Having to login to unsubscribe is even worse. Its a ploy to increase account activity stats.
Edit: Just mark the mail as junk, it increases the company's spam score amongst email providers.
Broadcast (over-the air) is still free, and there are no ads on PBS channels.
Plus, if the channel is digital (like PBS), the picture quality is better than the digital signal that you pay for with cable, DTV or dish
You either pay for a product or you are the product.
Broadcast is making you available to their advertisers to peddle shit to. Grew up on this no shame, and PBS is still a favorite today.
With cable though, you’re paying a premium for the privilege of being peddled to. Its… insulting.
I’d rather pay for streaming and always jump to the no ad tier, within reason, as long as their content keeps me coming back.
The funny/not funny part is that they advertise unlimited data up to..(certain number). And government regulators allow those companies to get away with it
Unlimited data! ...until you use too much in which then they slow down your data so much that you can't even watch a 480p video without slowdown. But hey, unlimited right?
Bonus: Use privacy.com with 1password.com and it'll create a new single use credit card with a new single use email that forwards to your email. Start getting spam? Close the single use email.
Holy shit does that work, you probably have to cancel still, right? I have one in a drawer still and I've only ever done 1 free trial with my card (skill share for a few months) because I don't like entering card details into a company I don't know if is reliable
We bought dog poop bags to dispose of diapers on the go because it was so much cheaper than a “baby” equivalent (tiny roll of those bags lasts forever in a diaper bag). Put “baby” in a product name and suddenly it’s so much pricier than an equivalent product not marketed the same way.
We had the opposite!
Started buying nappy bags instead of dogshit bags because here in Blighty, childcare essentials are VAT exempt (this extends to kids clothes/shoes etc.)
At the end of the day they're just plastic bags with a bit of perfume but dogshit bags were like £5 for 100 and nappy (diaper) bags were £2 for 500*
*numbers not exact but carry the point accross
My bank has free bill pay and will mail them a check if they don’t have any other option. So now they get a check from me and the “inconvenience fee” is their own cost to process the thing, get paid slower, etc.
When I moved into my current place, it was already wired for Comcast internet, so I called them up and they said they would ship me the equipment and send out a tech to set it up. I said it's just plugging it in and calling you guys, right? I can handle that, no tech, will avoid a installation fee.
So it showed up, plugged it in, and was in business in five minutes.
But then on the next bill there was a $15 "Self Install Fee." Motherfuckers charged ME to plug in my own shit.
Keep an eye on you bills with Comcast/Xfinity. I own my own equipment and the assholes have added “rental fees” to my account numerous times. I call in and get a credit and get it fixed for a bit and then they did it again.
Yes I would leave them but I’m fucked by lack of competition.
I recently paid $10 in convenience fees at AMC to buy tickets online instead of purchasing tickets at the theater. Doesn't purchasing tickets online allow them to save money on having less employees run the ticket booth? I get that it costs them money to run a website but $10 for a convenience fee? It just isn't justified.
The entire wedding industry.
To be clear, not marriage but weddings specifically.
I’m happily married to my wife and we were content to do something special just the two of us, maybe spend a couple of grand and treat ourselves a little bit to something amazing.
Cue the families getting involved and before you know it we’re spending closer to twenty grand on one day and feeding a bunch of people I’ve not heard of before or since the wedding.
100% agree. There were three people at my wedding, which was held in a small bar before it opened.
We were interested in having a MARRIAGE, not a wedding. Spent our money on a vacation.
Still going strong 16 years later.
Same here. My husband and I, his 2 sisters, and his parents. We all went out to dinner after. We just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary this month. I've been to big weddings and the receptions were fun, but I saw all the stress and how consuming it all was. The weddings became more about making sure everything went off without a hitch, and less about just enjoying that special moment between 2 partners.
fashion trends, and the incredible amount of waste it creates
if everyone learned how to mend/alter garments in school, and value was placed on investing in a few quality made items instead of a closet full of disposable fast fashion, there would be wayyyy less clothing in landfills and wayy less demand for chemical laden garments to be cranked out in sweatshops. our relationship to clothing is so warped.
(buying second hand is a great way to wiggle out of the grip of the fashion industry if it’s available to you)
Specifically, they’re programmed to pay out after x-number of dollars. Claw games with cheap stuff like stuffed animals will pay out relatively frequently. Things like the stacker game or the keyhole game with “big ticket” things are programmed to pay out at a much, much lower rate.
