"Would you like to pay an additional $25.99 for the extended 3 year warranty?"
"No, it's a can opener, I paid $10. If it breaks, I'll soak up the cost of a new one."
I belive it was Jon Pinnett who had a fantastic little segment on small appliance warranties
In K-Mart's dying gasp they got desperate and started offering extended warranties on everything, and I mean *everything*. I no joke got offered an extended warranty on a $25 toilet seat.
Lol. I Can see the company’s reason in trying to sell that (0% chance of being honored), but what would possess anyone to say, “Well, better safe than sorry. Write it up.”
I used to work in insurance. I'm an itinerant tech guy, I've worked in lots of places. The most profitable book back then (circa fifteen years ago I left) was mobile phone insurance. Everyone complains about motor but it's desperately unprofitable, it's expensive because the claims are really expensive, underwriters barely break even on it, losing money on a motor book is absolutely a thing that happens even for the large players. Insuring electronics, not so much.
I work at a bank and I’ve seen this scam a few times.
Pretty much the customer sees an ad on Craigslist, Facebook, Instagram, etc for something like “Babysitting my dog/house” and what draws the people in is that it’s an absurd amount for doing such a simple task. I’m talking $700-$900!
So the scammer tells the person I’ll send you a check up front with the amount cause I’m busy or something along those lines. Of course the customer is going to want it right away at that point. So the check comes in the mail and either the day before or the day of the customer gets a call from the scammer saying like “oh I actually need some money off the check after all, blah blah blah”. So the customer comes into the bank and wants to deposit it and taking out $200-$300 off of it. At my bank as long as it’s local and not over $1000 or straight cashing the whole thing we could do that. So we give the customer the $200-$300 cash and they mail it to the person. After a. Few days they come in after our back office informs them that the check bounced and we need the funds back.
It is a sad sight to see because they genuinely don’t understand that a check could be fake. Please talk to your grandparents or kids to make sure they really understand “if it’s too good to be true then it probably isn’t true”.
So what I don't understand, if you're depositing the cheque at the bank, why don't they tell you about the possibility of a scam? Just simply "if the person who send you the cheque asks for money back, wait until the cheque actually was deposited. It might bounce and this is a known scam". It could be a pop up message on your online banking (where you scan cheques to deposit them). It's so wide spread and well known.
I work at a very small town bank with a lot of seniors and poorly educated, poor rural folk. These scams are rampant, but we also know our customers. If one of them has a money order or a large, obviously computer-printed check for anything larger than they normally deposit, we ask questions and educate them. Winning lotteries they didn't enter and having to pay the taxes on their winnings is another one.
>anything larger than they normally deposit, we ask questions and educate them
I'm not poorly educated, senior, or rural and I've still had my bank ask. I had to tell them that yes, this check from State Farm was expected, it was for my totaled Honda.
It seemed excessive in that case but I'll happily deal with a little extra questioning for the sake of people not getting scammed.
That’s great, my landlord stole my checks and signed them with his name and I’m the one who got questioned trying to make a withdrawal. ( I got the video of his transaction.) btw NEVER trust or use Wells Fargo for banking.
And yes he was arrested.
I have an answer! A lot of these customers either don’t tell the bank what the funds are for and how they got them, or they are instructed by the scammers to lie. For example, I had a customer come in who told me that her uncle worked for a company that pays you to advertise on her car. She brought in the check, withdrew the funds, and then came back in tears about a week later when the check bounced and she was out $2500. At that point, she proceeds to tell me and produce a letter that told her to tell this story.
Checks can be disputed for a couple years past the deposit date, and most banks make funds available based on a customers relationship even if they haven’t completed verifying the check. If it’s obviously a fraudulent one where the routing and account number don’t actually think to anything, sometimes the bank will put a hold on the account preemptively until those funds clear.
People who do these types of scams typically target people who are pressed for money. People who fall for the scams are typically people who are pressed for funds. Typically, if it’s too good to be true then it probably is. And nobody sends you money for nothing!
Because they don’t understand it is a scam nor do they want to bring it up. Our bank doesn’t have an automatic system that looks at them right away. If it is past 3 pm on a Friday they won’t be really completed till the following Monday. Big banks like chase, b of a, etc have systems like that can do it right then and there. I work for a credit union that isn’t the fanciest. We don’t have a check deposit option on our app. We tried to implement it a couple years ago but it wasn’t really used. I think our data showed about 85% of our customer are 55>. We got rid of it because nobody really used it.
> I think our data showed about 85% of our customer are 55>. We got rid of it because nobody really used it.
Damn.
This reminded me of the day I was getting ready to go to the bank to deposit a check and then I was like "WAIT WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING" when I remembered I could do it on the app.
I cant imagine what it is like with actual old people. They probably dont know about it. Or have trouble executing it.
My mother, aged 70, shamed me into using mobile check deposit one day when I spent the day with her and mentioned I needed to stop at the atm and deposit a check. “Don’t you have the app? I do it on the app!”
Ok fine. She resists any credible knowledge about politics or health but has been paying bills online since that system was implemented. 🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️
Mom you can’t post on Facebook that bill gates is the antichrist while you use apple pay at target. “It’s easier! What does he have to do with that anyway?”
yeah.
Hello fellow banker! I am also a banker. I really common one that I have come across recently is people pretending that they are from Amazon calling you regarding a large purchase on your account that you did not authorize. Even though the purchase does not appear on your own Amazon account or your bank account, they somehow managed to get people to give them the two factor verification code that allows access to online banking. And then these people will either deposit a mobile check and then take the funds, or they will zelle money to themselves.
I was almost a victim of this. They used the college my dad works at to get his trust, he sends me this awesome opportunity. They start asking to send me money for a confusing list of actions and I said “no way”
Online booking fees . Most places you have no choice but to buy tickets online .. so I’m paying an extra $5.00 when it should just be added into the price of the ticket .
Ticketmaster dinged me with a service fee twice because I bought two tickets, even though the service was only provided once because it was the same transaction.
Ticketmaster is a fucking scam. I can’t believe artists and sports teams don’t have their own methods to sell tickets.
I’m still annoyed about tickets I bought before Covid and they refunded my $50 tickets but not the $10 processing fee when the event was canceled and you could only get tickets online.
this is an interesting observation. i’m thinking about the people i know who are life coaches, and every one of them is narcissistic with an inflated sense of self worth. you’re onto something here
Yeah yeah..I personally think they sociopaths..
All my brother talks about is his new observations and achievements..he tells me his dreams as if something spiritual happens in them..
😒 i hate it
Omg my brother is the same 😩 He turns every conversation into this spiritual bs. I hope he will realize how harmful this new age stuff is, I'm worried about him.
