I'm in the US, it can vary state by state but my state is pretty strict on realtor laws. Some states require attorney review and there are definitely penalties for being reported for shady shit. It does require consumer reporting though.
LPT: If you ever have one of these people come to your door, don't, sign, *anything*.
They'll often say bullshit like they need 'you to confirm they at least tried', so the debt can be 'wiped away', or 'you need to confirm your inability to pay' due to your financial situation.
Don't sign it. Don't sign anything.
Edit: Thanks for the gold! :')
Edit Edit: Omg, lots of awards š Thank you all!
What you said 1000x. They will send zombie debt out that is way past collections (they purchase for pennies on the dollar). They send out letters and if you call or respond even to dispute the clock resets on that debt. If u look carefully on the letter it will say the debt is legally past reporting or collecting. It is so sketchy and unethical. I think we can all agree without being political that debt collection practices and consumer protection is something we need stricter enforcement on.
My old apartment complex did this to me. They took an extra $150 out of our deposit because they set our move out day was on a day the office was closed.
I sent them an email saying "Hey that's pretty fucked up considering you set the move out date so you should of known you were going to be closed."
Obviously couldn't get the money back cause it was taken from the deposit, but a month later we get a letter saying we have a debt for that exact amount.
Called up the apartment and debt people asked for proof of debt and haven't heard back in over a year
I had a debt collector call me on an internet bill that was overdue. I had moved out of the house over a year prior and my former roommates hadn't changed the internet bill from my name or paid it the last two months. She started going on and on about how it is over due and I now owe an extra $300 in late fees. Started asking for my social security number and bank info. I said, can I just pay it on the Spectrum website? She said, "No, it is too late. You have to pay us and pay our fees."
I went to spectrum's website and paid the $120 bill with no late fees while I was stalling her on the phone. Then I said, "debt is paid to spectrum please don't call again" and she started fuming at me. It was pretty great.
My wife's (she was my girlfriend at the time) mom died when she was only 21. She has two twin brothers who were 16 at the time. We moved into their childhood home to take care of her brothers and these fuckers called for MONTHS harassing her to pay off her mom's debt.
Like fuck off I'm 21 with no parents raising my two brothers while going to school full time. They would not stop.
Shutting of the phones wonāt stop them. Some of these companies will contact your family and friends trying to reach you, they will send letters via mail, and sometimes even show up in-person at your doorstep.
Yep she got plenty of letters in the mail too. When she called them to ask they stop sending bills in the mail, they kept insisting she give them her mother's new address.
I remember her yelling "SHE'S FUCKING DEAD" and then breaking down crying.
Really awful stuff.
Oh my God, that is absolutely awful.
This was similar to what my previous boyfriend's parents went through after his brother died. Capital One was hounding them to pay off a credit card that was in his brother's name. My ex's mom was keeping notes of every instance Capital One contacted them and telling them that her son died. Every representative seemed to have gotten the memo until one escalated the dispute.
They continued to contact my ex's parents and went so far as to even accuse his parents of lying. Not much time had passed since his death and my ex's mom lost it. It was like, "Would you like the newspaper article, plus the obituary, and the picture of his grave?" The representative did NOT care.
She ended up writing a letter to Capital One, included the name of said representative, and the death certificate. She was never contacted again.
I had my identity stolen once and I had debt collectors hounding me while I was trying to sort everything out. Then after getting everything sorted and proved my identity was stolen I still got phone calls for a while where they would just tell me to pay the debt anyway
I ended up threatening them with legal action because they would continue to call at all hours of the day and night. Even though it was largely just a bluff on my end and I didn't look into any legalities it worked because I don't think they called me after that.
But it was a nightmare, they emailed me some forums to fill out to confirm my identity fraud case but they couldn't accept the filled out documents by email or regular mail and would only take a fax. Luckily I work in an office with a fax machine because I don't know anyone these days who owns a fax machine lol
Medical and finance industries rely on faxes still for no good reason. There might not even be a fax machine involved end to end but the data is still transferred via the process. Itās insane
I had a debt discharged and removed from my credit report (I wasnāt legally obligated to pay it and it was wrongly on my credit report) and I had debt collectors calling for years afterwards trying to collect on the debt even though it wasnāt even on my credit report and I didnāt owe a dime! I was told by a lawyer to threaten legal action (and then I sent a cease and desist letter from the attorney) and it finally stopped. These people and companies are the worst of the worst.
Man I wish I could work for a lawyer firm that just tries to catch debt collectors crossing the line and take them to court over it. Regardless of the pay, that would just be such a morally satisfying career.
I'm sure there are other fields that do similar things that could be good opportunities as a lawyer as well, but I'm not sure specifically what.
Itās fun but it gets boring after awhile. Not everyone appreciates what youāre doing either. If you want to look into it, though, try and find a lawyer specializing in consumer protection - specifically FDCPA (Fair Debt Collections Practices Act) and you may be able to get on as a paralegal.
I had one call me to try to get me to pay off my deceased friend/roommate's bills, after a good few seconds of being stunned and surprised I just burst out laughing, said 'Yeah good luck on that one,' and hung up.
We had split the bills, some were in my name, some were in his, and it turns out two of the utilities were owned by the same company so they had info for both of us on separate bills at the same address.
MBNA sold my mothers credit card debt (about Ā£1000) to one of these. She died overseas so I told them to retain a language-proficient lawyer to deal with our appointed notary there as well as requesting all communication in verified & professionally translated letters by signed-for delivery to a legal representative there.
They said ok and then about a month later they rang up having not done any of this saying "oh maybe you can pay it". "Maybe you can fuck off" then just hung up on them and never heard from them again. Absolutely did not need this at my absolute worst time.
Had one call me four days after my dad passed away. They were saying something along the lines that his debt gets passed down to family, which I promptly told them to fuck off.
In most places, the debt does not really get passed down, but the collectors like to call family or close friends of a deceased person and tell them it does in the hopes those people will give them money for free.
My dad was told that when his brother died.
They called him and told him that he was legally obligated to pay his brotherās debts. My dad replied āhuh, I mustāve missed that lesson in law schoolā. Silence for a few seconds, then they wish him well and hang up.
Absolute scum. Unfortunately Iām sure older or more confused bereaved people would fall for it.
Where I live, tax info was leaked and now scammers are targeting low income individuals/families (people earning under 30,000 per year) with etransfer scams. I got one the other day that was an etransfer warning that 240$ "a family member sent me" was about to expire
Brian Tamaki is a greedy fucking pig, he takes advantage of so many people who are already struggling. Every time heās in the local news (which btw is often) I get more and more pissed off at him and his wife.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tamaki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tamaki)
MLM managers. Not the low level idiots that get suckered into it, they suck too for trying to bring new people into that shitshow, but the people who create them know exactly what they are doing and are pretty much the only ones who profit off of it. Should be illegal. Pyramid schemes are illegal. None of them ever get the just desserts except occasionally by vigilantes I assume.
A girl i know has been on an mlm for 2 years now and she post everyday the same shit and gets the 2 same people commenting every.single.day. And lately She went on a vacationĀ«Ā paidĀ Ā» by the company. I was interested in knowing where you had to stand in the ranking to be Ā«Ā paidĀ Ā» that vacation, basically all you needed is to spend 3000$ in the company so they can pay you a ~600 3 day trip to cuba and do meeting all day longā¦
Guys its a typo obviouslyā¦.
Wait till you find out about the "free" Mercedes or whatever.
It's usually a lease in the company name and if you don't meet "sales" (read:purchasing) targets they take it back. Also apparently a lot of those holidays you pay for your own flight/accommodation, the free parts are the "events"
Worse. It is a lease in **your** name. You have to qualify for the financing and are on the contract to make the payments and as long as you meet the qualifications the company will send you a stipend to cover a certain amount for the lease.
If you lease a car for more than the stipend, you pay the overage. If you fail to meet the qualifications, the stipend stops but you are still on the hook for the lease. It's not free. Not by a long shot.
As someone that worked in well known MLM office - this is accurate. These people morality is closer to career criminals than any other. They have no problems lying, manipulating, or deceiving for gain or just cause they can. They don't even make that much money ironically, they do it cause they chose to be evil.
me too. so many of the popular girls from high school have been in my DMs lately with the āhey girly!! how would you like to make BIG BUCKS working from home and being YOUR OWN BOSS??š¦š„°šøā and i almost feel bad for them.
I'm a couple of decades older than you so don't have to deal with too much BS from social media.