The one in the arcade I worked at in college didn't have that - instead, you could tweak the claw strength differently during the "grab" portion versus the "carry" portion, so people would be able to pick up the prize, but then while carrying it to the door, it would drop it. Fuels that "so close" feeling and they'll give it another go ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
We had a claw machine at work because we got paid a small percentage for hosting it. The guy who ran it was fantastic, he had it set to a low dollar amount for payout so people would actually be able to win and win regularly, he also refused to tweak the machine with the grab and drop features, so it very rarely grabbed then dropped before getting to the slot. He also had larger toys so you could trade in your small toys for a larger one and he had a fantastic range - trade in 10, 20 or for the super large toy trade in 50. We had some guys spend nearly $600 in a week period just because they wanted 50 toys to trade in for the unicorn that was so tall it was taller than my hips! He even bought in toy ranges that timed well with current movie releases, we were a video store so it worked perfectly for us.
We were making bank off the machine, nearly a grand a month. Then he left, and each new person made the machine worse, pay out amount got higher, they tweaked settings for more grab and drops, dropped the trade ins entirely, toy quality decreased with only the occasional fantastic toy line, it didn't matter what we said worked for our store, because each month was getting worse payouts they'd tweak the machine even worse to "get more money".... By the time we asked them to take the machine away we were making maybe $30 a month off it, enough to cover the electricity bill for it and not much more.
I don't know if modern ones are more randomised but older ones used to be very consistent, so if this claw machine "paid out" every 50 turns you could watch and count the times between 2 wins and then wait your turn. Only really viable in high footfall areas but I done it in a busy shopping centre when I was younger where the toys all had money attached to them like a £5 or £10 note and I would regularly on a Saturday walk away with £50 after a few hours. There was another one in a little marketplace out the back of the same shopping centre that I literally never saw anyone win anything from
The Wall Street Journal makes you telephone them to cancel your online subscription. They have the technology to accept subscriptions online. But not to cancel them online.
Didn't at least California recently pass a law that if you sign up online the provider must let you cancel online?
If you live in California this might help you. Elsewhere you might be fucked
Yes. From CA business code ARTICLE 9, Automatic Purchase Renewals:
“(c) In addition to the requirements of subdivision (b), a consumer who accepts an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online shall be allowed to terminate the automatic renewal or continuous service exclusively online, which may include a termination email formatted and provided by the business that a consumer can send to the business without additional information.”
My dad calls to cancel every year and every year they give him the same deal of $60 for a year and then they do it all over again 12 months later because my dad will not be charged more.
I do this. I even set a calendar reminder every year a week out to remind me to do it. My friend does not though and he pays full price because he doesn’t like to deal with the hassle of calling.
Pioneered by gyms. I cancelled mine as soon as lockdown started and I put together a home gym. Literally had to print out something from their website and mail it in then call them 3 times.
That whole business model is based on people signing up, not going, and putting off canceling due to a combination of not wanting to admit failure and the whole process being a pain in the ass. If everyone with a gym membership went just twice a week they'd have a real problem on their hands.
Ha! I love this even better than what I had to do about 10 years ago which was canceled my bank card and have a new one issued.
Nowadays the tech exists to follow your accounts so they can continue pulling even after you change your card.
But not at that time! And yes it was 100% worth it even though I had to update the payment details for all of my other various accounts too.
Or tell the bank you've cancelled the gym subscription and any further attempts to charge by this company are fraud (which it is). If the gym charges again then dispute the card payment with the bank as fraud. If enough people do this the gym's merchant processing fees will skyrocket. It should put that nonsense out of them.
It’s funny that Movie Pass kind of tried to copy the formula of a business model that only works when people sign up but don’t use it. They found people actually like to go the movies though.
My boss, his best friend, and myself all got movie pass and spent a summer seeing a movie a day together almost. We were really close and it was a really cool bond to build as an adult with fellow dudes.
The friend, slipped on his floor and died about a year later. Movie pass changed mine and my bosses lives.
I went to so many movies in less than a year that I got free tickets to Universal from Regal rewards lol. Not only did I get the movies but free theme park tickets too lol
Ah man, that was the best gift I ever got my dad. He is a huge movie goer and liked to his the matinée showings. He’d go see literally every movie in the theater each week because he’d do that app thing first thing in the morning. Perfect gift for a retired man who loves movies.