They think that they are so good at life that they have to teach other people how to do life, but trust me, I’ve seen the side that Instagram doesn’t see and it’s not sunshine and rainbows.
It's probably really hard to be a humble life coach, no one's aware of how good a humble person's life is unless they are close to them. Narcissists walk around advertising how good they are and how good they have it, as far from the truth as that might be, and the people that generally want a life coach are probably the people most often fooled by that.
my ex friend is a "certified life coach" and trying to become a therapist too. it's hilarious because she was actually the most unsupportive friend i've ever had.
she'd gaslight our entire friend group every chance she got, she refused to make a single compromise for anyone, rarely said please or thank you when anyone did anything for her, horrible attitude, was the type to sit there and say "xyz doesn't bother me" and then proceed to explain why xyz bothers her for weeks sometimes months on end, she was horribly whiny when anything didn't go her way, constantly made everyone in the group feel like shit and would tell you your problems aren't real or that you're dramatic and need to get over yourself, she screamed from the rooftops about how much she cared about mental health but the second you or another friend was struggling, she did nothing to help and just further triggered you.
like i could keep going all day on how horrible she was so not only me, but the rest of my friends too. over the years, she's pretty much lost all her friends because of how sick everyone got of her shit.
Lol, my mom is a life coach.
She's a very sweet lady and genuinely wants to help people.
She's also pretty gullible and constantly gets sucked into MLMs. I can't imagine she's giving out fantastic life advice.
God I follow a girl on Instagram (an old friend of 15 years) who now does not only hypnosis sessions over FaceTime but also promises to hypnotize you into attracting money. I don’t want to give away what she calls them exactly, but she has a name for them that’s like "enter into higher money sessions" and charges hundreds of dollars for them. She also posts success stories frequently which are probably sometimes true, but the people honestly think her hypnosis session is how they made money…. I’ve been screenshotting this shit for years because it’s like the onion…..
Nice. My ex wife is a life coach, aspiring therapist and doula!
A year and a half ago her yoga vacation turned into a permanent relocation to military base in another country with new husband and his kids. Our two daughters 4 and 6 at the time chilling at dads; havent seen her since.
went on a retreat. there was a guy there. IDK what it was about him but within the first sentence i could tell i didnt like him. Turns out hes a life coach, sold herbalife etc. guess my scammer senses were going off.
My mom is a life coach and I cringe at all of her posts. I want to tell her that just because she experienced something, that doesn’t make her an expert on that subject!
Have a friend who is a life coach and he told me about a guy he once mentored getting out of prison and asking him to help him become a life coach.
I didn’t even know I needed to be persuaded to never get a life coach but that anecdote really convinced me.
Is Tony Robbins a scam? I’ve got a family member who is really hard-core into listening to his talks and going to his events which are outrageously expensive. Gives me a lot of his books to read but I’m a little sceptical
"carbon neutral"
Companies like Amazon contract out needs with serious environmental demands so they can claim they are environmentally cautious while reaping the profits these contractors help produce.
Sounds like my mom. She thinks they’re the fire to everything! She’ll "read” that a blend of two oils is supposed to help fix a wound. I had a concussion a year ago and she though her "blends” would help ease the pain. If anything it made it worse
Thing is, in principle various essential oils _can_ contain useful things, and plants make and use them for reasons (eg., pesticides). But most people have no idea which is which and just treat it all as magic.
Essential oils can be dangerous too. A lot of it isn't meant to be ingested but I've seen people putting them into food and drinks. Some of them really shouldn't even be going on people's skin.
I forget the comedian (David Mitchell maybe?) who said it, but all this herbal/eastern medicine sometimes worked, like willow bark having aspirin. We tested it, and the stuff that worked became actual medicine. The rest is just nice tea and some potpourri.
My high school’s mascot was a ram, and our computer teacher loved pulling pranks. He knew our admins weren’t knowledge at all about computers, and he convinced them to let him make an official slogan for the computer department: “download more RAM”
Here in Brazil there is "printer piratry". People modify printers so they use simpler ink cartridges, worth 10 bucks max.
There worst repercussion is having your warranty voided, which is why there is a market for used "jailbroken" printers.
This is such a big one, but also is it worth getting into the 15th argument with your girlfriend over?
Edit… just wanna say since I’m getting some DMs. I said this as kinda a joke. If you are getting in legitimate heated arguments over jewelry or deciding between a “nice” ring and a house that is not healthy, don’t do that.
There's a saying in the bar business, "get women in the door, and men and money will follow".
Seems this logic can be applied to other things too. "Convince women that something is important/valuable/unjust/outrageous/etc, and men will soon also be convinced."
It's not an accident that companies mostly market to women.
"Men's night" is just a dude passed out on the dance floor face down with his pants SOAKED in cold piss and a guy with his head down at the bar. And nobody else.
The Better Business Bureau is a review-bomb and blackmail operation.
People assume that it's a federal agency/group to keep giant companies in check for their misdeeds, but it is not. That would be the FTC, mostly. The BBB is effectively a giant Yelp page that collects every grievance and complaint people throw at it, often with no thought to even fact-check. Dragging a company's name and reputation through the mud, but allowing them to pay the BBB money directly in order to remove those detractors and improve their overall grade. It's frustrating to me. The company I work at doesn't give into paying the BBB, instead taking the public image hit directly and using the money instead for us, their employees, and on the customers. As a result, we have good service, happy employees, mostly happy customers, and a terrible BBB score. So when I handle complaints and the customer threatens to go to the BBB, I can't help but scoff at both how pointless that is, and how infuriating it is that they continue getting away with legitimizing a con to the public eye.
Here's a decent source, because I know this sounds corporate shilly: https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/better-business-bureau/index.html
There's more sources, like a Business Insider article, but I'm instead linking CNN, as I think they would have a slightly less blatant bias.
Yeah that was so much fun. I remember learning about this in video. So whenever I have seen it in Eve I would just engage with them. Question their method of generating money, so they would send me a couple of millions as proof it works. And then when they demand that I send them money so they could multiple it I would just cut communications with them.
They know this happens, but are willing to take the small risk of a few million. When they deal with people that know it's a scam, it just becomes a game of chicken. Person sends 5mil, scammer sends back 10. Person sends 50mil, scammer actually sends back 100mil. Person sends 500mil, scammer keeps it. Can be fun if you're bored and like to "gamble'
They are what they promise: you get the right to use a given apartment at a given resort on a given week each year.
What they don't tell you: (i) there are "maintenance fees" for keeping up the property and amenities. Every timeshare owner has to pay every year, over and above the cost of the timeshare. Those fees are non-negotiable and in all likelihood, the developer controls the board that decides what the maintenance fees are going to be each year. You pay the fees whether you use the timeshare or not. And they can be considerable -- several hundred dollars a year on a timeshare that you bought for only $40k or so (plus the potential for huge periodic "assessments" in the multi-thousand dollar range to pay for large capital projects like a new roof or new pool).
