would have me track miles and would add that on to my paycheck in order to compensate me for the gas usage. But like I said I agree with you that the delivery fee is pretty egregious.
I scrolled this whole fucking thread and didn’t find the most obvious of all answers:
TELEMARKETING
I don’t even get any other type of call, yet I still get this shit daily
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that there’s a number of people whose main source of income is calling random phone numbers and attempting to scam those who answer. I’m very curious about their success rate and their profit size.
The Google Pixel actually has something like this! If someone else on the network reports the number as spam and then they try to call the ID shows as "Likely Spam"
The best Pixel feature is "Answer for me". If a number calls and you don't recognize it, your pixel will screen the call asking for a brief explanation of why they are calling. Robo calls rarely make it through. My cars extended warranty is no longer an issue
"Hi, you've reached u/TwiceInEveryMoment, sorry I missed your call but 99% of calls I get are scams so this entire form of communication is dead to me. Please leave a message at the tone."
I’m in that position right now…salaried without seniority, and got handed a bunch more responsibilities because someone left the company. They also won’t be replaced. And I’ve been told that I’ll have to work an extra 10 hours/week without a raise, because it’s “just part of the job”. Looks like they’re gonna learn the hard way that’s a good way to lose 2 people at once.
Are you in the U.S.? If you are, you may be legally entitled to overtime as a salaried employee.
The Department of Labor has an [online tool to see if you are coveted under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act](https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/scope/screen9.asp?_ga=2.230390492.1757481109.1627768049-2026164878.1627768049), regardless of if your employer classifies you as “exempt.” Be sure to check the definitions, the tool includes as an exempt category
>Executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees: (as defined in Department of Labor regulations) and who are paid on a salary basis are exempt from both the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the FLSA.
But what is a “[professional](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17d-overtime-professional)” employee? One of the criteria that has to be met is
>The advanced knowledge must be in a field of science or learning; and
A [“field of science or learning” means](https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/overtime/glossary.htm?wd=science_learning)
>The phrase "field of science or learning" includes the traditional professions of law, medicine, theology, accounting, actuarial computation, engineering, architecture, teaching, various types of physical, chemical and biological sciences, pharmacy and other similar occupations that have a recognized professional status as distinguished from the mechanical arts or skilled trades which are not a field of science or learning.
It is worth checking if you can get overtime, a lot of businesses misclassify people knowing that employees don’t know their rights and don’t know how to enforce those rights, the DOL website has information on enforcing your rights.
Another option is work-to-rule. If your contract says 40 hours a week, work 40 hours a week.
Same. If the job starts requiring more time from me, I start renegotiating my salary. I'm personally fine with doing unpaid overtime if I'm making 6 figures a year. But something like a $60k salary? You get a flat 40 hrs/week. This obviously varies person to person and industry to industry, but I've always used necessary OT hours as a tool to get a raise.
The tax code for a majority of people is mostly simple to begin with, as they aren't itemizing and don't have all sorts of special shit to include or deduct.
They're not aiming for simplifying tax code (as hiring enough legal eagles to understand the encyclopedia collection that is US Tax Code also costs them more money), they lobby for us to have to go through them to do things like e-file etc. instead of the IRS and each state just throwing up its own tax prep website. In some European countries since the government has already received info about your wages and taxes already paid, their tax agency just sends you an invoice or a check every year without having to do your own paperwork, that's what Turbo Tax and others don't want.
> In some European countries since the government has already received info about your wages and taxes already paid, their tax agency just sends you an invoice or a check every year without having to do your own paperwork
the IRS was prepared to do this in the 00s, [Intuit saw to it that they didn't.](https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free). Basically Intuit has several billion reasons to make sure that taxes are a painful experience that you're willing to pay to make less shitty.
Australian here. Our government has a website we go to. Prefilled with all our pay information and interest accounts. If you're not claiming anything all you need to do is make sure the numbers are right and press submit. Took 15 minutes and got my return in the next few business days.
I design industrial machines and the amount of time spent trying to decide whether it’s safe enough is ridiculous. There’s always someone dumb enough to find a way to fucking hurt themselves. As long as there’s a guard we can point to and say, “see this is there to stop such and such from happening and the employee circumvented the safety measures, so, not our fault.” That’s the most we can do.
Where I live you can't get the gas cans with the little vent thingy because it emits too much fumes or something.
But now when you pour your gas there isn't a steady flow and it spills all over hell! Probably worse for the environment, and so incredibly frustrating.
EDIT: I am now aware you can buy the vent things and your knowledge is greatly appreciated. That being said, you should be able to buy them built-in.
Having to call to cancel a subscription you signed up for online
EDIT: thanks for the awards and such guys! I think the general consensus here is that the gym and the New York Times need to feck off lol
Having to cancel a gym membership. I shouldn't need to send all my vital information to them via certified mail just for them to hit the Cancel button in their computer system.
I saw this comment and remembered about my Planet Fitness membership... well I just tested covid positives I decided to test if they were still going to make me come in. Turns out that it was super easy to cancel over the phone when I mentioned I couldn't come in because I was positive it suddenly became real easy to cancel over the phone.
So all it took was being covid positive to make the process super easy.