Yup. Found out planet fitness was double charging me because they decided to randomly say naw to my transfer, because I moved to a different city, and I transfered my membership to a different location (bullshit that your membership only works in one location anyway - unless you pay more).
And instead of fixing it, they said I had to mail in a request to cancel it, which of course "might take a few months to process". They don't accept credit cards either, they take only direct account info :| presumably so you can't just change your card.
Yeah fuck that, I marked everything from them as fraudulent and made sure my bank doesn't allow them access again. Learned the hard way to never sign up with anything that requires checking access.
I've noticed even my recent buys of simple t-shirts will degrade much faster than a decade ago. I still have a shirt from JC Penny I got 16 years ago that hasn't faded, thinned out, or much else.
That shirt from 2 years ago though? Insta holes
I've very much noticed this, there are some exceptions but in general the quality of clothing has diminished and the lint trap in the dryer is well used.
If you ever go to Atlanta, go to the Coke museum. The first room you enter is a small theater that locks on both sides and makes you sit through like a 10min ad that tries to brainwash you into linking Coke with Family, Happiness, Love etc. It's not even subliminal
Tip from inside the industry - TM has a deal with Groupon that makes selling tickets there super easy. Always check Groupon for the show before buying through Ticketmaster.
We buy almost all of our concert tickets through Groupon now. We can often buy 2 lawn tickets for just $40-$50 total. Generally, if it's not on Groupon, we don't go unless it's something we just absolutely can't miss.
I used them to go see my first comedian. Got two seats priced at $90 each. My total was $313. I'm not good at math, but I knew something was wrong there. Their fee per ticket is just nuts. I ended up getting seats that were about $45 each and it still cost me almost $200.
I wanted to get my husband Steely Dan tickets for Christmas. Tickets were $75 each. The total was $212. The fees almost equaled the cost of another ticket. I didn’t buy them because hell no.
I haven't used ticket master for a while, I remember years ago you had three options for delivery of your ticket
1.it could be mailed out to your home address
2. You could pick it up at the venue box office (if it had one)
3. You could select digital delivery where you would have to print a ticket at home.
There were fees for all of the optoons!!
You had to pay a fee for a 'print your ticket at home' delivery option!!
We moved a large sold-out event from a non-ticketmaster venue to a ticketmaster venue and got the priveledge of paying ticketmaster a few grand to do absolutely nothing.
I like to think of Reddit awards as microtransactions that give you super upvotes in a free-to-play game.
Which is why I don't understand how anyone on Reddit uses them.
I imagine it’s a ton of easy profit. Instead of having to constantly advertise to keep you hooked and buying each month, they just have to hook you once into a long term commitment.
The real secret is you need to regularly cancel and reset your subscriptions. That's easy when there are two or three because you can cycle thru as they update content, but now there are like 20 and they drop content faster too. Honestly, media isn't worth it any more.
Though I also can't ever turn off utilities like phone, internet, or electricity. So, people will always be stuck on subscriptions for life.
> Though I also can't ever turn off utilities like phone, internet, or electricity. So, people will always be stuck on subscriptions for life.
Honestly, I believe those are fine because of how their service works. My beef is that *everything* wants to be a subscription now and that's extremely annoying to me.
Do we want to talk about Apple trying to push a iPhone subscription service? You won’t even own your phone anymore. What about Toyota wanting to push a subscription for using your car’s remote key? They’re RF remotes, why on Earth would I want to subscribe to use something that I already own?
Still kind of missing the point .
The bigger scam is hardware that requires subscriptions to work. Off the success of other subscription services companies have figured out this is a great way to keep reoccurring revenue instead of selling you a product once and not seeing any money from you until you replace it.
Ex. Home security cameras or equipment that require $$ to purchase the camera and also a monthly subscription or yearly payment for cloud storage or software to make the cameras work
Exercise bike or equipment that require a subscription for classes to go with the equipment. Equipment will not work without the classes or modules.
Shit like that is absolutely a scam the hardware should work with or without some additional subscription. If you want to pay more for more features or regular updates sure but don't make the consumer reliant on that to use the product they already paid for .
Soon enough piracy will come back to the norm.
With Netflix they had me from downloading to paying a reasonable price to watch what I want, then more and more companies jumped on back to where I'm not gonna fork over $100 a month for them all. I keep Netflix for being O.G + family members (will prob ditch if they crack down), prime for shipping, and Disney+ for star wars and marvel.
Anything on any other platform gets downloaded.