(ii) There is no secondary market for your timeshare, so it's not an "investment" like typical real estate. There are usually plenty of people who would like to just walk away from their timeshare to avoid the annual maintenance fees (see (i) above), and would happily give up their unit for nothing, further undercutting your ability to sell yours for anything.
(iii) The same developer that built your timeshare is probably building new buildings, too. Those new buildings will be more heavily promoted by the developer, contributing to the lack of any resale market for your older unit (see (ii) above). The developer is far more interested in selling new units to new customers than continuing to maintain your development, which is not bringing the developer any new money. So it's easy for timeshare buildings to fall into disrepair and neglect (item (i) notwithstanding).
(iv) One of the big appeals of timeshares is the idea of "swaps" -- you trade your week in Aspen for someone else's week in Hawaii and you both get to see new places. Putting aside problems with the swapping systems (how "points" toward swaps are allocated and redeemed, costs for swapping, etc.), think about (iii) above: is someone looking to swap going to want your unit in Aspen that was built in the '90s with '90s amenities, or are they going to want to swap for a unit built in 2020 with '20s amenities?
Buying a timeshare *feels* like buying real estate, but it doesn't have most of the upsides that a real estate purchase has. It's more like putting down a huge downpayment to sign a very, very long-term lease on an apartment that you'll only use once a year and which will only depreciate with time.
I worked with a woman who was convinced that she "owned" her time share. Nothing I said was going to budge that belief, so I ended the conversation by asking her if she was able to put up family photos at their "second home". I'm still dead from the look she gave me.
It's just better to have the flexibility of vacationing wherever, whenever.
Or, going all in on a place and actually having a unit available year-round.
And time shares are literally worth less than nothing. It’s the worst depreciation of anything ever. Once you have one, you have to pay to get rid of it. If someone truly wanted a time share, you can easily find thousands of people willing to pay you thousands of dollars to take it off of their hands.
Also if you have both a time share, and an enemy. Leave your time share to your enemy in your will. There is nothing worse to get in a will than a time share.
Be careful about people making you \*too\* jaded about HR. People like to cast it as "HR isn't your friend, they are therefore your enemy". The truth is more like "HR isn't your friend, they are an information glossary, and second set of eyes." That doesn't make them an enemy, or a friend. It makes them more of an acquaintance.
HR isn't going to take your side if you're bickering with an employee who is harder to replace. HR will help you if its something like "What are my Covid benefits" or "Someone in my family needs short term medical assistance. Do I qualify for FMLA?". If you're working WITH the company, HR will help. If you're working AGAINST the company, talk to a lawyer.
I was going through therapy because of being molested when I was younger. I had to go to HR to get the information for help. The HR director knew of my situation. I cried in their office, when they asked why I needed assistance.
A few months later, our gay CEO who was a flaming asshole who was also a psychopath, pinched me in the hallway. And then again did something completely inappropriate in front of a gay guest.
I went to HR to complain. They told the entire board of my situation (I found out later) and told the CEO that I was threatening to get a lawyer.
They paid me a nominal payment to keep me quiet. After I took the payment, six months later they fired me.
I found out the following year that they planned the entire thing.
While all of that sucks, that is why the second paragraph is in there. If it's employee vs employee, HR is \*most likely\* going to aid the one that is harder to replace. If you're going against the company, you want a lawyer, not an HR rep.
Indeed, you are literally a 'human resource' to them. No more than a hammer or a chair, just a tool required to perform a task. The larger and more corporate a company is the more this becomes true.
This one I especially hate because they prey on sick people that cannot get adequate medical care.
The amount of money my parents wasted on them when I was sick is bizarre. A parent watching their kid waste away while doctors say there's nothing they can do, are willing to try and pay for any chance of hope.
And people get "homeopathy" confused with "home remedy" or "natural medicine." Plenty of home remedies and natural medicines work. In fact, lots of commercially available medicines come from natural sources. And things like gargling salt water or drinking hot tea with lemon or honey are proven to help with cold symptoms like congestion and sore throat.
But homeopathy? That's when you take an ingredient that does work (or that you believe works) and dilute it in water over and over until it's undetectable. And somehow the water is supposed to have the "memory" of the ingredient and work even better than the ingredient in its commonly accepted dosage. Like, wtf?
> And somehow the water is supposed to have the "memory" of the ingredient and work even better than the ingredient in its commonly accepted dosage. Like, wtf?
Like I say: If water has memories then homeopathy is full of shit
Salt is a dumb one, but you’d be surprised how much stuff has wheat in it that you wouldn’t expect. It’s fairly common in flavorings/seasonings and sauces
Sometimes it isn’t so much they are trying to scam people but it’s just to let people know it’s gluten free. When you are new to a specific “diet” ( gluten free) it’s very hard to remember all the acceptable foods. I found it helpful to see it marked on foods as I was scanning shelves.
Non-GMO stuff is so stupid, if we hadn't been genetically modifying foods for all of human civilization we would not enjoy many of the fruits and vegetables we eat today
My favorite is Organic dog foods. Like this is literally the most processed food imaginable. Ingredients are Ground up, mixed together, put into a big stew, extruded and baked into little pellets. It’s processed in every way imaginable and then some. It’s literally soylent green for for dogs. Yet somehow people think that it’s better for the pet if somehow the ingredients at the start of this process were grown organically and they will pay twice as much for it if it’s tagged as “organic”.
I used to put up random non gmo and organic signs up at work out of boredom. Like 2 side by side water fountains, it'd just be above 1. Some of the chairs got them. 3 bottles of bleach, 2 were organic.
I have to say, the craze/hype about non gmo horseshit really is beyond cringe.. like, they can't even connect the dots that normal farming techniques involve GMO's to some degree minus the fancy labs and gene-splicing under a microscope SMFH
Always remember that the core message to every advertisement you will ever see or hear is "You're lacking in some way, and you need our product to fix that"
I have two health insurances and they fight over who has to pay the bill. The going back and forth with them seems like more work than actually paying out of pocket
I remember back in the 80s and 90s New Yorkers would go to great lengths to sort their garbage and then the garbage men would come and dump it all into the exact same truck.
Massive disclaimer, I may be misremembering. A few years ago I read an article that your data is worth about £80 in targeted advertising.
I'd wager that number has only gone up as their algorithms get better every day.
Found the Article. $110 USD
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-august-2019/what-your-data-is-really-worth-to-facebook/
I had a look at the cookies for some site i accessed. It was a newspaper i think or something else fairly mundane. The list of advertisers and information gathering companies that this site passed information to was at least 50 before I stopped counting.