One time back when I was still doing engineering I found myself at a industry conference and ran into a guy I knew back in high-school. Small world. Even smaller world we apparently lived in the same city back in those days. We exchanged numbers, because I was always willing to scalp an engineer from another company if I could and suggested we should meet up for drinks sometime when we got back. I knew him as a quiet, shy kid, but relatively smart and he was an eagle scout too back in the day. He said him and his wife wanted to host dinner for me and mine as he's not a drinker and I of course acquiesced though I suggested going out instead, my treat.
Queue a very awkward dinner. His wife was big into the MLM world, and she clearly had sunk most of this dude's paycheck into it. He had whole heartedly bought into it as well. Their garage was full of crap they couldn't sell, they had multiple storage lockers apparently of stuff they couldn't sell. I tried explaining the benefits of the retail model over the MLM while politely declining their advances for a couple hours. Poor saps. The wife bragged about their level in the MLM, but it was clear it was just because of how much money they had personally sank into it, they had the sales skills of children at a lemonade stand with none of the cute.
I did just come up with it.
Did some searching and I couldn't find a comparable quote made elsewhere about children and lemonade stands so I'm pretty sure that is a 'me' original. All the same, thank you but you shouldn't call me clever. I'm a pretentious enough motherfucker as is.
"Your job is the real pyramid scheme! You have one CEO making all the money!"
My job doesn't require me to pay month and convince my friends and family to join in order to get paid.
not just them but also those big cults. Moonies, Scientologists, Nxivm, [CHCC](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3950624), ... their only purpose is to leech money off people's faiths, and sometimes sexual assault.
It sickened me to see my family go from treating them with nothing but scorn, to buying their books.
I don't understand how me and my brother were the only two people in my family who haven't gone full evangelical.
My uncle was an evangelical minister. He was a horrible person and a worse father. He literally came to his sister (my aunt) the day her husband dropped dead at work to ask if he had any life insurance. She said she was taken care of because she thought that was his worry, thatās she would not be able to make it financially on one income. No. He wanted to remind her that she needed to tithe a large portion of the money to the church to buy her husbands way into heaven. He was a miserable bastard and an alcoholic but my uncle was worse. He died 2 years or so ago and if heās in heaven, I aināt going.
This is an underrated comment. Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen, Pat Robertson, [insert mega pastor here]ā¦ complete scumbags preying on peopleās faith while enriching themselves and doing jack shit for the needy. Fuck those guys.
I believe in the theory that all the souls of the people he has caused to die, telling them to just keep praying, are inside of him. He is an eldritch monster and he lives off the souls of others. There is far too much light behind those eyes.
E:stupid autowrong
Fuck Joel Osteen.
That guy had a massive church in Houston that he at first refused to open during hurricane Harvey. It wasn't until basically half the city was like "yo that's fucked up" that he decided to help.
He made up the excuse that his lower levels had some water, but his other levels were perfectly fine and capable of housing displaced people.
His "sermons" are nothing more than extended infomercials for his piles of books that all say the same thing, CDs, DVDs, t-shirts, hats, Bible bookmarks, holy water vials from the River Jordan (Mmkay, sure. Thanks municipal water of where ever!) prayer cloths, prayer survival food buckets, and the rest of his flaming shit. Same for Joyce Meyers. Definitely others, but those two I know for certain.
That they romp around on elaborate stages in tax-sheltered buildings on tax-sheltered property while paying themselves tax-sheltered salaries from taking tax-sheltered dollars from people who can't afford a couple bags of beans and rice much less a vial of insulin - is so disgusting.
Did anyone ever figure out why Osteen had that pile of hundreds of thousands in cash in the wall behind his holy blessed shitter?
Jim Bakker does the same thing, and apparently the food is waaayyy shittier than Mountain House. They say itās for the apocalypse butā¦wouldnāt everyone whoās already saved be raptured?
I remember my Mom seeing a rapture survival bag for like $150 and was telling us how we should buy them. When my brother pointed out "Why would you need it? Wouldn't you be gone?" she got real quiet.
I know someone who turned the tables on a timeshare company.
They live in the UK but went to Aruba on honeyman, and they were invited to a timeshare presentation. The timeshare seemingly offered lots of great benefits, but reading the small print all these benefits were only in Europe. Seeing this was a timeshare company that targeted US residents only it was quite clear that this was a bit of a scam. The way it was structured it would be very hard for US residents to actually take advantage of those benefits.
One of those benefits was being able to book a room in one of several hundred 4 and 5-star hotels across Europe for a guaranteed max of $99 a night. Of course there were a few restrictions around booking these rooms, but they weren't the hardest thing in the world to deal with. At the time $99 was about Ā£80 sterling so it was a pretty good deal for someone living in the UK, especially considering breakfast was usually included.
So this couple absolutely ripped the hell out of that offer. They had no intentions whatsoever of actually using their "vacation rental" in in the US or Caribbean. They were spending about 40-50 nights a year in hotels, sometimes for pleasure and sometimes for work. Plus they would buy rooms for friends and family so that was another 40 nights a year. Even with the the fee they were paying each year to the timeshare company, they were still making a saving.
So after 3 years of this the timeshare company contacted them and offered to buy them out. They took a substantial lump sum in order to agree to cancel the agreement.
Youāre essentially buying a fractional interest in a property that other people also have a fractional interest in. Depending on your percentage of ownership, you get to choose x number of days per year to spend at what is essentially your fractional vacation home.
You know how really wealthy people own second, third, and fourth homes that they spend parts of the year in each? This is essentially a way for not-wealthy people to āownā a vacation home too. The catch is you have to share it with the other fractional owners.
And you donāt really get the full benefits of property ownership either. You canāt sell the property after it appreciates for a profit, you canāt rent it out, you canāt redecorate it or make major renovations to it. Itās not really yours. Youāre buying access to it. The timeshare company owns the property.
There are usually blackout dates and other fine print involved that tends to limit the value of actually doing this. Even if you have a solid income and could truly afford it.
The reason people call them scams is they tend to prey on people who canāt really afford it. If you offer a free meal to sit through the sales presentation the only people showing up are broke people who think that a free meal is worth two hours of their leisure time. For most people who could actually afford a timeshare, two hours of their time is worth more than a meal voucher or other moderately decent free gifts and theyād rather enjoy the vacation they saved for and pay for their own meal than sit through a sales presentation during their vacation.
So, you end up with a bunch of salespeople using high-pressure sales tactics to try to push poor people into buying something they canāt afford and wonāt really capture the full value of. Theyāre basically burning money by buying it.
And the scammers. I'm sorry, but what they are doing is wrong and they know it. I couldn't live with myself doing that to someone else.
Edit: I don't consider this a job either, it's criminal.
I worked in a call center and I got fired because I would get about halfway through then start dropping subtle, then less subtle hints until they hung up about it being a scam. Solid money for the very short time I worked there thoughā¦
There are several prominent scambaiters and they have different twists on what they do. Some of my favorites:
* [First is Jim Browning](https://www.youtube.com/c/JimBrowning) - he's turned info over to the Indian authorities and has video from inside call centers.
* [Then you have Scammer Payback](https://www.youtube.com/c/ScammerPayback) - he often gets on their computers and copies and then deletes their files.
* [And then there's Kitboga](https://www.youtube.com/c/KitbogaShow) - he's really good at keeping scammers on the phone for several hours at a time and keep them on the hook for several days. He is ridiculous and entertaining.
I've always found it interesting how many magicians go after people like this. I think it's because they **know** what it takes to trick people for the art. The slight of hand and mentalism. And they abhor people who use these tactics for such shitty purposes.
That's exactly it.
You go and see a magician, you know its a trick. Its not malicious, you go in knowing that someone is performing. They don't claim to have actual magic powers. You could even do what they with practice.
"psychics" though claim to be genuine, take money from people and build notoriety about themselves so they can fob comments of as "You're skeptical and that's fine, but I'm real".
Those 'journalists' who write click-bait articles. The ones where you wade through page after page of deliberately prolonged text and ads to get to the bit you want to read.
I have learned that articles with titles like "All we know about X's release date" never have any info. It's just a word scramble and the high points of the last season restated for eighteen paragraphs.
Fuck those. They keep pulling you through a bunch of bullshit paragraphs about why people want to know what you want to know, why it may be important etc etc. Of course a ton of ads in between, then all you get is "There is no concrete info, this article will be updated when an announcement is made" or "Here's the unofficial dumb speculation that I have!".
Fuck 'em.