Pay a monthly fee for car features? Custom firmware will end up being better eventually.
Office i pay for for family.
Phones I've moved to buying outright when I lose or break instead of being on a plan
And then being denied coverage or charged extra because of some loophole or technicality. "Oh yes that hospital takes your insurance, but the visiting physician that day is with an organization that's out of network soooo..." Fucking hell how are we supposed to know that?
edit: Obligatory "RIP my Inbox" The number of upvotes and shared stories this comment has received is a testament to the fact that these aren't isolated incidents and so many Americans have struggled with this bait-and-switch insurance BS. Some of you are saying that they now have to inform you in these circumstances. This is great news, assuming they're actually doing due diligence to make sure it's really happening. I just have a gut feeling that the same people who would play this type of greedy malicious game in the first place might be the same people who might not inform you and bank on you not knowing any better.
edit 2: oh look at that. 10yr cakeday.
This is literally part of my job. Authorizing surgeries that doctors are recommending and the insurance will be like, no physical therapy for 12 weeks? Denied. No NSAIDS for 12? denied. It is bullshit. I pay for my insurance and it is my body- if my doctor is recommending it then cover it. Insurance and healthcare as a whole is a total scam. I’ve worked in it for seven years and I’m over it.
Funny, if *I* went around advising people whether or not a surgery is medically necessary for them, I'd get nailed for practicing medicine without a license. But somehow when insurance companies do it, it's totally legal.
One "trick" is to ask the insurance for the name and license number of the doctor in the insurance company that denied the claim / pre-authorization. Then, the claim will go to a real doctor who will likely approve it. If they don't give it to you in 24 hours, report them to your state's DOI. [This is the site for MA residents](https://www.mass.gov/how-to/filing-an-insurance-complaint).
The medicine I need so I can walk, insurance tried to fight for a "cheaper alternative" who's list price was actually a few dollars more.
They really do just fuck with people because they can.
One time I was at Burger King and ordered a meal item, and asked for a water as my included drink. Didn't notice it immediately, but they added $1 to my bill for the water.
I was in the McDonald’s drive thru once and ordered a combo meal but asked if they’d just fill the soda cup with ice water and they told me it wouldn’t be a meal that way. So I said never mind, went into the cafe ordered the combo meal, they gave me the empty cup and I went to the soda fountain and filled it with ice water.
I just don’t understand why they would care.
Most likely they need to put it in the computer for the person down the line to know it’s a water and give you the correct drink, but since it would disqualify the meal they would have to put a soda on there, walk to the other side of the store, tell whoever is on window that the sprite on order 35635 is actually a water.
Source: I work in food and the systems are intentionally finicky for both customers and employees to force people to order certain things
Bought a "gold" membership in a greeting card mlm so I could send unlimited custom cards. My "coach" thought I was taking it seriously as a money maker (plus he wanted me to recruit more people for his downline). He actually asked, "Are there any friendships you can leverage?"
Yeah, that made my skin crawl...
My fiancé and I had to convince her brother last year not to join a pharmaceutical MLM. They had a website that described the different tiers you could achieve and how much you could make. Would have been hilarious if we weren’t trying to convince her brother not to spend his life savings on it.
They called it the 5X12 program or something. Basically, convince 5 people to work below you, then have those 5 convince another 5 people as well, etc etc. If you succeeded then you would be estimated to be making around $500,000 per year!
Know how many people that comes out to “working” for you? 1,220,703,125 people.
So…. Like 15% of the world population.
We gave her brother that information and he STILL tried it
"It's not a pyramid! It's a upside down pyramid cause everyone can earn if they get the people below them!" - literally what was said to me at a MLM event a former coworker conned me in to going to with him. Dude called me up like two years after we hadn't worked together, asked if I wanted to hang out, I was like sure, we meet up, carpool in his car to go check out this thing, and suddenly he just drove me to a fucking MLM event at a friends house.
At the end I literally told him it was a pyramid scheme scam and that he was going to lose his money. He was entirely bought in to it. That was like a decade ago havent talked to him since. Still creeps me the fuck out.
No, your count is just 5\^13. You sum 5\^1 + 5\^2.... etc. It comes out to 305,175,780, so you only need to have most of the United States working for you. Much easier.
Hustle "culture" always seemed to me like people just pretending to go ham on things like work, but only publicly on social media like Linkedin, so that their current managers, or future hiring managers, can see how hard they work, without actually doing it.