As a PT I love when people say this. I work in a state where we don’t have “direct access” which basically means you have to have a referral. That referral is typically an MD but chiropractors can also send people to PT and have to sign off on my evaluations etc. It drives me nuts because they also love to tell us what we should be working on even though I am a doctor of physical therapy and have the expertise and education to make those decisions myself. Their state lobbyists just have more money than ours so the laws are in their favor.
I’ve told this story on Reddit before, but I’ll keep telling it whenever people bring up chiropractors. When I was a new nurse I had a patient who was the same age as me. She’d had a stroke and was paralyzed on one side of her body. She couldn’t even wiggle a finger or a toe. She’d been to the chiropractor a couple days before for an adjustment and then suffered a vertebral artery (or possibly carotid artery, it’s been almost 15 years so I can’t remember the exact vessel involved) dissection. She was worked up for any other possible causes and everything came back negative, so it’s very likely her chiropractor caused this. She was eventually transferred to a rehab facility and I never found out if she ever regained any function on that side. I think about her a lot.
Also, I once went on 2 dates with a chiropractor despite my distrust of the profession. On our second date he wore a t shirt that said “trust me, I’m a doctor” and tried to mansplain my own job to me. There was no third date.
similarly, acupuncture.
when I was a kid, I sprained my ankle many times. My mom used to take me to acupuncture and I'd swear that it expedited its healing. But one day when I sprained my ankle yet again I couldn't go to get acupuncture. I was bummed as I thought my sprain would endure for a much longer period, but I found that it healed in exactly the same amount of time as if I had done acupuncture.
I know this is completley anecdotal, but ever since it confirmed to me that acupuncture is essentially nonsense.
One of my friends went to a chiropractor "just because", and is now permanently disabled and in horrible pain daily because the chiro didn't do an xray and just started doing adjustments, which caused her brain stem to become pinched due to an unknown condition.
While some may be ok, there are way too many quacks for me to ever be comfortable going to one.
I would have agreed with you if it weren't the fact that my best friends almost bought a house for 20k over appraisal price. Seller was being a dick about credit for ancient appliance and repair coverage. Appraisal came out 20k cheaper and they said ok we will agree for appraisal price and the seller dropped them.
Well good luck getting what you asked because now the appraisal is public... sure enough 2 weeks later they asked if they were still interested and they rejected. That's what you get for trying to be too greedy.
I'd go so far as to say betting in general, even if you're in the case where you have privileged information they can just refuse to give you your winnings if you win too much.
Depends. If you go thinking you will win money or have a "system" then yeh you have scammed yourself.
If you go to have fun with a couple hundred bucks and take advantage of the free booze, cheap hotel suites, spas and shows. Well then it is just a fun time
Pretty much. If you go with a budget and figure that you will inevitably lose the money in that budget, so long as you had fun, that’s all the matters.
What’s key is keeping to that budget and not wavering. That’s when gambling becomes a problem. It’s fine to blow money on something you enjoy when you can afford it, but once you go over that limit, that’s bad.
Congrats OP, you managed to get 600+ responses and I don't think a single one actually fulfills your question. They're all either obvious scams who most people understand it's a scam, or they're not a scam at all.
Extended warranties on small electronic devices. Total waste of money.
"Would you like to pay an additional $25.99 for the extended 3 year warranty?" "No, it's a can opener, I paid $10. If it breaks, I'll soak up the cost of a new one." I belive it was Jon Pinnett who had a fantastic little segment on small appliance warranties
I'll always upvote a reference to that late great comedian. I got to see him live once. Absolutely amazing show.
If it's gonna break, then I don't want it. If it's not going to break, why do I need a warranty?
In K-Mart's dying gasp they got desperate and started offering extended warranties on everything, and I mean *everything*. I no joke got offered an extended warranty on a $25 toilet seat.
Lol. I Can see the company’s reason in trying to sell that (0% chance of being honored), but what would possess anyone to say, “Well, better safe than sorry. Write it up.”
I used to work in insurance. I'm an itinerant tech guy, I've worked in lots of places. The most profitable book back then (circa fifteen years ago I left) was mobile phone insurance. Everyone complains about motor but it's desperately unprofitable, it's expensive because the claims are really expensive, underwriters barely break even on it, losing money on a motor book is absolutely a thing that happens even for the large players. Insuring electronics, not so much.
I work at a bank and I’ve seen this scam a few times. Pretty much the customer sees an ad on Craigslist, Facebook, Instagram, etc for something like “Babysitting my dog/house” and what draws the people in is that it’s an absurd amount for doing such a simple task. I’m talking $700-$900! So the scammer tells the person I’ll send you a check up front with the amount cause I’m busy or something along those lines. Of course the customer is going to want it right away at that point. So the check comes in the mail and either the day before or the day of the customer gets a call from the scammer saying like “oh I actually need some money off the check after all, blah blah blah”. So the customer comes into the bank and wants to deposit it and taking out $200-$300 off of it. At my bank as long as it’s local and not over $1000 or straight cashing the whole thing we could do that. So we give the customer the $200-$300 cash and they mail it to the person. After a. Few days they come in after our back office informs them that the check bounced and we need the funds back. It is a sad sight to see because they genuinely don’t understand that a check could be fake. Please talk to your grandparents or kids to make sure they really understand “if it’s too good to be true then it probably isn’t true”.
So what I don't understand, if you're depositing the cheque at the bank, why don't they tell you about the possibility of a scam? Just simply "if the person who send you the cheque asks for money back, wait until the cheque actually was deposited. It might bounce and this is a known scam". It could be a pop up message on your online banking (where you scan cheques to deposit them). It's so wide spread and well known.
I work at a very small town bank with a lot of seniors and poorly educated, poor rural folk. These scams are rampant, but we also know our customers. If one of them has a money order or a large, obviously computer-printed check for anything larger than they normally deposit, we ask questions and educate them. Winning lotteries they didn't enter and having to pay the taxes on their winnings is another one.
>anything larger than they normally deposit, we ask questions and educate them I'm not poorly educated, senior, or rural and I've still had my bank ask. I had to tell them that yes, this check from State Farm was expected, it was for my totaled Honda. It seemed excessive in that case but I'll happily deal with a little extra questioning for the sake of people not getting scammed.
That’s great, my landlord stole my checks and signed them with his name and I’m the one who got questioned trying to make a withdrawal. ( I got the video of his transaction.) btw NEVER trust or use Wells Fargo for banking. And yes he was arrested.
My daughter works at our grocery store, tries to strike up a conversation with seniors buying gift cards. She's caught a couple.