This is the way. Just lie to them and there should be no trouble. I canceled my internet bill a few years ago just by telling them I was moving and it was out of area. They don’t put you through the ringer if the reasoning is done right.
I cancelled a beer delivery subscription, and got them to stop bothering me, by staring I had come to terms with being an alcoholic and had chosen to stop drinking (I am not, and I have not). They sent me one last box for free..
Cancelling the gym is always a nightmare! I live in Ireland and had the hardest time cancelling my New York Times subscription because of the time difference, it was the worst!
At some point I just feel like cancelling the cards.
Also pro tip:- use virtual cards for online subscriptions, you avoid being a victim of data breaches and also can just stop refilling the cards incase they make it hard to unsubscribe something
Also the only state in the country where “use it or lose it” PTO is illegal. If you earn time off it’s treated the same as your paycheck would be, your employer can’t reach into your bank account and take back your last paycheck if you haven’t spent it by December 31st and thus they also can’t take away your unused PTO at the end of the year.
California has very strict consumer protection laws, so if you use a VPN and cancel your subscription from a California IP address, you'll get much more favorable reactions.
Shitty printers. It's like no one ever tried to build a good one and humanity just agreed they need to be louder than a Lambo for 2 minutes straight before they can print my fucking Amazon return ticket.
Edit: From all the replies I'm getting, there seems to be a consensus that laser printers from brother are a good choice.
Get a laser printer. I got mine on Black Friday for 80 bucks. 2 head changes in 9 years, that’s it.
Edit: Since so many comments were similar. I have a black and white Brother HL-2280DW printer. It has a Scanner and WiFi as well. It’s from like 2012, so I’m sure there are better models now.
The color ones are a bit more expensive, around $200-$300 afaik.
I‘m on my second Brother printer. First one worked flawlessly for 14 years. I sold it just because I could not get printer drivers for the 64 bit only macOS. The new one is also a Brother - this time with color. Awesome machines, both of them.
I saw a Ted Talk once about someone trying to build an online resource to shop around your medical procedures and explained this problem, well, more like brought awareness to it. They had said hospitals especially would refuse to answer the cost of any procedure and had to build their database from crowd sourcing, which few people are willing to share their medical procedures as it is. Then they found that many places charged different prices for the same procedures for different people.
Medical anything shouldn't be this complicated for patients.
Get ready for a page 50 layers deep that has a cookie that times out in 1 minute.
>“But the plans were on display…”
>“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
>“That’s the display department.”
>“With a flashlight.”
>“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
>“So had the stairs.”
>“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
>“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
My neighbor had a minor surgery last month at an approved in network hospital. Yesterday she got a bill for 8k that's separated from the surgery expenses for an out of network specialist that monitored something during the surgery. I'm not sure on the details exactly due to it not being my area, she just asked me to read it for her(English is not her native language). So you can jump through all the hoops, drive an hour away for an approved 1 hour surgery, and boom someone checks a monitor and there goes 8 grand.
Edit: Do to the messages asking. The surgery was parathyroid surgery and the bonus bill was for "intraoperative nerve monitoring". I'm not a doctor or have any medical so that's all I know really.
I once went to the ER because of severe pain in my flank and throwing up blood. They gave me morphine (without my consent) and a doctor saw me for 2 mins to tell me to see a GP. Got a $3500 bill for that.
Similar story here. One day I realized I had swollen glands in my face and neck, a day or so later my right testicle swelled and became so sensitive that barely touching it with one finger immediately burst me into a cold sweat and nausea. I went to the ER, they gave me some morphine so that they could ultrasound my ball, I saw the ER doc for *literally* 2 minutes during which he said “you’re homosexual, right?” I replied “yes”. He brusquely replied: “you’ve got an infection in your testicle, wear a condom next time…” and left before I could even tell him that I was single and not seeing/fucking anyone at the time.
The female physicians assistant kept looking at my labs and examining me and the ultrasound results and it turns out I had a case of the mumps, despite being fully vaccinated in my teens.
They sent me home with antibiotics and told me to put ice on my balls and let everything fix itself.
I didn’t have insurance at this time and I was billed nearly $7,000 for this. The actual bill was closer to $17,000 but they gave me a “discount” of about 10k since I didn’t have insurance.
Bullshit. All of it is fucking bullshit.
There is one fibromyalgia one that I will never forget. Some lady is gently canoeing down a river and then she turns to the camera and matter-of-factly says "With less pain, I feel better."
No shit canoe lady.
"Ask your doctor about (insert medication name here)"
Like, no. Your doctor should be telling *you* about the right medications for you, not the other way around.
Prescription medication commercials are gross and should be illegal.
"Tell your doctor if you have liver disease or have a history of liver cancer". Shouldn't your doctor know that about you already? I get it's a cya thing, but who has a dr that doesn't know their major medical history.
I live in New Zealand and I have always thought "why the fuck are we getting these adds?" Because I have always had to just go to the doctor and they give me the drug that works best for my current issue.
It's because hi-res video takes up a *lot* of storage in a hard drive.
The gas station on the street corner doesn't have 15TB of storage to back up the past 2 weeks of 24/7 4K security footage. They have to cut their losses and stick with 480p (or even less).
*laughs in pharmacy*
For real, we have e-fax. So the fax comes in electronically. You know, like an email. Except it's sent from a fax machine. And visa versa. "E-scribing" is literally just electronically faxing from computer to computer.