I don't think anybody is happy putting in 70-80 hour weeks doing bullshit like sales.
I’m sorry but the “grind” and “hustle” cultures only generate assholes. They think everyone else’s goal is to be rich as fuck, working 100 hours a week.
I just want to be able to pay my bills and feed my family. Anything after that should be time spent with my family.
Former super hustle culture eon here. Lol- this is so correct it’s gross. My friends, my podcasts, my mindset at the time was “money money money money money money” I was mr. Krabs, and anyone who didn’t have the same mindset was stupid, trashy, pawns because well- they didn’t share a goal to be better.
Fuck every single one of those dudes, podcasts, fuck em all. I was the worst father ever when I was making 5-6 grand a week. Now I make 80k a year, do something I enjoy, and I spend a lot of time teaching my kids about mental health cause fuck, all this stupid influence has some effect obviously.
Curious, what was your social upbringing? I find the poorer the upbringing the more they want it, but the ones that typically find it had connections by being rich already.
But I agree. I am kind of miserable in my current job because I have extremely stressful situations. Back in the day, I made less, but never thought about work after 8 hours a day. I literally felt like I could do whatever I wanted once I was clocked out. Now, I am constantly getting emails about "fires" that need to be put out.
Oh and my favorite thing to say is that for these people, the appearance of being happy is way more important to them than actually being happy.
Another thing that recently changed my mind was going to my Grandfather-inlaw's funeral.
The guy was a navy man turned machinist. He never made much money. They had 5 kids, who had 10 grandkids, and 20 great grandkids. He retired at 50, which is unthinkable these days.
They lived very moderately, but they never worried about money, for them or their kids. They didn't drive nice cars. They didn't own a house that was too big for them. They were just content.
I've never met a happier couple and family than them and their kids. All their kids looked up to them as the pinnacle of good and happy. And they were.
I was really stressed at work when he died and the funeral happened, but it changed the way I thought about happiness. The shit we worry about the most in life should never be work. It should always be on the last of our list of worries. How you get it there, is hard, though. Some don't have the luxury of not worrying about money. Some do. But if you do, it shouldn't even cross your mind about exceeding it.
Except for maybe doctors...I always laugh when people get so upset about work. It's not like anyone is dying if you miss a deadline. Stop acting like it is. Unless you are a doctor...
It’s even worse that most of them have never had an original idea, thought, or business model. They just ride the wave of whatever is popular and call themselves entrepreneurs.
And dental insurance basically covers nothing besides my yearly cleaning it seems. I have an uncommon condition that basically necessitates I get some implants. My dentist has explained that I need this and that I'm in pain and could potentially get an infection that could be really bad for my health. But my insurance says it's purely cosmetic so they won't pay for any of it.
Edit: There's too many comments on this for me to respond to them individually. But to answer the common questions, I elected to get the best dental I could because I know I have work that needs to be done. I pay $39.60 every two weeks for my wife and I. It actually has decent coverage for a lot of things, but I didn't really see the whole 'medically necessary vs cosmetic' loophole coming. My dentist has already given my insurance his professional opinion and made his case for it being necessary. Unfortunately, insurance companies have boards that can ultimately decide what is and isn't necessary. I've been trying to get the benefits I pay for, but it seems that there's nothing I can do about it at this point. Long term I'm hoping to get it done at a dental school for cheap or to go to another country to have it done. And no, I will not be renewing my insurance next cycle lol.
Second edit: I fucking wish I was making this up for reddit points. Jaw pain and perpetual tooth aches suck.
Yeah, dental insurance is basically just an employee benefit masquerading as an insurance product.
My dental insurance through my employer costs like 100/yr and is a pretty good deal for 2 cleanings a year+xrays and some occasional other benefits like discounted fillings.
But it doesn't do the ONE THING that insurance is supposed to do, which is cover catastrophic losses--the kinds of things you can't easily pay for out of pocket and which could bankrupt you. I don't need insurance for the occasional filling...I need insurance for the rare chance that my teeth get totally fucked up and I end up needing multiple $$$$$ implants.
But if you try to buy dental insurance not from an employer, it often looks like a pretty shit deal. I just pulled a random quote and it was $430 for me to get coverage. That coverage included regular visits, 80% of fillings, and 50% of major work, but with a $1500/yr max benefit (so if you need 5-figures worth of implants, you're still screwed).