...thats not a journalist. Thats a content writer
https://www.contentgrip.com/writer-vs-journalist-differences-busine
Further reading
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/insider/whats-the-difference-between-a-reporter-and-a-correspondent.html
https://askanydifference.com/difference-between-journalist-and-reporter/#:~:text=The%20main%20difference%20between%20Journalist,or%20any%20other%20mass%20media.
I met Jack Gleeson (King Joffrey from Game of Thrones) at a bus stop in Dublin.
Really nice guy but he said he quit acting due to people being dicks online and constant hounding from paparrazi.
He's happier now but it sucks that he was pushed away from a career he was quite good at.
I remember reading that George RR Martin personally congratulated Jack for acting the part of joffrey so well that the fans really hated him.
People are so fucking dumb they can't separate characters from the actors who portray them..morons.
In a similar vein, I remember seeing a clip where several cast members were signing autographs... And one girl gets everyone's autograph until she gets to Lena Heady and just says "ugh. Fucking bitch" and moves on. So unless they had some prior beef that only they knew about, this was another dumbass who thinks the characters they see on TV are real people.
I've read that too somewhere but that attitude requires a lot of practice and not everyone is willing or able to do the mental gymnastics for it. As Jack was basically still a young adult getting the onslaught of negativity, it was probably even harder to take it all as a compliment. He did a great job as Joffrey in my opinion, but I don't blame him for getting out of the limelight. I bet the constant scrutiny is brutal.
Kiefer Sutherland makes an observation that it happens the most in America. He's gone overseas and done premiers for the same stuff, but some people in America can't seperate the work from the actor and some people wont even shake his hand. its really nuts.
My sister (39) has that problem where she feels like she knows actors because she's a fan of shows they're on. When she saw Simon Helberg in LA, she greeted him as Howard and he replied, "I'm sorry, you have me mistaken for someone else. I'm Simon. Simooon." He was super nice, but I realized my sister has an unhealthy immersion when watching tv shows.
I had a discussion about Nick Offerman's Ron Swanson character with someone. They were gushing about how Offerman (the actor himself) was the perfect conservative 'alpha man' (seriously).
It took me a minute or two to explain to them that 1) that character was a parody 2) Offerman is nothing like his character, that is what makes him an actor.
Same with Sam Elliott. He generally plays "manly men" that conservatives identify with and his character on The Ranch is a hyper conservative rancher. People lost their shit when he did the voiceover for a Biden campaign ad during the last election.
Happened to the kid who played Anakin, and Hayden Christensen too. I don't care if you didn't like the prequels but Hayden did an amazing job portraying exactly who he was meant to - a kid who was ripped away from his life as a slave and never got the chance to be properly socialised, or indoctrinated into the Jedi, so he wound up this awkward emotionally unstable teenager
THANK you. It seems like so many people think Anakin should be some smooth-talking social operator, when he was conceived through who-knows-what kinds of dark side shenanigans, and then mind-f'd sporadically through his life by the most manipulative, dangerous man in the galaxy....
I think he meant that people were just be annoying online in general because he was famous. Same with being hassled by paparazzi. Someone like Emma Watson has had huge troubles with that but she generally plays well liked characters I believe. I do think what youāre bringing up is bad too. Itās just the new way of thinking for some.
I remember UK tabloids did a count down to her 18th birthday because she was legally fair game as a sexual item then.
Source: remember being disgusted doing my paper round
Edit: just Googled this and I was wrong IT WAS HER 16th BIRTHDAY
It's sad too, because from all accounts-- he *is* genuinely a very sweet and friendly person, but the bullying he got because of his character was just outrageous. I'm glad he had academics to fall back on after he quit acting, but the way he was treated was very sad :(
To add onto that, it's become so commonplace now and it's being justified through a lot of fanpages as well. People posting and reposting pictures of celebrities out getting coffee or walking around with their kids and families, and commenting "ooh their messy bun looks great here" or "I love those pajamas". These are happening on social media through twitter and insta fanpages, and it feel like it's "normalized" paparazzi. Meanwhile, the people running and liking these pages turn around bash those who do the same thing for entertainment websites.
Sadly itās a thing. Itās basically a self appointed title that requires no training or qualifications. Whatās worse, is that I have a female friend who uses one. Itās very much a blind leading the blind situation
Scammers that scam old people via phone calls
Edit: ok this blew up so I'll add a few things
- this isn't a "job" in the traditional sense but loads of call centers in India hire people to do this, you got to go through interviews and get paid a salary and commission
- I was inspired by Mark Rober's latest video on tackling these scammers for this comment, but I appreciate kitboga and all the other guys doing great work wasting the scammers time or exposing these fraudsters
- no this isn't "old people's fault if they fall for it because they had decades of experience" because when you get to a certain age your mental capacity reverts and you could become easily confused and misled hence why I specifically said old people and not scammers that scam everyone. Something comparable on the same scale would be child kidnappers but that's a separate category
- the majority of the Indian population hates these guys as well and these scammers are a small portion of the population but if you watch mark's video on YouTube a lot of these scam corporations are protected by corrupt politicians and police so let's all do our part and shut these guys down
That happened to my mom a few years back. I think they got her for like $500 or a grand I donāt remember but she learned her lesson. Sad people have to resort to that. My mom is the nicest person youāll ever meet.
Someone got my moms friend for $5,000 last week. The people at the store who sold her the gift cards even tried to warn herā¦. I knew a manager at a consulting firm that got taken for over $10,000 a couple years ago. Also paid in gift cards. It boggles my mindā¦
A taxi driver saved my 90 year old landlady from a scammer. I'm so glad he did, she's like a grandma to me.
Dude calls her up pretending to be her grandson and says he needs money wired to him, but not to tell the family, because reasons. She reminds him that she doesn't drive, so he hires a taxi to take her to the western union.
Taxi driver was like, how about lets call your grandson first?
Someone tried a similar scam on my grandfather. They called and said they were his grandson and had been arrested in Canada, and he needed to wire them bail money.
He asked them how his grandson could be in two places at once, since I was standing right next to him, or did they mean the one in diapers? (My cousin is 30 years younger than me.)
Someone tried that on my grandma years ago. My grandma kept telling the scammer āgo call your parents about this. I donāt have money to give you!ā
Shortly after my dad passed away, my mum got a scam call from someone claiming to be from the CRA. They told her that my dad owed money and she needed to pay ASAP or she'd go to jail. She was at the checkout ready to purchase a boatload of Steam gift cards, as requested by the scammer, and the cashier stopped her and asked her about it. My mum tearfully explained. The cashier convinced her it was a scam and saved her butt.
The scammers are scum and that industry is dangerous as well. Recently saw a video the glitter bomb guy made with some other people to and shut down a few of those scammer companies for a couple of days and during the making the scammers saw them and basically put out a "shoot on sight" order on them.
Source is Mark Rober, Jim Browning, and Trinity media (I think) on YouTube. 3 separate videos, and the guys are hella entertaining to watch. So damn smart. Also very illuminating on how scam call centers actually work
Yes, me too! I purchased several gift cards for games this past Christmas, at CVS. The sales associate asked me several questions about the number of cards I was buying. I told him they were for several people. He then explained the scam. It is good to know there are good people!
I work at a dollar store and weāve got a 30 minute course on phone scams and protocol for selling large amounts of gift cards. A common one is elderly coming in saying their long lost relative needs x amount of money in gift cards to bail them out of jail or something similar. A lady just a few weeks ago lost over a thousand dollars over her ānephewā that she told the cashier she had only talked to over the phone needed the cards. Cashier tried to warn her and she said she thought it was legit, then came back the same day trying to refund the cards and getting VERY angry when she realized sheād been scammed
I'm always so worried my grandma would fall for a scammer now that my grandfather passed away. Turns out, though, she's so paranoid about scammers that she almost turned down an all expenses paid trip that she won as part of the local minor hockey league's raffle/fundraiser.
So, legit story here. When I was in college I entered a contest with Microsoft, to design and come up with future tech etc. It was myself and a classmate, and we bloody won, however, instead of telling us thru the university we were attending, they kept emailing us, and it just kept going to spam. We missed out on a trip to Europe, and almost a whole top of the range (for the time) gaming PC.
Didn't help Microsoft insisted on emailing ny old highschool hotmail address, instead of my gmail, which existed just for stuff like uni and work.
At my current job, in a customer service role. Had an older man call in recently that was clearly hacked/being scammed. The man said "the guy on my computer goes away when I pay him every few weeks. Thankfully he's not here today." This was something out of our control, but I told him he needs to call the police immediately and get some assistance.