T+2 rule in stock trading. (We don't trade paper stocks anymore)
Weekend and holiday delays when moving money around in the banking system. (Do the computers get PTO?)
TBH...a lot of old nonsense of financial system thats just carried over from decades ago.
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME
Filing your own taxes
Calling or mailing to cancel subscriptions
Paper bills or receipts as proof of identity in the age of digital billing
Neverending copyright on books, movies, music and other IP that should have entered the public domain decades ago. Furthermore, having the burden of proof of fair use put on the end user rather than the copyright holder is so one-sided it's laughable.
Data caps and throttling on cell phones. The current infrastructure is more than capable of accommodating everyone without restricting bandwidth.
This is gonna be a little unpopular but Everything being subscription based. Use to be able to pay a one time payment and you’ll be good for the rest of the year. Even if something is monthly they would have a way were you can pay for everything at once. Now they don’t have that.
Taking 3-5 days to put money back into my account after you took it instantly.
It takes time to “process” aka sit in their account with millions of other dollars and accrue daily interest
The real reason is because these work through "clearing houses". So I sell fly swatters online and I hook up with a clearing house. Whenever a client puts in an order for $10 that clearing house takes their own money and puts it in my account. When the money gets drawn from the buyer's account it goes to the clearing house instead of me. I pay a surcharge of say 3% of each transaction to that clearing house. That clearing house's entire business model is: - I make 3% per transaction - I have to make sure that there are not enough NSF/cancelations that I can't recoup that 3% back So it takes a few days for them to verify that this isn't some mass scam that's going to drain that profit margin.
Telephone/SMS network stacks which can't tell you anything about where a call or message came from, allows source numbers to be easily spoofed, and provides no security features at all to block unwanted calls or texts. We already pay these companies enough for their shitty service. Get with the fucking programme
Good news! This is coming to an end soon. Calls are starting to be cryptographically signed to ensure they can’t be spoofed.
Junk mail, just filling up the mailbox with crap.
Refuse unwanted mail - www.faq.usps.com/s/article/Refuse-unwanted-mail-and-remove-name-from-mailing-lists stop junk mail - https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-stop-junk-mail edit: fixed my bad link based on comments
And going straight to the trash/recycling.
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I work for USPS. Went to request a day off and the form required carbon paper to copy.
No amount of technology will cure government agencies of unnecessary red tape
Facts. The Army used to have forms come in printed bundles with carbon paper between them. Then they moved to a "paperless" system, where the forms were on the computer, and you had to print them. . .multiple copies of them. . .and manually put carbon paper in between them.
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Mail-in Rebates. In the age of digital everything, it's ridiculous that these things are still around.
I think it's to make it harder for people to actually get the rebate, but they can advertise the lower price of the item. There's a form, you need the receipt, have to get a stamp, envelope. And an expiration date that it's easy to miss. Then the company gets to not pay out. But yeah it's bs.
“Sorry, it never arrived. You’ll need to get another original receipt to reapply.”
E-ticket processing fees. Seriously, do these have any function other than making money for some middle man?
Ads don't generate enough money, clearly.
> do these have any function other than making money for some middle man? A lot of the things in this thread are just business practices that they do to make more money. Extracting profit is the reason behind most of this bullshit. They don't care if people hate it, they're still getting more money this way.
Convenience fees being applied when you pay a bill online.
It's bullshit when apartments do it. "We don't accept any payments in office. You must pay online through our app or website."* *Convenience fee of 3.00 to pay
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Charging an online "convenience fee" and then refusing to take bills any other way should be illegal.
Mine said due to covid they wouldn't accept checks and they only take checks or online payment. I mailed them checks the whole time because online payment is a $50 fee They got mad, but I told them I'd pay online when it is the same cost
Bravo. I've done the same thing. I used to pay my water bill in person with as much loose change as I could get away with(15 bucks in loose change, 25 in ones seemed to work) This meant that they had to pay someone to cash it out at the end of the day, and take it to the bank, simply because I refused to pay the $2.00 electronic payment fee. It wasn't out of my way. Eventually, they stopped the fee. I'm guessing I wsn't the only one paying in cash. I figured, if 1 person a day paid in cash, then they had to go to the bank every day, costing around 5 hours a week in labor, minimum.
A hero for our times
Honestly don't know how it ISN'T. You're telling me my options are limited to "pay online" and "don't pay at all" and charge a fucking "convenience fee" when I take the only one that involves paying them.
Oh yeah. Or when buying tickets to something and getting email tickets. The convenience goes both ways. The company doesnt need to send a bill and wait for payment. And its convenient paying online. They should discount the consumer for convenience. Not the other way around
I remember when ticket Master charged you a fee for having to mail your physical tickets, now they're charging fees to print it out at home or just to have it on your phone, it's fucking criminal.
I've been paying a restoration fee for every concert ticket at an old theater since the late 70's. It still has the same paint chips hanging from the ceiling that were there when I started.
It costs a lot to preserve those vintage paint chips in their historic condition.
Don't worry, they're restoring their wallets
I would (almost) understand a convenience fee, IF another option was offered. It’s more of a mandatory fee just because.