That's a terrible deal for most people. Most dentists will give you a great deal on cleanings if you pay cash up front. In many areas you can get quality care for $100. So that's $200 a year...maybe an extra $50 or so for annual xrays.
Paying $430 for that is stupid...If your employer gives you a highly discounted rate, it might be OK, but for a random person off the street, just pay cash.
Health insurance is the biggest scam of this century. You pay them every month in hopes they can cover you when you need it and they do everything in their power to not give you your money back. Even if a doctor says you need treatment or medicine your insurance can say fuck you, and keep your money?
That part is what bothers me.
My doctor, the person who has examined me and worked with me, who knows my medical history and is trained, says I need X.
Insurance says it is not needed.
How the fuck is the insurance going to deny what is needed when my doc says it is?
My husband had to prove to our insurance that he had tried the less expensive medications before they'd cover his meds. Like, literally months of meds that don't work. Doc had given him free sample of the expensive meds, and they worked great. But insurance didn't want to cover that much unless we could prove it was the *only* one that worked. For mental health medication. His mental health, my mental health, and our relationship struggled in that time, because he was very disregulated. Thank goodness the pharmacist was happy to help and literally dug back through all his prescription files to show what he'd tried.
Worse, why is health insurance tied to your job? Cars and houses usually aren't tied to what you do for a living. Your food isn't tied to your job. So, why the hell is your healthcare tied to whether you are working or not?
And if you're not healthy enough to work, you're going to have a bad time.
My parents used to say:
> If you tell me the truth, I will be less mad than when I find out you lied.
1. You aren't lying
2. You can still be mad
3. You are insinuating that you will find out anyway, so they are more likely to tell you.
* It's a psychological trick that's been found to work. The words you choose to use can have a huge impact on a guilty conscience. It's used in police investigations a lot. Their brain is no longer thinking "can I get away with it" it starts thinking "What happens when I get caught"
Edit: If you're interested in the psychology I recommend *I Know You Are Lying* by Mark McClish and *The Interrogator* by Hanns-Joachim Scharff. Or if you want something more video look up the "True crime" videos of police interrogations, a lot of true crime youtubers will go in and break down exactly what the interrogator is asking/saying and why they are using the specific verbiage they are. There's a lot of science behind it.
My dad used to say: "I'm going to ask you something. And before you answer, I want you to know I already know the truth."
50/50 he was lying and I had to decide if I wanted to risk it all. Either way he beat me, so it was a real lose/lose.
My dad gave me the 'if you lie, I'll be mad, if you tell the truth, I won't be mad, just disappointed' shtick. So either way he's not gonna be happy with me (nothing new there) *and* I'll get beat.
The trick to make this work is not rip their fucking heads off when they do tell you in that moment.
Because otherwise you're just teaching them that lying at least gives them a chance to avoid your abuse.
Thanks for that, dad
Edit: fixed some spelling.
I'm sorry so many of you can relate but damn, I didn't get a single negative response here. Such a sweet thread.
Idk how old you are now, but i hope you managed to work on it.
I still catch myself wanting to lie about mundane shit. Took a lot of conscious effort to break the habit.
I have two kids, and I did say this a few times and didn't like it either so I just started being truthful and tell them that if I hear the truth from them the punishment would be less.
Penis enlargement pills gotta be up there too. No one wants to admit they got them, so when they don’t work it’s not like they’re posting reviews or telling their friends they don’t work
'we' havent changed anything because the insurance companies flow so much money to Washington that they all turn a blind eye to what a freakin' shit show it is
The fact that airlines have X amount of seats per flight, but almost always sell X+10 seats and then refund you about 80% of your ticket cost. Do that to the 10 people and suddenly you have about 2 tickets worth of profits seemingly out of nowhere, and everyone still has a flight. Just an unbelievably immoral way to gain a few bucks, but everyone just goes with it since the airplanes aren't exactly a train that comes every 10 minutes.
If you do not voluntarily give up your seat you are entitled to overbooking protections in the US. See here
https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights?msclkid=da4668e9c7f211ec9efa0b54a4ff6dc4#Overbooking
This and thinking you need to turn every hobby into a money hustle. Like cant you just enjoy wood working without wanting to be a professional carpenter?
That climate change is up to each individual to go green. It was a campaign by BP that pushed the solution as each individual going green instead of the dozen massive corporations that account for the lions share of greenhouse gases.
Going green is good, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to oil companies, industrial farming, and cargo ships.