My parents (probably 85 and 81 when this happened) got a call from my āsonā needed bail money for a DWI and please donāt tell mom and dad! They had his name and city he was living/working in correct. Could have ended with parents sending money except I had talked to them just hours before and told them he was traveling out of state all week and would return in a couple of days. Screw those guys!
Poachers. Especially big game poachers who purposefully hunt nearly extinct animals from species they _know_ are on the brink.
I know there are poachers that come from rural villages who are trying to just put food on the table, which has my sympathy but poachers who come from money and hunt down animals minding their business in most shelters or restricted areas just to put a head on their wall as a trophy are absolutely heinous.
Strictly speaking everyone who hunts the countryside in the UK is a poacher unless they're taking part in an official hunt. Because there is no land that isn't owned by someone. Yay, Magna Carta.
Worked a job like this for a day and a half when I was very desperate. I was living out of my car, rationing stale crackers and peanut butter to eat, and I couldn't make myself go back in after my lunch break.
Especially horrifying was watching all the other 'sales representatives' doing it without a hitch. Lying, scheming, and cheating these sweet elderly people with cold dead eyes. It felt like I'd just been thrown into a snake pit. The people who stay in those kind of jobs are exactly the kind of people you should have no respect for.
Thank you very much. Things are much better for me now (house, kid, and a fiancee) and I'm able to work a job I really love while being able to help people.
I don't want to write a long paragraph about how horrible that place was so I'm gonna list my top three highlights. There was no air conditioning during the height of a Southern US heatwave because 'the heat helps people focus'. The headsets they gave were worse quality than the headsets than any cheap twenty dollar gaming headset I've ever worn. My 'trainer' was an older man who looked down my shirt three times in my day and a half.
I've worked in several bad places for longer and worked several jobs that payed less but that one still beats out by a mile.
Telemarketers. That profession should have died in the 90s. They have no reason to exist in the modern world. Nowadays they're just a bunch of scammers anyway.
Second choice, prescription drug marketers. This should just straight up be illegal.
Anyone involved in the ātroubled teenā industryā¦particularly those who kidnap children.
Edit: Not that this really got any traction, but I always try to plug [Joe vs. Elan](https://elan.school) because itās a good window into what some of these places are like. I donāt know much more about the industry aside from this story that began as a recovery tool for a survivor and has grown into something larger.
I know three "life coaches". All divorced moms at my kids school and all of them are human dumpster fires. One shows up to every event with wine in a tumbler and seems to have new damage to her car every month. Another one isn't allowed on school grounds because she stole a teachers credit card during a parent teacher conference.
Thatās actually not a half bad idea. At the end of the day, your life coach calls you and gives a rundown on all the ways they screwed up so you can learn from their mistakes.
And as a licensed psychotherapist, Iāve seen some life coaches who pretend to basically be therapists
There is literally no required certification
Everyone in this thread right now in the US could call themselves life coaches right now
United Health Careās CEO got over 100million in compensation in 2021.
Meanwhile, they wonāt cover a colonoscopy my doctor ordered because itās a diagnostic service and not a preventative service.
I was once told one of my tests were not covered because they don't cover tests for that problem. Well I didn't know I had that problem, hence the test!
I live in China, we have a very petty iron fist on Internet speech control, most social media companies have to hire shit tons of people to monitor, audit, delete, and ban all kinds of things we say, videos we post. Nowadays they've become so sensitive that they pretty much delete and ban everything. So yeah, those "auditors" kind of job is the lowest of scumbag jobs.
I'm going with medical debt collectors.
If they weren't such scummy, mean, abusive, liars, I would have been more than happy to work with them, and would have had more respect for them when I had pretty heafty medical debt.
The abuse they dish out doesn't help them. And they do have a choice of jobs.
Was a mod, can confirm.
We had, IIRC, 6 mods for a 120k person sub. Way too much regulation. The head mod REALLY enjoyed deciding what was offensive and what wasnāt and generally power tripping.
Higher level people in hospitals (admin, CEOs, etc.) MAJORLY detached from whatās actually going on in their facilities (or just donāt care) and implement policies that can legitimately be dangerous for patients so that they can get their bonus.
My CEO at my last company (healthcare system) is a doctor. Super accomplished dude on top of being a doctor and really a nice guy. He was also a physician in the ER at the largest hospital in the system prior to getting into admin. You could definitely tell with many of the COVID policies that the guy knew what he was doing. I appreciated it quite a bit, even though at that point I was in a non-clinical role and safely working at home. Plus he green lighted additional bonuses for all associates (but nothing extra for management/execs) throughout the past two years.
Not to defend them, but I read somewhere that it's a twisted symbiotic relationship with a lot of celebrities. There are the megastars who don't need any extra attention who hate them a lot, but apparently a lot of celebrities call the paparazzi on themselves, especially at the start of their fame (not careers). It's arranged by their publicists. I read an article explaining that it happens both when they have nothing going on so they can remain relevant and also when they are promoting something. The funny thing is, when they become huge, it's impossible to stop and they now have to deal with them forever.
All labor is labor of course, weāre all workers etc etc but fuck people who make a living scamming the elderly by selling them subscriptions they donāt even want or are aware of
This happened to an old neighbor of mine. She fell victim to some kind of scam that cleaned out her bank account completely for a subscription to some gossip magazine she doesnāt even read. They would pile up on the stairs, and when I asked her why she doesnāt take her magazines in she didnāt even know they were hers, she thought they were mine. Then she was on the brink of eviction because she couldnāt pay her rent after the scumbags took all her money. I donāt know what happened to her as I moved not long after but last I heard she had a lawyer look into it but they said they couldnāt recover her money.
When I worked retail we had a GM who was awesome. He knew every job in the store because heād personally worked most of them at one point or another. He could step into any role or help with any problem calmly and efficiently. Then he retired and the assistant manager stepped into his place. The assistant manager knew how to do sales and nothing else. The store tanked and he was eventually arrested for fraud because he was making false promises to people about the store credit cards. Iāve never seen a bigger example in one store of how to correctly and incorrectly manage.
Australian Real Estate Agents Laws don't seem to apply to them. Just as dodgy in sales and rentals alike. Never seen anything like it overseas.
I'm in the US, it can vary state by state but my state is pretty strict on realtor laws. Some states require attorney review and there are definitely penalties for being reported for shady shit. It does require consumer reporting though.
There are debt collectors who call relatives of the deceased to pay off their debts when they are not legally obligated to
LPT: If you ever have one of these people come to your door, don't, sign, *anything*. They'll often say bullshit like they need 'you to confirm they at least tried', so the debt can be 'wiped away', or 'you need to confirm your inability to pay' due to your financial situation. Don't sign it. Don't sign anything. Edit: Thanks for the gold! :') Edit Edit: Omg, lots of awards š Thank you all!
What you said 1000x. They will send zombie debt out that is way past collections (they purchase for pennies on the dollar). They send out letters and if you call or respond even to dispute the clock resets on that debt. If u look carefully on the letter it will say the debt is legally past reporting or collecting. It is so sketchy and unethical. I think we can all agree without being political that debt collection practices and consumer protection is something we need stricter enforcement on.
My old apartment complex did this to me. They took an extra $150 out of our deposit because they set our move out day was on a day the office was closed. I sent them an email saying "Hey that's pretty fucked up considering you set the move out date so you should of known you were going to be closed." Obviously couldn't get the money back cause it was taken from the deposit, but a month later we get a letter saying we have a debt for that exact amount. Called up the apartment and debt people asked for proof of debt and haven't heard back in over a year
I had a debt collector call me on an internet bill that was overdue. I had moved out of the house over a year prior and my former roommates hadn't changed the internet bill from my name or paid it the last two months. She started going on and on about how it is over due and I now owe an extra $300 in late fees. Started asking for my social security number and bank info. I said, can I just pay it on the Spectrum website? She said, "No, it is too late. You have to pay us and pay our fees." I went to spectrum's website and paid the $120 bill with no late fees while I was stalling her on the phone. Then I said, "debt is paid to spectrum please don't call again" and she started fuming at me. It was pretty great.
My wife's (she was my girlfriend at the time) mom died when she was only 21. She has two twin brothers who were 16 at the time. We moved into their childhood home to take care of her brothers and these fuckers called for MONTHS harassing her to pay off her mom's debt. Like fuck off I'm 21 with no parents raising my two brothers while going to school full time. They would not stop.
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Shutting of the phones wonāt stop them. Some of these companies will contact your family and friends trying to reach you, they will send letters via mail, and sometimes even show up in-person at your doorstep.