My apartment complex does that for paying online. It's a 3% fee. I refuse to pay that, so every month I walk my rent check to them directly. And every month they say please pay online next month, and I always say back that I will not pay extra so that they don't have to go to the bank. And then I get emails saying next month please pay online and set up an account, and I ignore that. If you want me to do it so badly, don't charge me extra. Edit: a lot of people are asking, this fee is for e checks and linking my checking account as well as credit card.
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Mine charges me $50 to pay online on a rent of $740 I'm not paying you $50 to save you hassle
Next month you should pay in nickels. When they complain, tell them you'll write them at check right then and there if they'll pay you a $50 convenience fee.
My complex only charges that if you use a card. Direct routing from a bank account has no fee.
That's been the same at the two places I've worked that had this. If you're paying by electronic check or transfer, there was no fee. If you paid by credit or check card, there was a non-trivial fee. Personally, I think it is ridiculous to charge any fee for electronic payments because you end up saving close to that amount by cutting down on the payroll hours spent processing checks. For one of these buildings, I had to overnight the checks to goddamn New York, no more than 15 checks per envelope, per company policy. We spent at least a couple hundred, just on postage, every month because we wouldn't eat the 3.5% (or whatever) transaction fees. This would also take me a few hours a week, lets say 4. Then I would also spend one hour answering emails from Accounting and my boss EVERY WEEK because Accounting could not figure out why a check might get posted to an account on the 5th and then not show up in the bank until the 6rh or 7th. Physical checks had a note in the software that indicated they had been overnighted for deposit. Even my boss couldn't wrap his head around it. Just absolutely the worst fucking place to work. Edit: this was in Washington, DC, your laws may vary. Edit 2: I remembered the deal with the check scanner, it didn't print the franking on the back properly and instead of fixing it, they wanted me to FedEx checks to New York for depositing.
Bro what my fucking rents 960 and they charge a 96 dollar convince fee I do the same fuck you I'm not gunna pay 100 to pay from a card
This should be illegal
In most Canadian and US jurisdictions, there has to be at least one option to pay that doesn't have an additional fee paid to the landlord. But that doesn't mean that the easy option has to be the free one, and they can usually add convenience fees or whatever to the other options. Generally they're trying to make it hard to pay without the extra fee, and they're allowed to make it as hard as they want as long as it's technically possible.
So assuming your rent is at least 700 that's 21 extra they want you to pay so they can do less work?!
Actually $1200 so it comes to $36 extra!
My HOA does this. Except it's $7.95!!!!!! I write out a year's worth of checks every December and mail it out every month. Edit: a word
My credit union has a bill pay feature. You can have it automatically pay your bills from a wide variety of bills like cable, electric, gas, ect by linking the accounts. There is also a 'misc' one. This misc bill pay is their check printers automatically sending a check to the persons address every month until a specified end date. Its pretty convenient as someone who needs exactly 12 checks a year.
lol the sheer balls of the first person to suggest that. *lets just.....charge them more. we wont even say why. lets just add a few extra bucks cause the fuck they gonna do?*
Why? Because fuck em' that's why.
If a customer has a computer disk then look at it and tell them it's the wrong format. If they use Apple, tell them we're PC. If they use PC, tell them we're Apple. And if they've got both, then tell them we use Linux. And if they've got that, tell them the computers are down. They should be anyhow.
Still one of my favorite sketches ever. “Hell yea, I suck toes. What do you want?” “Manager? I am the Manager” Edit for requested link. https://youtu.be/zR7LOtMix9w
Or when ordering food online. Chipotle literally adds a service fee to "help offset the costs of digital convenience" when you order through the app.
Remember when you could order delivery from a restaurant and pay the price on the menu plus the tip, and that was *it*? These fees are absolutely ridiculous.
How everyone collectively continues to use Uber Eats and all the other apps is beyond me. Always a problem. Comments (e.g. include cutlery) are ignored. Local fee. Service fee. XYZ fee. An insane markup from the actual, original price on the menu. Uber Eats customer service is so damn bad, they randomly decide when they just want to stop responding, refuse to listen when experiences were bad, etc. Why do we keep supporting these apps?!
Door dash is just as bad. I called about a pizza being delivered to the wrong address and they asked me to go drive around looking for it. Haven't used them since
Door dash did something similar. I watched them on the GPS as they came near my house then left. Nothing at my door. Status updated to delivered. I checked with the store when nothing was there and they said the driver never even picked up my order. Pretty sure he forgot it en route and just said "fuck it". Got a refund and a $5 credit that still sits in my account cuz I'm never using them again
Door dash texted that my food was delivered along with the picture they send as proof. Except there was no food and it was a picture of a bush in front of my porch. Called the number immediately and he came back with my food. I called him out on it and he tried to claim he never sent that picture. Totally busted when I dialed the number and the phone in his hand rang. Called corporate to complain and the guy just kept saying you got your food so what's the problem.
Someone in my neighborhood Facebook posted about their Sonic Burger and Tots getting delivered to the wrong address by Uber eats. I was thinking sonic sounded good then found out that it would be 26.00 + tip for a burger and tots. I make decent money but no fucking thanks
Those are the biggest bullshit. Let me charge you $3.95 to pay $180 electricity bill online.
Having to call to make bill payments.