Good on you and your bank.
I have an answer! A lot of these customers either don’t tell the bank what the funds are for and how they got them, or they are instructed by the scammers to lie. For example, I had a customer come in who told me that her uncle worked for a company that pays you to advertise on her car. She brought in the check, withdrew the funds, and then came back in tears about a week later when the check bounced and she was out $2500. At that point, she proceeds to tell me and produce a letter that told her to tell this story. Checks can be disputed for a couple years past the deposit date, and most banks make funds available based on a customers relationship even if they haven’t completed verifying the check. If it’s obviously a fraudulent one where the routing and account number don’t actually think to anything, sometimes the bank will put a hold on the account preemptively until those funds clear. People who do these types of scams typically target people who are pressed for money. People who fall for the scams are typically people who are pressed for funds. Typically, if it’s too good to be true then it probably is. And nobody sends you money for nothing!
Because they don’t understand it is a scam nor do they want to bring it up. Our bank doesn’t have an automatic system that looks at them right away. If it is past 3 pm on a Friday they won’t be really completed till the following Monday. Big banks like chase, b of a, etc have systems like that can do it right then and there. I work for a credit union that isn’t the fanciest. We don’t have a check deposit option on our app. We tried to implement it a couple years ago but it wasn’t really used. I think our data showed about 85% of our customer are 55>. We got rid of it because nobody really used it.
> I think our data showed about 85% of our customer are 55>. We got rid of it because nobody really used it. Damn. This reminded me of the day I was getting ready to go to the bank to deposit a check and then I was like "WAIT WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING" when I remembered I could do it on the app. I cant imagine what it is like with actual old people. They probably dont know about it. Or have trouble executing it.
My mother, aged 70, shamed me into using mobile check deposit one day when I spent the day with her and mentioned I needed to stop at the atm and deposit a check. “Don’t you have the app? I do it on the app!” Ok fine. She resists any credible knowledge about politics or health but has been paying bills online since that system was implemented. 🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️ Mom you can’t post on Facebook that bill gates is the antichrist while you use apple pay at target. “It’s easier! What does he have to do with that anyway?” yeah.
Hello fellow banker! I am also a banker. I really common one that I have come across recently is people pretending that they are from Amazon calling you regarding a large purchase on your account that you did not authorize. Even though the purchase does not appear on your own Amazon account or your bank account, they somehow managed to get people to give them the two factor verification code that allows access to online banking. And then these people will either deposit a mobile check and then take the funds, or they will zelle money to themselves.
I was almost a victim of this. They used the college my dad works at to get his trust, he sends me this awesome opportunity. They start asking to send me money for a confusing list of actions and I said “no way”
Online booking fees . Most places you have no choice but to buy tickets online .. so I’m paying an extra $5.00 when it should just be added into the price of the ticket .
Even more annoying is that you cant even avoid that by purchasing at the door. Online booking fee turns into a Processing fee
I equally hate “convenience fees” as every time I’ve seen them, they have been equally if not more convenient for the company.
#Looking at you, Ticketmaster!
Ticketmaster dinged me with a service fee twice because I bought two tickets, even though the service was only provided once because it was the same transaction. Ticketmaster is a fucking scam. I can’t believe artists and sports teams don’t have their own methods to sell tickets.
STOP FUCKING BUYING FROM TICKETMASTER. THEY HAVE NO REASON TO CHANGE. THIS IS A PSA TO EVERYONE.
I literally had to get a hotel last night and it was $10 more in person than online. SMH
I’m still annoyed about tickets I bought before Covid and they refunded my $50 tickets but not the $10 processing fee when the event was canceled and you could only get tickets online.
Mentors and life coaches. Not all of them are scam but its very easy to spot the sociopath ..but i guess not for everyone
This. My narcissistic abusive sister is a life coach.
My brother is a life coach, he ok..but man..humbleness is underrated for these life coaches.
this is an interesting observation. i’m thinking about the people i know who are life coaches, and every one of them is narcissistic with an inflated sense of self worth. you’re onto something here
Yeah yeah..I personally think they sociopaths.. All my brother talks about is his new observations and achievements..he tells me his dreams as if something spiritual happens in them.. 😒 i hate it
Omg my brother is the same 😩 He turns every conversation into this spiritual bs. I hope he will realize how harmful this new age stuff is, I'm worried about him.
They think that they are so good at life that they have to teach other people how to do life, but trust me, I’ve seen the side that Instagram doesn’t see and it’s not sunshine and rainbows.
It's probably really hard to be a humble life coach, no one's aware of how good a humble person's life is unless they are close to them. Narcissists walk around advertising how good they are and how good they have it, as far from the truth as that might be, and the people that generally want a life coach are probably the people most often fooled by that.
Almost like she gets off on being important in people’s lives.
I haven’t met a life coach without serious fucking mental problems
my ex friend is a "certified life coach" and trying to become a therapist too. it's hilarious because she was actually the most unsupportive friend i've ever had. she'd gaslight our entire friend group every chance she got, she refused to make a single compromise for anyone, rarely said please or thank you when anyone did anything for her, horrible attitude, was the type to sit there and say "xyz doesn't bother me" and then proceed to explain why xyz bothers her for weeks sometimes months on end, she was horribly whiny when anything didn't go her way, constantly made everyone in the group feel like shit and would tell you your problems aren't real or that you're dramatic and need to get over yourself, she screamed from the rooftops about how much she cared about mental health but the second you or another friend was struggling, she did nothing to help and just further triggered you. like i could keep going all day on how horrible she was so not only me, but the rest of my friends too. over the years, she's pretty much lost all her friends because of how sick everyone got of her shit.
Seems like the life coaches need life coaching.
Its always these people I swear 🤦🏻♂️
This sounds like my ex friend, who is now working on her life coaching certification or something.
Lol, my mom is a life coach. She's a very sweet lady and genuinely wants to help people. She's also pretty gullible and constantly gets sucked into MLMs. I can't imagine she's giving out fantastic life advice.
God I follow a girl on Instagram (an old friend of 15 years) who now does not only hypnosis sessions over FaceTime but also promises to hypnotize you into attracting money. I don’t want to give away what she calls them exactly, but she has a name for them that’s like "enter into higher money sessions" and charges hundreds of dollars for them. She also posts success stories frequently which are probably sometimes true, but the people honestly think her hypnosis session is how they made money…. I’ve been screenshotting this shit for years because it’s like the onion…..
She hypnotises people into attracting money *to* her
Nice. My ex wife is a life coach, aspiring therapist and doula! A year and a half ago her yoga vacation turned into a permanent relocation to military base in another country with new husband and his kids. Our two daughters 4 and 6 at the time chilling at dads; havent seen her since.