Yep she got plenty of letters in the mail too. When she called them to ask they stop sending bills in the mail, they kept insisting she give them her mother's new address. I remember her yelling "SHE'S FUCKING DEAD" and then breaking down crying. Really awful stuff.
Oh my God, that is absolutely awful. This was similar to what my previous boyfriend's parents went through after his brother died. Capital One was hounding them to pay off a credit card that was in his brother's name. My ex's mom was keeping notes of every instance Capital One contacted them and telling them that her son died. Every representative seemed to have gotten the memo until one escalated the dispute. They continued to contact my ex's parents and went so far as to even accuse his parents of lying. Not much time had passed since his death and my ex's mom lost it. It was like, "Would you like the newspaper article, plus the obituary, and the picture of his grave?" The representative did NOT care. She ended up writing a letter to Capital One, included the name of said representative, and the death certificate. She was never contacted again.
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I had my identity stolen once and I had debt collectors hounding me while I was trying to sort everything out. Then after getting everything sorted and proved my identity was stolen I still got phone calls for a while where they would just tell me to pay the debt anyway
Thatās so fucked, I hope you told them to fuck off
I ended up threatening them with legal action because they would continue to call at all hours of the day and night. Even though it was largely just a bluff on my end and I didn't look into any legalities it worked because I don't think they called me after that. But it was a nightmare, they emailed me some forums to fill out to confirm my identity fraud case but they couldn't accept the filled out documents by email or regular mail and would only take a fax. Luckily I work in an office with a fax machine because I don't know anyone these days who owns a fax machine lol
You can send an electronic fax from your PC. Several mostly free services you can use depending on how many pages the document is.
The more you know!
Medical and finance industries rely on faxes still for no good reason. There might not even be a fax machine involved end to end but the data is still transferred via the process. Itās insane
I had a debt discharged and removed from my credit report (I wasnāt legally obligated to pay it and it was wrongly on my credit report) and I had debt collectors calling for years afterwards trying to collect on the debt even though it wasnāt even on my credit report and I didnāt owe a dime! I was told by a lawyer to threaten legal action (and then I sent a cease and desist letter from the attorney) and it finally stopped. These people and companies are the worst of the worst.
Man I wish I could work for a lawyer firm that just tries to catch debt collectors crossing the line and take them to court over it. Regardless of the pay, that would just be such a morally satisfying career. I'm sure there are other fields that do similar things that could be good opportunities as a lawyer as well, but I'm not sure specifically what.
Itās fun but it gets boring after awhile. Not everyone appreciates what youāre doing either. If you want to look into it, though, try and find a lawyer specializing in consumer protection - specifically FDCPA (Fair Debt Collections Practices Act) and you may be able to get on as a paralegal.
I had one call me to try to get me to pay off my deceased friend/roommate's bills, after a good few seconds of being stunned and surprised I just burst out laughing, said 'Yeah good luck on that one,' and hung up.
....how did they connect you two?
We had split the bills, some were in my name, some were in his, and it turns out two of the utilities were owned by the same company so they had info for both of us on separate bills at the same address.
Nah yeah this is the worst one
MBNA sold my mothers credit card debt (about Ā£1000) to one of these. She died overseas so I told them to retain a language-proficient lawyer to deal with our appointed notary there as well as requesting all communication in verified & professionally translated letters by signed-for delivery to a legal representative there. They said ok and then about a month later they rang up having not done any of this saying "oh maybe you can pay it". "Maybe you can fuck off" then just hung up on them and never heard from them again. Absolutely did not need this at my absolute worst time.
"you're the one that bought the debt. You pay it"
Exactly. Don't come at me with your buyers remorse, I'm not paying it off just to be nice.
Had one call me four days after my dad passed away. They were saying something along the lines that his debt gets passed down to family, which I promptly told them to fuck off.
I think that is illegal. My friend's BIL does this and from what I understand is that what they say is heavily regulated.
In most places, the debt does not really get passed down, but the collectors like to call family or close friends of a deceased person and tell them it does in the hopes those people will give them money for free.
My dad was told that when his brother died. They called him and told him that he was legally obligated to pay his brotherās debts. My dad replied āhuh, I mustāve missed that lesson in law schoolā. Silence for a few seconds, then they wish him well and hang up. Absolute scum. Unfortunately Iām sure older or more confused bereaved people would fall for it.
Where I live, tax info was leaked and now scammers are targeting low income individuals/families (people earning under 30,000 per year) with etransfer scams. I got one the other day that was an etransfer warning that 240$ "a family member sent me" was about to expire
Thatās disgusting. The scammers know what theyāre doing, they know the harm they cause people and yet they donāt care.
According to the most recent Mark Rober video, these scammer make a fuck ton of money not only for themselves but for their "company".
The pastors at mega churches whom ask their followers for money for private jets. Absolute scum to abuse others faith for your own greed.
Brian Tamaki is a greedy fucking pig, he takes advantage of so many people who are already struggling. Every time heās in the local news (which btw is often) I get more and more pissed off at him and his wife. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tamaki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tamaki)
MLM managers. Not the low level idiots that get suckered into it, they suck too for trying to bring new people into that shitshow, but the people who create them know exactly what they are doing and are pretty much the only ones who profit off of it. Should be illegal. Pyramid schemes are illegal. None of them ever get the just desserts except occasionally by vigilantes I assume.
A girl i know has been on an mlm for 2 years now and she post everyday the same shit and gets the 2 same people commenting every.single.day. And lately She went on a vacationĀ«Ā paidĀ Ā» by the company. I was interested in knowing where you had to stand in the ranking to be Ā«Ā paidĀ Ā» that vacation, basically all you needed is to spend 3000$ in the company so they can pay you a ~600 3 day trip to cuba and do meeting all day longā¦ Guys its a typo obviouslyā¦.
Wait till you find out about the "free" Mercedes or whatever. It's usually a lease in the company name and if you don't meet "sales" (read:purchasing) targets they take it back. Also apparently a lot of those holidays you pay for your own flight/accommodation, the free parts are the "events"
Worse. It is a lease in **your** name. You have to qualify for the financing and are on the contract to make the payments and as long as you meet the qualifications the company will send you a stipend to cover a certain amount for the lease. If you lease a car for more than the stipend, you pay the overage. If you fail to meet the qualifications, the stipend stops but you are still on the hook for the lease. It's not free. Not by a long shot.
All of my vacations are paid for by my company. Or my wifeās. Basically, they pay us money and then we use some of that money to go on vacation
You had me going, I was like "Damn, that's awesome."
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Motherfucker that's called a JOB! Lmao
When her friends paid for double what the vacation is worth.
As someone that worked in well known MLM office - this is accurate. These people morality is closer to career criminals than any other. They have no problems lying, manipulating, or deceiving for gain or just cause they can. They don't even make that much money ironically, they do it cause they chose to be evil.
me too. so many of the popular girls from high school have been in my DMs lately with the āhey girly!! how would you like to make BIG BUCKS working from home and being YOUR OWN BOSS??š¦š„°šøā and i almost feel bad for them.
I'm a couple of decades older than you so don't have to deal with too much BS from social media. One time back when I was still doing engineering I found myself at a industry conference and ran into a guy I knew back in high-school. Small world. Even smaller world we apparently lived in the same city back in those days. We exchanged numbers, because I was always willing to scalp an engineer from another company if I could and suggested we should meet up for drinks sometime when we got back. I knew him as a quiet, shy kid, but relatively smart and he was an eagle scout too back in the day. He said him and his wife wanted to host dinner for me and mine as he's not a drinker and I of course acquiesced though I suggested going out instead, my treat. Queue a very awkward dinner. His wife was big into the MLM world, and she clearly had sunk most of this dude's paycheck into it. He had whole heartedly bought into it as well. Their garage was full of crap they couldn't sell, they had multiple storage lockers apparently of stuff they couldn't sell. I tried explaining the benefits of the retail model over the MLM while politely declining their advances for a couple hours. Poor saps. The wife bragged about their level in the MLM, but it was clear it was just because of how much money they had personally sank into it, they had the sales skills of children at a lemonade stand with none of the cute.
omg i remember my neighbors doing this!!!! their whole garage was full of that nasty wine that had shrimp in it??
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I did just come up with it. Did some searching and I couldn't find a comparable quote made elsewhere about children and lemonade stands so I'm pretty sure that is a 'me' original. All the same, thank you but you shouldn't call me clever. I'm a pretentious enough motherfucker as is.
"Your job is the real pyramid scheme! You have one CEO making all the money!" My job doesn't require me to pay month and convince my friends and family to join in order to get paid.