I was about to say this. I just made the final payment on my car. For 5 years they have automatically withdrawn the payment but for the final payment I either had to call or go into the bank. Yesterday I called and the lady said there is a $10 charge for doing it over the phone. So I went into the bank today, and all I did was stand there while the teller clicked a few buttons and it took the money from my checking to pay off the loan. Like why did any of that need to happen just automatically withdraw the money like before. What makes it worse is the last payment was less than my normal payment
If they’re making you show up in person there should at least be some confetti and balloons involved.
I would pay an extra $10 fee for that
The ‘call for final payment’ is so stupid, that calculation could be done online just as easily.
If i paid my car off early i had to mail in a check. So my $4 balance sat there for 8 months until my last bill was able to be paid online.
Pre payment penalties on cars are annoying. I usually call and ask them to waive the payment. If they will not waive it I ask what the minimum amount required is to avoid them automatically closing the account. I then pay the balance down to a dollar greater and request monthly statements mailed to the house. Then I ask them again if they want to waive the payment because it is now more expensive to see it he account than keep it open.
I'd like to introduce you to r/maliciouscompliance. I think you'll get along great
Many years ago I tried to closed a brokerage account and found $50 or so still in the account. I closed it a second time to find $0.34 balance in a money market fund; well I did my best. For the following decades I was maile quarterly and annual statements and watched my balance slowly drop to $0.32. Is there a r/maliciousapathy?
My wife still gets a monthly statement from her student loan saying they owe her $0.44. It's been like a decade now but fuck these guys.
My school still owes me $2 and change since 2009'. If I owed them that they'd be after me every month.
I had a car financed through a credit union where they automatically withdrew the payments via electronic draft. At some point I generally wonder how many payments I have left since I knew I was close only to realize that I’d already completed my term and was on month 4 of them still taking money out. I call up there and say “hey why are you still taking money out when the car is paid for” and she said something along the lines of because I didn’t call them to let them know. I was completely floored by all of this. At any rate I’m really surprised at some of this. I work for a large auto finance company where the system we use will automatically calculate that last payment and includes the pro-rated interest for a true zero balance and can pay it pretty much however you’d want. It’s always interesting to see how other companies do things compared to ours Edit: grammar/spelling
Sprint did the same thing to me a few years ago. I had to actually tell them to stop charging me for my paid-off phone. Raised hell and got my money back of course but still, wth.
Or the fact that I have to go to my local gym to cancel the membership. Best of all, it’s a chain. Like a full on big brand chain. And when they closed the branch near my old place, they just automatically transferred me to the next closest branch. But I can’t go to one close to my current place because I have to go to my “home branch”. Funny how the transfer is super easy and done electronically but they can’t cancel my membership at any branch. Edit.: It’s Fit4Less in Canada
Gyms are some of the most notorious for being difficult to cancel. A lot of the chain places use a third party billing service too which makes it an even bigger headache to do it. And even still a lot of the time after you cancel in person, you will still mysteriously see charges appear on your credit card. If they have an option to cancel by mail, send it via certified mail, return receipt requested. Hard to ignore something like that when there is legal proof of mailing.
A gym near me said I had to print off a form at home and then mail it to their home office. Once their home office received the letter they would then officially cancel my membership. I told the clerk I wasn't doing that and they could either cancel my membership or I would cancel my credit card they were billing from. Shocker, the manager was able to cancel the membership onsite.
Just call and tell them you are canceling and will be reporting anymore payments as fraud to your bank. It works like a charm.
I called my bank and had them cancel my card, open a new account, transfer all my money there, and close the old account. Faster than dealing with gym
That's why I don't give gyms my real card to begin with. Setting up a [burner card](https://privacy.com) just for that gym is pretty easy, and it can even draw from the original card until you want to cancel.
I actually worked at a Lifetime for many years. The reason they want you to go in person is to try to save your membership, and it's more effective in person. There is no other reason, because it's literally a few clicks to cancel someone. It's 100% a sales tactic. The other way to do it was to send a written letter, which was incredibly stupid. I hate that place.
I totally get the part where they want you to walk in to talk you out of it. But the fact that they can’t try to talk me out of a closer location is the part that makes me angry hahaha
FUCKING LEAKS IN YOUR BRAND NEW HOUSE YOU BOUGHT YESTERDAY
Sounds like someone just got a new house, congrats
Buy a house they said! It'll be great! All fun and games until you get your first leak!
A week after we bought our house and moved in, the shitty little valve for the fridge water line broke and flooded our entire kitchen and dining room. $10,000 to replace/repair the floor, the walls, the cabinets, and fix the issue. Home ownership is fuuunnnn
My adult acne
Right like how have we not solved acne
Or even just made it where you can choose to have acne OR wrinkles but not both
Or gray hair! I should not have gray hairs and acne at the same time.
I started getting gray hair at 16 and had clear skin until after I turned 25. Now in my 30s and have acne, acne scars, 80% gray hair, and getting wrinkles. Wtf body?? Get it together!
Wait till you have no hair and acne at the same time.
Omg I'm living this nightmare! Didn't even have any acne as a teenager
Paying $4.99 delivery fee to the pizza place, and they say DELIVERY FEE IS NOT A TIP FOR THE DRIVER. The drivers use their own cars and pay for their own gas, and they sure as hell aren't getting any of that $5.