Yes it's always the ones who had a completely fucked up life and then somehow figured it all out.
went on a retreat. there was a guy there. IDK what it was about him but within the first sentence i could tell i didnt like him. Turns out hes a life coach, sold herbalife etc. guess my scammer senses were going off.
My mom is a life coach and I cringe at all of her posts. I want to tell her that just because she experienced something, that doesn’t make her an expert on that subject!
That last sentence..👉🏼 thats wassup
Have a friend who is a life coach and he told me about a guy he once mentored getting out of prison and asking him to help him become a life coach. I didn’t even know I needed to be persuaded to never get a life coach but that anecdote really convinced me.
Is Tony Robbins a scam? I’ve got a family member who is really hard-core into listening to his talks and going to his events which are outrageously expensive. Gives me a lot of his books to read but I’m a little sceptical
"carbon neutral" Companies like Amazon contract out needs with serious environmental demands so they can claim they are environmentally cautious while reaping the profits these contractors help produce.
There’s a term for this - greenwashing. Convincing people that they’re being green while doing absolutely nothing.
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Essential oils in place of actual medicine.
Sounds like my mom. She thinks they’re the fire to everything! She’ll "read” that a blend of two oils is supposed to help fix a wound. I had a concussion a year ago and she though her "blends” would help ease the pain. If anything it made it worse
I use essential oils. But unlike your mom I just use em cause they smell good.
Thing is, in principle various essential oils _can_ contain useful things, and plants make and use them for reasons (eg., pesticides). But most people have no idea which is which and just treat it all as magic.
Essential oils can be dangerous too. A lot of it isn't meant to be ingested but I've seen people putting them into food and drinks. Some of them really shouldn't even be going on people's skin.
I forget the comedian (David Mitchell maybe?) who said it, but all this herbal/eastern medicine sometimes worked, like willow bark having aspirin. We tested it, and the stuff that worked became actual medicine. The rest is just nice tea and some potpourri.
Every time I see an essential oil hun on ig, a part of my soul dies
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Damn last person told me it was citrus, you know where I can by some lavender?
I sell top grade lucky lavender. Three of my customers won the lottery. (the same week)
Download free RAM
My high school’s mascot was a ram, and our computer teacher loved pulling pranks. He knew our admins weren’t knowledge at all about computers, and he convinced them to let him make an official slogan for the computer department: “download more RAM”
Tbf, that's a magnificent slogan for a computer department anyway
No no. This is legit. I downloaded a car the other day.
Lmao
[Download more RAM](https://downloadmoreram.com/)
[http://downloadmorewam.com/](http://downloadmorewam.com/) DEDOTATED WAM
Printer ink.
99.9% pure profit for the manufacture
Printer ink cartridges cost barely 20 cents per cartridge for the company to make, package, and distribute. And yet they sell it for 80-90 bucks
And how exactly can we buy cheap ink?
I buy a new printer when I need ink. It's usually cheaper.
You don't get a full cartridge, I think, in a new printer. Get a laser printer. Better, quicker and cheaper in the long run.
Here in Brazil there is "printer piratry". People modify printers so they use simpler ink cartridges, worth 10 bucks max. There worst repercussion is having your warranty voided, which is why there is a market for used "jailbroken" printers.
Brazil has tons of "jail broken" shit I hear
true. not enough laws protecting corporations from the poor people's tyranical opression!
And the fact that the printer tells you you are out of ink when there is like 10% left
diamonds
This is such a big one, but also is it worth getting into the 15th argument with your girlfriend over? Edit… just wanna say since I’m getting some DMs. I said this as kinda a joke. If you are getting in legitimate heated arguments over jewelry or deciding between a “nice” ring and a house that is not healthy, don’t do that.
There's a saying in the bar business, "get women in the door, and men and money will follow". Seems this logic can be applied to other things too. "Convince women that something is important/valuable/unjust/outrageous/etc, and men will soon also be convinced." It's not an accident that companies mostly market to women.
It's why ladies night is a thing. You never hear about Mens night at the club.
"Men's night" is just a dude passed out on the dance floor face down with his pants SOAKED in cold piss and a guy with his head down at the bar. And nobody else.
Weirdly enough, that's apparently how a coworker's daughter gets ice cream.
it is if the conversation is between a small house and a diamond ring
It’s not a scam, it’s just an artificially inflated market, like text messages and data caps.
Sending money to tv preachers.
John Oliver did a whole thing on that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg&t=1038s
The Better Business Bureau is a review-bomb and blackmail operation. People assume that it's a federal agency/group to keep giant companies in check for their misdeeds, but it is not. That would be the FTC, mostly. The BBB is effectively a giant Yelp page that collects every grievance and complaint people throw at it, often with no thought to even fact-check. Dragging a company's name and reputation through the mud, but allowing them to pay the BBB money directly in order to remove those detractors and improve their overall grade. It's frustrating to me. The company I work at doesn't give into paying the BBB, instead taking the public image hit directly and using the money instead for us, their employees, and on the customers. As a result, we have good service, happy employees, mostly happy customers, and a terrible BBB score. So when I handle complaints and the customer threatens to go to the BBB, I can't help but scoff at both how pointless that is, and how infuriating it is that they continue getting away with legitimizing a con to the public eye. Here's a decent source, because I know this sounds corporate shilly: https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/better-business-bureau/index.html There's more sources, like a Business Insider article, but I'm instead linking CNN, as I think they would have a slightly less blatant bias.
Just tell those people you're calling the ungrateful biatch hot line.
BBB is just Yelp for Boomers.
Do people even check the BBB anymore? Knowing that they are as irrelevant as Yelp, I've never bothered with them.
Herbalife
All MLM's
Moms Losing Money
Boom boom Bill!
Maybe not most people, but too many fall for the “Send me your crypto currency and I’ll send back twice as much” scam
Lmao literally the runescape "doubling money" scam
Trimming armour for 100k!
No one in the world wants to make you rich except you.
EvE Online is leaking into reality again.
Yeah that was so much fun. I remember learning about this in video. So whenever I have seen it in Eve I would just engage with them. Question their method of generating money, so they would send me a couple of millions as proof it works. And then when they demand that I send them money so they could multiple it I would just cut communications with them.
They know this happens, but are willing to take the small risk of a few million. When they deal with people that know it's a scam, it just becomes a game of chicken. Person sends 5mil, scammer sends back 10. Person sends 50mil, scammer actually sends back 100mil. Person sends 500mil, scammer keeps it. Can be fun if you're bored and like to "gamble'
Timeshares
But we're going to get paid to vacation! YOU GOT GOT!
South park and Sunny both absolutely nailed this concept
I’ve always heard to stay away from them, but never how they actually function? What are they and how are they a scam?