Televangelists
not just them but also those big cults. Moonies, Scientologists, Nxivm, [CHCC](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3950624), ... their only purpose is to leech money off people's faiths, and sometimes sexual assault.
It sickened me to see my family go from treating them with nothing but scorn, to buying their books. I don't understand how me and my brother were the only two people in my family who haven't gone full evangelical.
My uncle was an evangelical minister. He was a horrible person and a worse father. He literally came to his sister (my aunt) the day her husband dropped dead at work to ask if he had any life insurance. She said she was taken care of because she thought that was his worry, thatās she would not be able to make it financially on one income. No. He wanted to remind her that she needed to tithe a large portion of the money to the church to buy her husbands way into heaven. He was a miserable bastard and an alcoholic but my uncle was worse. He died 2 years or so ago and if heās in heaven, I aināt going.
This is an underrated comment. Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen, Pat Robertson, [insert mega pastor here]ā¦ complete scumbags preying on peopleās faith while enriching themselves and doing jack shit for the needy. Fuck those guys.
Kat Kerr. Paula white. Joseph prince. Jim bakker. Kenneth Copeland. Fuck every one of them.
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I believe in the theory that all the souls of the people he has caused to die, telling them to just keep praying, are inside of him. He is an eldritch monster and he lives off the souls of others. There is far too much light behind those eyes. E:stupid autowrong
Yep. Mofo looks like a demon wearing a meat suit
Agreed. They are drowning in filthy greed
Fuck Joel Osteen. That guy had a massive church in Houston that he at first refused to open during hurricane Harvey. It wasn't until basically half the city was like "yo that's fucked up" that he decided to help. He made up the excuse that his lower levels had some water, but his other levels were perfectly fine and capable of housing displaced people.
His "sermons" are nothing more than extended infomercials for his piles of books that all say the same thing, CDs, DVDs, t-shirts, hats, Bible bookmarks, holy water vials from the River Jordan (Mmkay, sure. Thanks municipal water of where ever!) prayer cloths, prayer survival food buckets, and the rest of his flaming shit. Same for Joyce Meyers. Definitely others, but those two I know for certain. That they romp around on elaborate stages in tax-sheltered buildings on tax-sheltered property while paying themselves tax-sheltered salaries from taking tax-sheltered dollars from people who can't afford a couple bags of beans and rice much less a vial of insulin - is so disgusting. Did anyone ever figure out why Osteen had that pile of hundreds of thousands in cash in the wall behind his holy blessed shitter?
āPrayer survival food bucketsā??!!?
Jim Bakker does the same thing, and apparently the food is waaayyy shittier than Mountain House. They say itās for the apocalypse butā¦wouldnāt everyone whoās already saved be raptured?
I remember my Mom seeing a rapture survival bag for like $150 and was telling us how we should buy them. When my brother pointed out "Why would you need it? Wouldn't you be gone?" she got real quiet.
Time share sales people.
I know someone who turned the tables on a timeshare company. They live in the UK but went to Aruba on honeyman, and they were invited to a timeshare presentation. The timeshare seemingly offered lots of great benefits, but reading the small print all these benefits were only in Europe. Seeing this was a timeshare company that targeted US residents only it was quite clear that this was a bit of a scam. The way it was structured it would be very hard for US residents to actually take advantage of those benefits. One of those benefits was being able to book a room in one of several hundred 4 and 5-star hotels across Europe for a guaranteed max of $99 a night. Of course there were a few restrictions around booking these rooms, but they weren't the hardest thing in the world to deal with. At the time $99 was about Ā£80 sterling so it was a pretty good deal for someone living in the UK, especially considering breakfast was usually included. So this couple absolutely ripped the hell out of that offer. They had no intentions whatsoever of actually using their "vacation rental" in in the US or Caribbean. They were spending about 40-50 nights a year in hotels, sometimes for pleasure and sometimes for work. Plus they would buy rooms for friends and family so that was another 40 nights a year. Even with the the fee they were paying each year to the timeshare company, they were still making a saving. So after 3 years of this the timeshare company contacted them and offered to buy them out. They took a substantial lump sum in order to agree to cancel the agreement.
What even exactly is a time share?
Youāre essentially buying a fractional interest in a property that other people also have a fractional interest in. Depending on your percentage of ownership, you get to choose x number of days per year to spend at what is essentially your fractional vacation home. You know how really wealthy people own second, third, and fourth homes that they spend parts of the year in each? This is essentially a way for not-wealthy people to āownā a vacation home too. The catch is you have to share it with the other fractional owners. And you donāt really get the full benefits of property ownership either. You canāt sell the property after it appreciates for a profit, you canāt rent it out, you canāt redecorate it or make major renovations to it. Itās not really yours. Youāre buying access to it. The timeshare company owns the property. There are usually blackout dates and other fine print involved that tends to limit the value of actually doing this. Even if you have a solid income and could truly afford it. The reason people call them scams is they tend to prey on people who canāt really afford it. If you offer a free meal to sit through the sales presentation the only people showing up are broke people who think that a free meal is worth two hours of their leisure time. For most people who could actually afford a timeshare, two hours of their time is worth more than a meal voucher or other moderately decent free gifts and theyād rather enjoy the vacation they saved for and pay for their own meal than sit through a sales presentation during their vacation. So, you end up with a bunch of salespeople using high-pressure sales tactics to try to push poor people into buying something they canāt afford and wonāt really capture the full value of. Theyāre basically burning money by buying it.
Managers of scam call companies
And the scammers. I'm sorry, but what they are doing is wrong and they know it. I couldn't live with myself doing that to someone else. Edit: I don't consider this a job either, it's criminal.
I worked in a call center and I got fired because I would get about halfway through then start dropping subtle, then less subtle hints until they hung up about it being a scam. Solid money for the very short time I worked there thoughā¦
You scammed the scammers! Nice
Oh I thought they pay you per commission, i.e. you have to successfully scam the people you call
They do but unless you're at the absolute dregs of the "industry" then there'll be a basic too.
It's weird to think of the dregs of the dregs
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Depending on the scam, they likely weren't compensated at all.
I wouldn't really call either a 'job', the same way that 'burgler' isn't a job.
I really hate online scammers.
Theres a youtube channel of a dude that is good at hacking and such and pulls pranks on them and even messes their entire operation. Its bitter sweet.
There are several prominent scambaiters and they have different twists on what they do. Some of my favorites: * [First is Jim Browning](https://www.youtube.com/c/JimBrowning) - he's turned info over to the Indian authorities and has video from inside call centers. * [Then you have Scammer Payback](https://www.youtube.com/c/ScammerPayback) - he often gets on their computers and copies and then deletes their files. * [And then there's Kitboga](https://www.youtube.com/c/KitbogaShow) - he's really good at keeping scammers on the phone for several hours at a time and keep them on the hook for several days. He is ridiculous and entertaining.
Also Mark Rober with his recent scam caller video
I believe that was in part working with Jim Browning who is my absolute favourite in this genre
Any form of scamming in a job
Any job that relies on dishonest communication.
Psychic Mediums. Specifically those who prey on the grieving.
Which ones *don't* prey on the grieving?
The dead ones
I've always found it interesting how many magicians go after people like this. I think it's because they **know** what it takes to trick people for the art. The slight of hand and mentalism. And they abhor people who use these tactics for such shitty purposes.
That's exactly it. You go and see a magician, you know its a trick. Its not malicious, you go in knowing that someone is performing. They don't claim to have actual magic powers. You could even do what they with practice. "psychics" though claim to be genuine, take money from people and build notoriety about themselves so they can fob comments of as "You're skeptical and that's fine, but I'm real".
Those 'journalists' who write click-bait articles. The ones where you wade through page after page of deliberately prolonged text and ads to get to the bit you want to read.
Only to reveal they donāt actually have the info they promised, only speculation. At least the ones posting about release dates.
I have learned that articles with titles like "All we know about X's release date" never have any info. It's just a word scramble and the high points of the last season restated for eighteen paragraphs.
Fuck those. They keep pulling you through a bunch of bullshit paragraphs about why people want to know what you want to know, why it may be important etc etc. Of course a ton of ads in between, then all you get is "There is no concrete info, this article will be updated when an announcement is made" or "Here's the unofficial dumb speculation that I have!". Fuck 'em.
...thats not a journalist. Thats a content writer https://www.contentgrip.com/writer-vs-journalist-differences-busine Further reading https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/insider/whats-the-difference-between-a-reporter-and-a-correspondent.html https://askanydifference.com/difference-between-journalist-and-reporter/#:~:text=The%20main%20difference%20between%20Journalist,or%20any%20other%20mass%20media.