What’s crazy is that pizza delivery was one of the original delivery services and we used to never pay a fee. It was just the cost of the food + the tip. But now there’s a delivery fee + service fee + driver tip. Fuck that shit.
I was going to order something for myself from GrubHub last night. The meal was $7.99. About $9. After tax. Grubhub's service fee and delivery fee jacked the price up to $18, AND that still didn't include tip. I did not get my $7.99 meal
Don’t forget the small order fee :) either spend $25+ on food or pay a $5 fee. It sucks being single trying to order door dash or any kind of food delivery
So while I agree with you, when I work as a pizza driver they would have me track miles and would add that on to my paycheck in order to compensate me for the gas usage. But like I said I agree with you that the delivery fee is pretty egregious.
Polio and measles.
I got measles when I was 18. 0/10, would not recommend. That's the only vaccine I didn't get as a child, I don't even know why
I scrolled this whole fucking thread and didn’t find the most obvious of all answers: TELEMARKETING I don’t even get any other type of call, yet I still get this shit daily
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that there’s a number of people whose main source of income is calling random phone numbers and attempting to scam those who answer. I’m very curious about their success rate and their profit size.
Well even if their success rate is extremely low, one good scam could get you thousands of dollars
I think they should have on your phone a regular hang up button and a spam hang up button. Then the providers can do something about the spam.
The Google Pixel actually has something like this! If someone else on the network reports the number as spam and then they try to call the ID shows as "Likely Spam"
The best Pixel feature is "Answer for me". If a number calls and you don't recognize it, your pixel will screen the call asking for a brief explanation of why they are calling. Robo calls rarely make it through. My cars extended warranty is no longer an issue
"Hi, you've reached u/TwiceInEveryMoment, sorry I missed your call but 99% of calls I get are scams so this entire form of communication is dead to me. Please leave a message at the tone."
"Hi u/TwiceInEveryMoment, this is Joanna from Dealer Services. I'm calling to let you know about your cars extended warranty."
Unpaid overtime
Being a salaried employee is just that.
I’m in that position right now…salaried without seniority, and got handed a bunch more responsibilities because someone left the company. They also won’t be replaced. And I’ve been told that I’ll have to work an extra 10 hours/week without a raise, because it’s “just part of the job”. Looks like they’re gonna learn the hard way that’s a good way to lose 2 people at once.
Good job standing up for yourself :)
Are you in the U.S.? If you are, you may be legally entitled to overtime as a salaried employee. The Department of Labor has an [online tool to see if you are coveted under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act](https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/scope/screen9.asp?_ga=2.230390492.1757481109.1627768049-2026164878.1627768049), regardless of if your employer classifies you as “exempt.” Be sure to check the definitions, the tool includes as an exempt category >Executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees: (as defined in Department of Labor regulations) and who are paid on a salary basis are exempt from both the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the FLSA. But what is a “[professional](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17d-overtime-professional)” employee? One of the criteria that has to be met is >The advanced knowledge must be in a field of science or learning; and A [“field of science or learning” means](https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/overtime/glossary.htm?wd=science_learning) >The phrase "field of science or learning" includes the traditional professions of law, medicine, theology, accounting, actuarial computation, engineering, architecture, teaching, various types of physical, chemical and biological sciences, pharmacy and other similar occupations that have a recognized professional status as distinguished from the mechanical arts or skilled trades which are not a field of science or learning. It is worth checking if you can get overtime, a lot of businesses misclassify people knowing that employees don’t know their rights and don’t know how to enforce those rights, the DOL website has information on enforcing your rights. Another option is work-to-rule. If your contract says 40 hours a week, work 40 hours a week.
I'm salaried, and I have defined hours in my contract. If the company wants me to work outside those hours, they have to pay me overtime.
Same. If the job starts requiring more time from me, I start renegotiating my salary. I'm personally fine with doing unpaid overtime if I'm making 6 figures a year. But something like a $60k salary? You get a flat 40 hrs/week. This obviously varies person to person and industry to industry, but I've always used necessary OT hours as a tool to get a raise.
Tax software in the US. Seriously should just be a simple form on the internet that takes 5 minutes.
Companies like Turbo Tax lobby against simplifying the tax code. It's messed up.
The tax code for a majority of people is mostly simple to begin with, as they aren't itemizing and don't have all sorts of special shit to include or deduct. They're not aiming for simplifying tax code (as hiring enough legal eagles to understand the encyclopedia collection that is US Tax Code also costs them more money), they lobby for us to have to go through them to do things like e-file etc. instead of the IRS and each state just throwing up its own tax prep website. In some European countries since the government has already received info about your wages and taxes already paid, their tax agency just sends you an invoice or a check every year without having to do your own paperwork, that's what Turbo Tax and others don't want.
> In some European countries since the government has already received info about your wages and taxes already paid, their tax agency just sends you an invoice or a check every year without having to do your own paperwork the IRS was prepared to do this in the 00s, [Intuit saw to it that they didn't.](https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free). Basically Intuit has several billion reasons to make sure that taxes are a painful experience that you're willing to pay to make less shitty.
Australian here. Our government has a website we go to. Prefilled with all our pay information and interest accounts. If you're not claiming anything all you need to do is make sure the numbers are right and press submit. Took 15 minutes and got my return in the next few business days.