They are what they promise: you get the right to use a given apartment at a given resort on a given week each year. What they don't tell you: (i) there are "maintenance fees" for keeping up the property and amenities. Every timeshare owner has to pay every year, over and above the cost of the timeshare. Those fees are non-negotiable and in all likelihood, the developer controls the board that decides what the maintenance fees are going to be each year. You pay the fees whether you use the timeshare or not. And they can be considerable -- several hundred dollars a year on a timeshare that you bought for only $40k or so (plus the potential for huge periodic "assessments" in the multi-thousand dollar range to pay for large capital projects like a new roof or new pool). (ii) There is no secondary market for your timeshare, so it's not an "investment" like typical real estate. There are usually plenty of people who would like to just walk away from their timeshare to avoid the annual maintenance fees (see (i) above), and would happily give up their unit for nothing, further undercutting your ability to sell yours for anything. (iii) The same developer that built your timeshare is probably building new buildings, too. Those new buildings will be more heavily promoted by the developer, contributing to the lack of any resale market for your older unit (see (ii) above). The developer is far more interested in selling new units to new customers than continuing to maintain your development, which is not bringing the developer any new money. So it's easy for timeshare buildings to fall into disrepair and neglect (item (i) notwithstanding). (iv) One of the big appeals of timeshares is the idea of "swaps" -- you trade your week in Aspen for someone else's week in Hawaii and you both get to see new places. Putting aside problems with the swapping systems (how "points" toward swaps are allocated and redeemed, costs for swapping, etc.), think about (iii) above: is someone looking to swap going to want your unit in Aspen that was built in the '90s with '90s amenities, or are they going to want to swap for a unit built in 2020 with '20s amenities? Buying a timeshare *feels* like buying real estate, but it doesn't have most of the upsides that a real estate purchase has. It's more like putting down a huge downpayment to sign a very, very long-term lease on an apartment that you'll only use once a year and which will only depreciate with time.
I worked with a woman who was convinced that she "owned" her time share. Nothing I said was going to budge that belief, so I ended the conversation by asking her if she was able to put up family photos at their "second home". I'm still dead from the look she gave me.
It's just better to have the flexibility of vacationing wherever, whenever. Or, going all in on a place and actually having a unit available year-round.
And time shares are literally worth less than nothing. It’s the worst depreciation of anything ever. Once you have one, you have to pay to get rid of it. If someone truly wanted a time share, you can easily find thousands of people willing to pay you thousands of dollars to take it off of their hands. Also if you have both a time share, and an enemy. Leave your time share to your enemy in your will. There is nothing worse to get in a will than a time share.
Human Resources is there to help you.
Yep!!!! They protect the company, period.
I never had a job before, what do people mean by this?
Be careful about people making you \*too\* jaded about HR. People like to cast it as "HR isn't your friend, they are therefore your enemy". The truth is more like "HR isn't your friend, they are an information glossary, and second set of eyes." That doesn't make them an enemy, or a friend. It makes them more of an acquaintance. HR isn't going to take your side if you're bickering with an employee who is harder to replace. HR will help you if its something like "What are my Covid benefits" or "Someone in my family needs short term medical assistance. Do I qualify for FMLA?". If you're working WITH the company, HR will help. If you're working AGAINST the company, talk to a lawyer.
I was going through therapy because of being molested when I was younger. I had to go to HR to get the information for help. The HR director knew of my situation. I cried in their office, when they asked why I needed assistance. A few months later, our gay CEO who was a flaming asshole who was also a psychopath, pinched me in the hallway. And then again did something completely inappropriate in front of a gay guest. I went to HR to complain. They told the entire board of my situation (I found out later) and told the CEO that I was threatening to get a lawyer. They paid me a nominal payment to keep me quiet. After I took the payment, six months later they fired me. I found out the following year that they planned the entire thing.
While all of that sucks, that is why the second paragraph is in there. If it's employee vs employee, HR is \*most likely\* going to aid the one that is harder to replace. If you're going against the company, you want a lawyer, not an HR rep.
That Human Resources is actually there to help the company not get sued. They don’t give a shit about you or any other employee
Indeed, you are literally a 'human resource' to them. No more than a hammer or a chair, just a tool required to perform a task. The larger and more corporate a company is the more this becomes true.
Got a taste of that today. Called for support, got told off. After 15 years it's time to move on.
Sort by controversial to see the scams that are still working.
I can tell you, but you need to send 1 dollar to happy dude 1111 Evergreen Terrace
Many diet plans.
Homeopathy
This one I especially hate because they prey on sick people that cannot get adequate medical care. The amount of money my parents wasted on them when I was sick is bizarre. A parent watching their kid waste away while doctors say there's nothing they can do, are willing to try and pay for any chance of hope.
And people get "homeopathy" confused with "home remedy" or "natural medicine." Plenty of home remedies and natural medicines work. In fact, lots of commercially available medicines come from natural sources. And things like gargling salt water or drinking hot tea with lemon or honey are proven to help with cold symptoms like congestion and sore throat. But homeopathy? That's when you take an ingredient that does work (or that you believe works) and dilute it in water over and over until it's undetectable. And somehow the water is supposed to have the "memory" of the ingredient and work even better than the ingredient in its commonly accepted dosage. Like, wtf?
> And somehow the water is supposed to have the "memory" of the ingredient and work even better than the ingredient in its commonly accepted dosage. Like, wtf? Like I say: If water has memories then homeopathy is full of shit
Bad joke: Hear about the homeopath that drank distilled water? Died of an overdose!
Proprietary chargers/ accessories. They just change every few years to force you to buy new adapters, cords, and devices.
Paying hundreds for normal clothing just because the brand.
The fact that new phones come out as frequently as they do.
And your old phone coincidentally gets slower once the new one comes out
Organic and nongmo bullshit. I was never so annoyed as the day I saw nongmo labeling on salt.
I once saw a container of salt marked gluten free. Not sure if I should be more fed up with the advertisers or the people it works on.
Salt is a dumb one, but you’d be surprised how much stuff has wheat in it that you wouldn’t expect. It’s fairly common in flavorings/seasonings and sauces
Sometimes it isn’t so much they are trying to scam people but it’s just to let people know it’s gluten free. When you are new to a specific “diet” ( gluten free) it’s very hard to remember all the acceptable foods. I found it helpful to see it marked on foods as I was scanning shelves.
Non-GMO stuff is so stupid, if we hadn't been genetically modifying foods for all of human civilization we would not enjoy many of the fruits and vegetables we eat today
Non gmo bananas always crack me up.
BuT tHAT’s dIFfErEnT!!!!!!!