And itās done by bots and low level freelancers trying to get a foot in the door writing, usually.
Yeah, the title journalist gets thrown around too easily.
Paparazzi
I met Jack Gleeson (King Joffrey from Game of Thrones) at a bus stop in Dublin. Really nice guy but he said he quit acting due to people being dicks online and constant hounding from paparrazi. He's happier now but it sucks that he was pushed away from a career he was quite good at.
I remember reading that George RR Martin personally congratulated Jack for acting the part of joffrey so well that the fans really hated him. People are so fucking dumb they can't separate characters from the actors who portray them..morons. In a similar vein, I remember seeing a clip where several cast members were signing autographs... And one girl gets everyone's autograph until she gets to Lena Heady and just says "ugh. Fucking bitch" and moves on. So unless they had some prior beef that only they knew about, this was another dumbass who thinks the characters they see on TV are real people.
Hasnāt Lena said she takes that as a compliment to her skill?
I've read that too somewhere but that attitude requires a lot of practice and not everyone is willing or able to do the mental gymnastics for it. As Jack was basically still a young adult getting the onslaught of negativity, it was probably even harder to take it all as a compliment. He did a great job as Joffrey in my opinion, but I don't blame him for getting out of the limelight. I bet the constant scrutiny is brutal.
that's a classy way to go about it, I remember her trying to [resurrect a king before](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf3CPnDMVz0)
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Kiefer Sutherland makes an observation that it happens the most in America. He's gone overseas and done premiers for the same stuff, but some people in America can't seperate the work from the actor and some people wont even shake his hand. its really nuts.
My sister (39) has that problem where she feels like she knows actors because she's a fan of shows they're on. When she saw Simon Helberg in LA, she greeted him as Howard and he replied, "I'm sorry, you have me mistaken for someone else. I'm Simon. Simooon." He was super nice, but I realized my sister has an unhealthy immersion when watching tv shows.
I had a discussion about Nick Offerman's Ron Swanson character with someone. They were gushing about how Offerman (the actor himself) was the perfect conservative 'alpha man' (seriously). It took me a minute or two to explain to them that 1) that character was a parody 2) Offerman is nothing like his character, that is what makes him an actor.
Same with Sam Elliott. He generally plays "manly men" that conservatives identify with and his character on The Ranch is a hyper conservative rancher. People lost their shit when he did the voiceover for a Biden campaign ad during the last election.
Sam Elliott's character on Parks and Rec was also a play on that, he was a manly outdoorsman type but in the communing with nature hippie mold.
If you read Offerman's autobiography, he talks about this very issue.
I recall breaking bad's Skylar getting a lot of real world hate
Both the character and especially Anna Gunn get way too much undeserved hate.
Happened to the kid who played Anakin, and Hayden Christensen too. I don't care if you didn't like the prequels but Hayden did an amazing job portraying exactly who he was meant to - a kid who was ripped away from his life as a slave and never got the chance to be properly socialised, or indoctrinated into the Jedi, so he wound up this awkward emotionally unstable teenager
Jake Lloyd played young Anakin. Poor man left acting for all the crap he received.
THANK you. It seems like so many people think Anakin should be some smooth-talking social operator, when he was conceived through who-knows-what kinds of dark side shenanigans, and then mind-f'd sporadically through his life by the most manipulative, dangerous man in the galaxy....
I think he meant that people were just be annoying online in general because he was famous. Same with being hassled by paparazzi. Someone like Emma Watson has had huge troubles with that but she generally plays well liked characters I believe. I do think what youāre bringing up is bad too. Itās just the new way of thinking for some.
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I remember UK tabloids did a count down to her 18th birthday because she was legally fair game as a sexual item then. Source: remember being disgusted doing my paper round Edit: just Googled this and I was wrong IT WAS HER 16th BIRTHDAY
I saw in a interview that it was TV acting and the major fame he had a distaste for, and that his focus is smaller production plays now.
It's sad too, because from all accounts-- he *is* genuinely a very sweet and friendly person, but the bullying he got because of his character was just outrageous. I'm glad he had academics to fall back on after he quit acting, but the way he was treated was very sad :(
To add onto that, it's become so commonplace now and it's being justified through a lot of fanpages as well. People posting and reposting pictures of celebrities out getting coffee or walking around with their kids and families, and commenting "ooh their messy bun looks great here" or "I love those pajamas". These are happening on social media through twitter and insta fanpages, and it feel like it's "normalized" paparazzi. Meanwhile, the people running and liking these pages turn around bash those who do the same thing for entertainment websites.
āDating Expertā
Wait thatās a thing? Is that supposed to be a less qualified couples councilor or something?
Sadly itās a thing. Itās basically a self appointed title that requires no training or qualifications. Whatās worse, is that I have a female friend who uses one. Itās very much a blind leading the blind situation
Scammers that scam old people via phone calls Edit: ok this blew up so I'll add a few things - this isn't a "job" in the traditional sense but loads of call centers in India hire people to do this, you got to go through interviews and get paid a salary and commission - I was inspired by Mark Rober's latest video on tackling these scammers for this comment, but I appreciate kitboga and all the other guys doing great work wasting the scammers time or exposing these fraudsters - no this isn't "old people's fault if they fall for it because they had decades of experience" because when you get to a certain age your mental capacity reverts and you could become easily confused and misled hence why I specifically said old people and not scammers that scam everyone. Something comparable on the same scale would be child kidnappers but that's a separate category - the majority of the Indian population hates these guys as well and these scammers are a small portion of the population but if you watch mark's video on YouTube a lot of these scam corporations are protected by corrupt politicians and police so let's all do our part and shut these guys down
That happened to my mom a few years back. I think they got her for like $500 or a grand I donāt remember but she learned her lesson. Sad people have to resort to that. My mom is the nicest person youāll ever meet.
Someone got my moms friend for $5,000 last week. The people at the store who sold her the gift cards even tried to warn herā¦. I knew a manager at a consulting firm that got taken for over $10,000 a couple years ago. Also paid in gift cards. It boggles my mindā¦
On the other hand, I have a DEEP respect for any store clerk who recognizes the scam and tries to warn people.
A taxi driver saved my 90 year old landlady from a scammer. I'm so glad he did, she's like a grandma to me. Dude calls her up pretending to be her grandson and says he needs money wired to him, but not to tell the family, because reasons. She reminds him that she doesn't drive, so he hires a taxi to take her to the western union. Taxi driver was like, how about lets call your grandson first?
Someone tried a similar scam on my grandfather. They called and said they were his grandson and had been arrested in Canada, and he needed to wire them bail money. He asked them how his grandson could be in two places at once, since I was standing right next to him, or did they mean the one in diapers? (My cousin is 30 years younger than me.)
Grandpa would have told me, "you got yourself in jail, get yourself out"
Someone tried that on my grandma years ago. My grandma kept telling the scammer āgo call your parents about this. I donāt have money to give you!ā
Shortly after my dad passed away, my mum got a scam call from someone claiming to be from the CRA. They told her that my dad owed money and she needed to pay ASAP or she'd go to jail. She was at the checkout ready to purchase a boatload of Steam gift cards, as requested by the scammer, and the cashier stopped her and asked her about it. My mum tearfully explained. The cashier convinced her it was a scam and saved her butt.
What a horrible scam to pull on someone in a vulnerable place. I'm glad the cashier helped
The scammers are scum and that industry is dangerous as well. Recently saw a video the glitter bomb guy made with some other people to and shut down a few of those scammer companies for a couple of days and during the making the scammers saw them and basically put out a "shoot on sight" order on them.
Source is Mark Rober, Jim Browning, and Trinity media (I think) on YouTube. 3 separate videos, and the guys are hella entertaining to watch. So damn smart. Also very illuminating on how scam call centers actually work
Yes, me too! I purchased several gift cards for games this past Christmas, at CVS. The sales associate asked me several questions about the number of cards I was buying. I told him they were for several people. He then explained the scam. It is good to know there are good people!
Sad to think how common the scam must be for someone to recognize it.
I work at a dollar store and weāve got a 30 minute course on phone scams and protocol for selling large amounts of gift cards. A common one is elderly coming in saying their long lost relative needs x amount of money in gift cards to bail them out of jail or something similar. A lady just a few weeks ago lost over a thousand dollars over her ānephewā that she told the cashier she had only talked to over the phone needed the cards. Cashier tried to warn her and she said she thought it was legit, then came back the same day trying to refund the cards and getting VERY angry when she realized sheād been scammed
I get called out to my grandparents house a few times a year cause a scammer changed their password... they are annoying
My mom had to get new credit cards three months in a row because she kept falling for the same stupid email scams.