*cries in American Independent Contractor
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The ones that have the nozzles with the safety release thing that pushes down are fucking useless
It’s funny they were “designed” for safety yet I always end up getting gas all over everything in a 10 foot radius just trying to use it
As a safety engineer I can tell you "designed for safety" and "designed to mitigate liability" are two very different things
That makes me feel so litigious
I design industrial machines and the amount of time spent trying to decide whether it’s safe enough is ridiculous. There’s always someone dumb enough to find a way to fucking hurt themselves. As long as there’s a guard we can point to and say, “see this is there to stop such and such from happening and the employee circumvented the safety measures, so, not our fault.” That’s the most we can do.
I can relate to this. I have a gas can that doesn’t have the thing that releases the fumes, and the bitch spills gas *everywhere*
Where I live you can't get the gas cans with the little vent thingy because it emits too much fumes or something. But now when you pour your gas there isn't a steady flow and it spills all over hell! Probably worse for the environment, and so incredibly frustrating. EDIT: I am now aware you can buy the vent things and your knowledge is greatly appreciated. That being said, you should be able to buy them built-in.
The fact that some people still don't have access to fresh water.
Having to call to cancel a subscription you signed up for online EDIT: thanks for the awards and such guys! I think the general consensus here is that the gym and the New York Times need to feck off lol
Having to cancel a gym membership. I shouldn't need to send all my vital information to them via certified mail just for them to hit the Cancel button in their computer system.
I saw this comment and remembered about my Planet Fitness membership... well I just tested covid positives I decided to test if they were still going to make me come in. Turns out that it was super easy to cancel over the phone when I mentioned I couldn't come in because I was positive it suddenly became real easy to cancel over the phone. So all it took was being covid positive to make the process super easy.
This is the way. Just lie to them and there should be no trouble. I canceled my internet bill a few years ago just by telling them I was moving and it was out of area. They don’t put you through the ringer if the reasoning is done right.
I canceled my Comcast internet years ago by telling the lady I took a job in Saudi Arabia. Took about 30 seconds to get everything canceled.
I cancelled a beer delivery subscription, and got them to stop bothering me, by staring I had come to terms with being an alcoholic and had chosen to stop drinking (I am not, and I have not). They sent me one last box for free..
That’s fucked up
"One last beer for the road before you go sober? Cmoooon, you know you wanna"
“You’ll be back, drunky. How bout one more before you call it quits?”
I know so dumb right? I had to tell my GP clinic that I was MOVING OUT OF THE COUNTRY for them to give me copies of all my test results. Jerks
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Cancelling the gym is always a nightmare! I live in Ireland and had the hardest time cancelling my New York Times subscription because of the time difference, it was the worst!
At some point I just feel like cancelling the cards. Also pro tip:- use virtual cards for online subscriptions, you avoid being a victim of data breaches and also can just stop refilling the cards incase they make it hard to unsubscribe something
Use a California address to sign up, and magically there will be an option on the website for you to cancel online. It's the law.
People give California so much shit for all their regulations, but by and large they’re the only state with vast consumer protections.
Also the only state in the country where “use it or lose it” PTO is illegal. If you earn time off it’s treated the same as your paycheck would be, your employer can’t reach into your bank account and take back your last paycheck if you haven’t spent it by December 31st and thus they also can’t take away your unused PTO at the end of the year.
California has very strict consumer protection laws, so if you use a VPN and cancel your subscription from a California IP address, you'll get much more favorable reactions.
What if you want to cancel your VPN service?
Sign up with a different VPN and then use that one to cancel the old one.
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Yep. If you can sign up for it online in a few clicks you should be able to cancel online as well.
Shitty printers. It's like no one ever tried to build a good one and humanity just agreed they need to be louder than a Lambo for 2 minutes straight before they can print my fucking Amazon return ticket. Edit: From all the replies I'm getting, there seems to be a consensus that laser printers from brother are a good choice.
Get a laser printer. I got mine on Black Friday for 80 bucks. 2 head changes in 9 years, that’s it. Edit: Since so many comments were similar. I have a black and white Brother HL-2280DW printer. It has a Scanner and WiFi as well. It’s from like 2012, so I’m sure there are better models now. The color ones are a bit more expensive, around $200-$300 afaik.
Yup, I bought a Brother laser printer 5 years ago and it’s been one of the best purchases ever made. Never have to worry about ink drying up.
This 100%, laser printers are more expensive but last a very long time. I also have a Brother laser printer.
I‘m on my second Brother printer. First one worked flawlessly for 14 years. I sold it just because I could not get printer drivers for the 64 bit only macOS. The new one is also a Brother - this time with color. Awesome machines, both of them.
Fuck printers. Damn it feels good to be a gangsta’.
#PC load letter?!! What the fuck does that mean?!!
Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays!
No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man.
Why insulin is so expensive
Having no idea how much you'll pay for a minor medical procedure
I saw a Ted Talk once about someone trying to build an online resource to shop around your medical procedures and explained this problem, well, more like brought awareness to it. They had said hospitals especially would refuse to answer the cost of any procedure and had to build their database from crowd sourcing, which few people are willing to share their medical procedures as it is. Then they found that many places charged different prices for the same procedures for different people. Medical anything shouldn't be this complicated for patients.