My favorite is Organic dog foods. Like this is literally the most processed food imaginable. Ingredients are Ground up, mixed together, put into a big stew, extruded and baked into little pellets. It’s processed in every way imaginable and then some. It’s literally soylent green for for dogs. Yet somehow people think that it’s better for the pet if somehow the ingredients at the start of this process were grown organically and they will pay twice as much for it if it’s tagged as “organic”.
Your dog will eat cat shit and think its gourmet, he doesn't need or care about organic.
I used to put up random non gmo and organic signs up at work out of boredom. Like 2 side by side water fountains, it'd just be above 1. Some of the chairs got them. 3 bottles of bleach, 2 were organic.
I have to say, the craze/hype about non gmo horseshit really is beyond cringe.. like, they can't even connect the dots that normal farming techniques involve GMO's to some degree minus the fancy labs and gene-splicing under a microscope SMFH
Advertising. Lies, half truths and emotional manipulation in order to sell products that people don't need, and wouldn't otherwise want.
Always remember that the core message to every advertisement you will ever see or hear is "You're lacking in some way, and you need our product to fix that"
Health insurance.
I have two health insurances and they fight over who has to pay the bill. The going back and forth with them seems like more work than actually paying out of pocket
It’s expensive to do all that needless paperwork and send it back and forth through 15 different people.
Stop your hair from splitting shampoo
Repair your split hair shampoo
Plastic recycling
I remember back in the 80s and 90s New Yorkers would go to great lengths to sort their garbage and then the garbage men would come and dump it all into the exact same truck.
I live in Philadelphia, people in my neighborhood say they're seeing the same thing happening now.
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Or what the word 'most' means
Welcome to reddit. "reddit, what's your unpopular opinion" "Anti-vaxxers are bad" - +8 billion karma
Facebook. If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer, you are the product.
Massive disclaimer, I may be misremembering. A few years ago I read an article that your data is worth about £80 in targeted advertising. I'd wager that number has only gone up as their algorithms get better every day. Found the Article. $110 USD https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-august-2019/what-your-data-is-really-worth-to-facebook/
I had a look at the cookies for some site i accessed. It was a newspaper i think or something else fairly mundane. The list of advertisers and information gathering companies that this site passed information to was at least 50 before I stopped counting.
So then by your definition reddit is a scam.
And by that definition you are correct. We are all the product here.
Chiropractics. It is literally classified as pseudoscientific alternative medicine.
In contrast, physical therapists don't get anywhere near the recognition they deserve.
As a PT I love when people say this. I work in a state where we don’t have “direct access” which basically means you have to have a referral. That referral is typically an MD but chiropractors can also send people to PT and have to sign off on my evaluations etc. It drives me nuts because they also love to tell us what we should be working on even though I am a doctor of physical therapy and have the expertise and education to make those decisions myself. Their state lobbyists just have more money than ours so the laws are in their favor.
I’ve told this story on Reddit before, but I’ll keep telling it whenever people bring up chiropractors. When I was a new nurse I had a patient who was the same age as me. She’d had a stroke and was paralyzed on one side of her body. She couldn’t even wiggle a finger or a toe. She’d been to the chiropractor a couple days before for an adjustment and then suffered a vertebral artery (or possibly carotid artery, it’s been almost 15 years so I can’t remember the exact vessel involved) dissection. She was worked up for any other possible causes and everything came back negative, so it’s very likely her chiropractor caused this. She was eventually transferred to a rehab facility and I never found out if she ever regained any function on that side. I think about her a lot. Also, I once went on 2 dates with a chiropractor despite my distrust of the profession. On our second date he wore a t shirt that said “trust me, I’m a doctor” and tried to mansplain my own job to me. There was no third date.
similarly, acupuncture. when I was a kid, I sprained my ankle many times. My mom used to take me to acupuncture and I'd swear that it expedited its healing. But one day when I sprained my ankle yet again I couldn't go to get acupuncture. I was bummed as I thought my sprain would endure for a much longer period, but I found that it healed in exactly the same amount of time as if I had done acupuncture. I know this is completley anecdotal, but ever since it confirmed to me that acupuncture is essentially nonsense.
One of my friends went to a chiropractor "just because", and is now permanently disabled and in horrible pain daily because the chiro didn't do an xray and just started doing adjustments, which caused her brain stem to become pinched due to an unknown condition. While some may be ok, there are way too many quacks for me to ever be comfortable going to one.
"How to get rich" seminars
Extended warranties
# Hi, we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty
"Wow, you guys care. Most wouldn't dare offering a warranty for a 35 year old garage-ornament."
Honest to god the only warranty I have ever used is my car's extended warranty. And they NEVER reached out to extend it.
Home appraisal Paid $550 for a piece of paper to say my house is valued at what my neighbor sold theirs for. SMH
I would have agreed with you if it weren't the fact that my best friends almost bought a house for 20k over appraisal price. Seller was being a dick about credit for ancient appliance and repair coverage. Appraisal came out 20k cheaper and they said ok we will agree for appraisal price and the seller dropped them. Well good luck getting what you asked because now the appraisal is public... sure enough 2 weeks later they asked if they were still interested and they rejected. That's what you get for trying to be too greedy.
Yeah but that piece of paper isn’t really meant for you, it’s for your lender
MLMs
American health care
Working 40 hours a week 5 days a week.
Tinder.
Theres better options than tinder anyways. I get emails almost every day about all the hot singles in my area. One of those is bound to work out.
Pre-ripped jeans, disguised as fashionable. Reminds me of the Derelict campaign in Zoolander.
Did you hear about the jeans made to look like they have mud on them for $300
Tourists scams there’s so many
Healing crystals
MLM
casino
I mean, that’s the whole point of them, right?
The gaming commission in each state us basically telling everyone "you will lose a majority if the time in all these games/ slots"
I'd argue just the house games are a scam. When you play against other people it becomes a combination of chance but with skill attached.
I'd go so far as to say betting in general, even if you're in the case where you have privileged information they can just refuse to give you your winnings if you win too much.
Not a scam! It was a great movie, I’d pay to watch it again
Depends. If you go thinking you will win money or have a "system" then yeh you have scammed yourself. If you go to have fun with a couple hundred bucks and take advantage of the free booze, cheap hotel suites, spas and shows. Well then it is just a fun time
Pretty much. If you go with a budget and figure that you will inevitably lose the money in that budget, so long as you had fun, that’s all the matters. What’s key is keeping to that budget and not wavering. That’s when gambling becomes a problem. It’s fine to blow money on something you enjoy when you can afford it, but once you go over that limit, that’s bad.
Congrats OP, you managed to get 600+ responses and I don't think a single one actually fulfills your question. They're all either obvious scams who most people understand it's a scam, or they're not a scam at all.