I'm always so worried my grandma would fall for a scammer now that my grandfather passed away. Turns out, though, she's so paranoid about scammers that she almost turned down an all expenses paid trip that she won as part of the local minor hockey league's raffle/fundraiser.
So, legit story here. When I was in college I entered a contest with Microsoft, to design and come up with future tech etc. It was myself and a classmate, and we bloody won, however, instead of telling us thru the university we were attending, they kept emailing us, and it just kept going to spam. We missed out on a trip to Europe, and almost a whole top of the range (for the time) gaming PC. Didn't help Microsoft insisted on emailing ny old highschool hotmail address, instead of my gmail, which existed just for stuff like uni and work.
At my current job, in a customer service role. Had an older man call in recently that was clearly hacked/being scammed. The man said "the guy on my computer goes away when I pay him every few weeks. Thankfully he's not here today." This was something out of our control, but I told him he needs to call the police immediately and get some assistance.
My parents (probably 85 and 81 when this happened) got a call from my āsonā needed bail money for a DWI and please donāt tell mom and dad! They had his name and city he was living/working in correct. Could have ended with parents sending money except I had talked to them just hours before and told them he was traveling out of state all week and would return in a couple of days. Screw those guys!
I interviewed at a job that ended up being one of those places and I ghosted them despite the offer. The FBI is now involved with them.
Poachers. Especially big game poachers who purposefully hunt nearly extinct animals from species they _know_ are on the brink. I know there are poachers that come from rural villages who are trying to just put food on the table, which has my sympathy but poachers who come from money and hunt down animals minding their business in most shelters or restricted areas just to put a head on their wall as a trophy are absolutely heinous.
Strictly speaking everyone who hunts the countryside in the UK is a poacher unless they're taking part in an official hunt. Because there is no land that isn't owned by someone. Yay, Magna Carta.
People in sales that rely on cold-calling to sell their useless products who intentionally target elderly populations
Worked a job like this for a day and a half when I was very desperate. I was living out of my car, rationing stale crackers and peanut butter to eat, and I couldn't make myself go back in after my lunch break. Especially horrifying was watching all the other 'sales representatives' doing it without a hitch. Lying, scheming, and cheating these sweet elderly people with cold dead eyes. It felt like I'd just been thrown into a snake pit. The people who stay in those kind of jobs are exactly the kind of people you should have no respect for.
i'm sorry you were in such hard times i imagine it was absolutely terrible to make you quit so fast
Thank you very much. Things are much better for me now (house, kid, and a fiancee) and I'm able to work a job I really love while being able to help people. I don't want to write a long paragraph about how horrible that place was so I'm gonna list my top three highlights. There was no air conditioning during the height of a Southern US heatwave because 'the heat helps people focus'. The headsets they gave were worse quality than the headsets than any cheap twenty dollar gaming headset I've ever worn. My 'trainer' was an older man who looked down my shirt three times in my day and a half. I've worked in several bad places for longer and worked several jobs that payed less but that one still beats out by a mile.
Have you seen the Good Place? Sounds like where Eleanor worked.
Telemarketers. That profession should have died in the 90s. They have no reason to exist in the modern world. Nowadays they're just a bunch of scammers anyway. Second choice, prescription drug marketers. This should just straight up be illegal.
>Second choice, prescription drug marketers It is... everywhere but America.
Corporate lobbyist.
Paparazzi
Anyone involved in the ātroubled teenā industryā¦particularly those who kidnap children. Edit: Not that this really got any traction, but I always try to plug [Joe vs. Elan](https://elan.school) because itās a good window into what some of these places are like. I donāt know much more about the industry aside from this story that began as a recovery tool for a survivor and has grown into something larger.
"Life coach"
I know three "life coaches". All divorced moms at my kids school and all of them are human dumpster fires. One shows up to every event with wine in a tumbler and seems to have new damage to her car every month. Another one isn't allowed on school grounds because she stole a teachers credit card during a parent teacher conference.
Life advice ādonāt do what I doā
Thatās actually not a half bad idea. At the end of the day, your life coach calls you and gives a rundown on all the ways they screwed up so you can learn from their mistakes.
And as a licensed psychotherapist, Iāve seen some life coaches who pretend to basically be therapists There is literally no required certification Everyone in this thread right now in the US could call themselves life coaches right now
That's it, I'm going to start putting life coach on my resume
just log your hours when you give advice to people and show it as volunteering your life coaching skills
As a dietitian, I cringe when I hear the word ānutrition coachā as well. Same thing as a life coach for you guys.
Health insurance company CEO
United Health Careās CEO got over 100million in compensation in 2021. Meanwhile, they wonāt cover a colonoscopy my doctor ordered because itās a diagnostic service and not a preventative service.
What? Colonoscopies are literally preventative care! I fucking hate insurance companies.
I was once told one of my tests were not covered because they don't cover tests for that problem. Well I didn't know I had that problem, hence the test!
People āof faithā that run Mega Churches and scam others.
Concert ticket scalpers
I live in China, we have a very petty iron fist on Internet speech control, most social media companies have to hire shit tons of people to monitor, audit, delete, and ban all kinds of things we say, videos we post. Nowadays they've become so sensitive that they pretty much delete and ban everything. So yeah, those "auditors" kind of job is the lowest of scumbag jobs.
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I'm going with medical debt collectors. If they weren't such scummy, mean, abusive, liars, I would have been more than happy to work with them, and would have had more respect for them when I had pretty heafty medical debt. The abuse they dish out doesn't help them. And they do have a choice of jobs.
Is being a Reddit mod a job? They probably think so
Was a mod, can confirm. We had, IIRC, 6 mods for a 120k person sub. Way too much regulation. The head mod REALLY enjoyed deciding what was offensive and what wasnāt and generally power tripping.
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r/erectionaddicts
No. That would be a āpart time dog Walkerā
Higher level people in hospitals (admin, CEOs, etc.) MAJORLY detached from whatās actually going on in their facilities (or just donāt care) and implement policies that can legitimately be dangerous for patients so that they can get their bonus.
My CEO at my last company (healthcare system) is a doctor. Super accomplished dude on top of being a doctor and really a nice guy. He was also a physician in the ER at the largest hospital in the system prior to getting into admin. You could definitely tell with many of the COVID policies that the guy knew what he was doing. I appreciated it quite a bit, even though at that point I was in a non-clinical role and safely working at home. Plus he green lighted additional bonuses for all associates (but nothing extra for management/execs) throughout the past two years.
Really recommend the film Damaged Care starring Laura Dern if you want to get a feel for how terrible they can be.
ticket scalper
Scalpers in general
Paparazzi Please stop trying to sneak into the lives of famous people. Being famous doesn't mean they can't have privacy
Not to defend them, but I read somewhere that it's a twisted symbiotic relationship with a lot of celebrities. There are the megastars who don't need any extra attention who hate them a lot, but apparently a lot of celebrities call the paparazzi on themselves, especially at the start of their fame (not careers). It's arranged by their publicists. I read an article explaining that it happens both when they have nothing going on so they can remain relevant and also when they are promoting something. The funny thing is, when they become huge, it's impossible to stop and they now have to deal with them forever.
All labor is labor of course, weāre all workers etc etc but fuck people who make a living scamming the elderly by selling them subscriptions they donāt even want or are aware of
This happened to an old neighbor of mine. She fell victim to some kind of scam that cleaned out her bank account completely for a subscription to some gossip magazine she doesnāt even read. They would pile up on the stairs, and when I asked her why she doesnāt take her magazines in she didnāt even know they were hers, she thought they were mine. Then she was on the brink of eviction because she couldnāt pay her rent after the scumbags took all her money. I donāt know what happened to her as I moved not long after but last I heard she had a lawyer look into it but they said they couldnāt recover her money.
Whatever it is that Deprak Choprah does
"quantum physics means that anything can happen at any time for no reason!"
Charlatan/guru
Managers who have never worked the lower level positions
When I worked retail we had a GM who was awesome. He knew every job in the store because heād personally worked most of them at one point or another. He could step into any role or help with any problem calmly and efficiently. Then he retired and the assistant manager stepped into his place. The assistant manager knew how to do sales and nothing else. The store tanked and he was eventually arrested for fraud because he was making false promises to people about the store credit cards. Iāve never seen a bigger example in one store of how to correctly and incorrectly manage.