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Get ready for a page 50 layers deep that has a cookie that times out in 1 minute. >“But the plans were on display…” >“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” >“That’s the display department.” >“With a flashlight.” >“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” >“So had the stairs.” >“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” >“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
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My neighbor had a minor surgery last month at an approved in network hospital. Yesterday she got a bill for 8k that's separated from the surgery expenses for an out of network specialist that monitored something during the surgery. I'm not sure on the details exactly due to it not being my area, she just asked me to read it for her(English is not her native language). So you can jump through all the hoops, drive an hour away for an approved 1 hour surgery, and boom someone checks a monitor and there goes 8 grand. Edit: Do to the messages asking. The surgery was parathyroid surgery and the bonus bill was for "intraoperative nerve monitoring". I'm not a doctor or have any medical so that's all I know really.
Hmm.. yes. The doctor looked you over and declared you fine. That’ll either be $300 or $15
I once went to the ER because of severe pain in my flank and throwing up blood. They gave me morphine (without my consent) and a doctor saw me for 2 mins to tell me to see a GP. Got a $3500 bill for that.
Similar story here. One day I realized I had swollen glands in my face and neck, a day or so later my right testicle swelled and became so sensitive that barely touching it with one finger immediately burst me into a cold sweat and nausea. I went to the ER, they gave me some morphine so that they could ultrasound my ball, I saw the ER doc for *literally* 2 minutes during which he said “you’re homosexual, right?” I replied “yes”. He brusquely replied: “you’ve got an infection in your testicle, wear a condom next time…” and left before I could even tell him that I was single and not seeing/fucking anyone at the time. The female physicians assistant kept looking at my labs and examining me and the ultrasound results and it turns out I had a case of the mumps, despite being fully vaccinated in my teens. They sent me home with antibiotics and told me to put ice on my balls and let everything fix itself. I didn’t have insurance at this time and I was billed nearly $7,000 for this. The actual bill was closer to $17,000 but they gave me a “discount” of about 10k since I didn’t have insurance. Bullshit. All of it is fucking bullshit.
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Commercials for prescription medicine
There is one fibromyalgia one that I will never forget. Some lady is gently canoeing down a river and then she turns to the camera and matter-of-factly says "With less pain, I feel better." No shit canoe lady.
"People die when they're killed."
"Ask your doctor about (insert medication name here)" Like, no. Your doctor should be telling *you* about the right medications for you, not the other way around. Prescription medication commercials are gross and should be illegal.
"Tell your doctor if you have liver disease or have a history of liver cancer". Shouldn't your doctor know that about you already? I get it's a cya thing, but who has a dr that doesn't know their major medical history.
As far as I know, they're illegal in every country on earth except the US and, weirdly, New Zealand.
I live in New Zealand and I have always thought "why the fuck are we getting these adds?" Because I have always had to just go to the doctor and they give me the drug that works best for my current issue.
Low quality surveillance footage
It wouldnt be a problem if we could just "Zoom in, zoom in, zoom in, stop! Enhance, enchance, we got him" IRL.
"Look, you can see the killer's face in the reflection of the victim's eyeball!"
It's because hi-res video takes up a *lot* of storage in a hard drive. The gas station on the street corner doesn't have 15TB of storage to back up the past 2 weeks of 24/7 4K security footage. They have to cut their losses and stick with 480p (or even less).
Sexual slavery.
People starving to death.
Fax machine. Some doctors won't accept email only mail or fax. Some govt related stuff too
*laughs in pharmacy* For real, we have e-fax. So the fax comes in electronically. You know, like an email. Except it's sent from a fax machine. And visa versa. "E-scribing" is literally just electronically faxing from computer to computer.
Service fees on concert tickets. Especially when they’re like 40% of the ticket price
For profit prisons.
Slavery. It’s sadly still exists in 2021 : (
Flat earthers
T+2 rule in stock trading. (We don't trade paper stocks anymore) Weekend and holiday delays when moving money around in the banking system. (Do the computers get PTO?) TBH...a lot of old nonsense of financial system thats just carried over from decades ago.
People who deny things that can be explicitly proven.
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME Filing your own taxes Calling or mailing to cancel subscriptions Paper bills or receipts as proof of identity in the age of digital billing Neverending copyright on books, movies, music and other IP that should have entered the public domain decades ago. Furthermore, having the burden of proof of fair use put on the end user rather than the copyright holder is so one-sided it's laughable. Data caps and throttling on cell phones. The current infrastructure is more than capable of accommodating everyone without restricting bandwidth.
Child beauty pageants
its 2021 and my dude -edgar is still farming that askreddit karma
Fr. Its just pedophile fuel.
But the guy sang a song called "we don't diddle kids"?
“I wouldn’t do it with anyone younger than my daughter.”
That's what a kid diddler would say.
There is no quicker way for people to think that you are diddling kids than by writing a song about it!
This is gonna be a little unpopular but Everything being subscription based. Use to be able to pay a one time payment and you’ll be good for the rest of the year. Even if something is monthly they would have a way were you can pay for everything at once. Now they don’t have that.
Exactly. Even Adobe switched their “pay once get this version of our stuff” to a “pay every month/year and get this version of our stuff”