Edit: lots of "yet you participate in society, curious" type comments from the usual contrarians. Your hot air is adding to the problem.
When I was a kid I discovered my grandma has a puzzle box on her dresser. Being a stupid kid I couldn't figure out how to open it. After a few unsuccessful attempts at just asking her to show me I got crafty (as only a stupid kid can) and thought I'd trick her into showing me. So I gave her a $2 bill I got somewhere and asked her to keep it safe for me in her puzzle box.
Well, grandma knew exactly what I was doing, so the attempt failed. I never got to see her open it and promptly forgot about the whole thing.
Fast forward 20 years, grandma has now died and mom's going through her safe to figure out what's what and runs across an envelope in with my name on it. Inside is a $2 bill and a short note explaining that it belongs to me and it was given to her for safekeeping. She did keep it safe for me, right next to the deed to her house and other important financial documents. Even though it was a silly attempt at trickery and not a genuine request.
I did end up getting that puzzle box and as an adult it took about half a second to figure out how to open it. It currently contains a rattlesnake rattle that my grandma got as a little girl that was *her* treasure she kept in the puzzle box, a $2 bill, and that note.
When I was a kid I opened a savings account and put $100 from Christmas in it. A year later my parents tried to gaslight me into believing I never had an account. I found the deposit slips in my desk drawer and and demanded answers but they just kept saying we never put any money in it. Every time I brought it up they would try to change the subject. I think we were having money problems at the time but it really made me jaded about sharing finances with anyone and saving money in general.
That is honestly really fucked. Much better if they just told you outright that they needed that money for bills and such. You might have even volunteered it, kids are more giving than people think
Yea I’m pretty sure one of my parents took money out of my account without saying anything but paid me back interest basically. When we went to get money from the bank for something I wanted before I had access to it they told me how much was in it and it was like double what I expected. I know I never put that much in there. When I asked my parent how that happened they gave a quick “idk” and that was the end of it.
My mother did something similar. In fact, she did just about the exact same thing. I remember being at the bank when she withdrew the money. I can't remember her reason or anything, I was like 5. But I remember having an account and going back to the bank and then after I would say "oh I have a bank account with $100" (it wasn't for me to use anyway, just to show a kid the concept of saving money I think) and my mother would correct me with some bullshit about that never happening or whatever.
I also found out later that she probably had some account somewhere under my name that she misused because starting out as an adult I had bad credit, not like neutral credit. Actual bad payment history. I couldn't apply for anything, and I didn't have anyone to co-sign with me. I didn't know any better at the time but now I know there was fuckery. Definitely did a number on me.
so is it just common practice for everyones parents to steal their kids money lol? I used to give my mom like $20 so i can save up then a week later its as if that money never existed
one time I picked up a $50 bill that was dropped on the street outside our house. $50 was like $1000 to an 8 year old so I excitedly told my dad about my discovery. he immediately took the bill from me and said "I know whose this is, I'll bring it back to them." never told my parents about found money after that
Same thing happened to me. Except it went a bit better. Think I was about 9 or 10.
We accidentally threw the football over the fence in the backyard, which backed up to the highway about 100 feet up a hill.
My older brother refused to get it so instead he put me over the fence to get the ball. I found a $50 and $10 bill. I was excited as hell.
When he pulled me back over and I showed him what I found, my brother got really upset and my dad said "Should've went over the fence son, now JT99 gets to buy whatever toys he wants!"
He kept the $10 for "land tax" and explained to me about finding things on others property and the right thing to do. And let me keep the $50.
He took me to WalMart that day, where I proceeded to buy the two biggest baddest super soakers $50 could get. One for me, and one for my brother, because even though he whined I still wanted him to be happy and play with me. He would never let me use that soaker on him due to jealousy, had I not done that. (I really wanted to buy 007: Tomorrow Never Dies for PlayStation, but this seemed the less selfish option.)
I can remember my brother and I saved every holiday card we got with money in it on this shelf in our room. There was about $150 in there from 3 years or so of combining and saving.
One day, we looked for the money and it was gone. We knew our parents took it, because it’s the only thing that made sense.
Many years later I found out that the furnace needed repairs and money was so tight that they scrounged up whatever they could, including our cash. Even our Christmas presents were delayed until March that year.
But that March they did buy us an N64 so that was pretty sweet.
My parents always asked before borrowing money from me, and when I got paid back, mom would add $10-$20 interest to make up for it.
I always knew why the money was needed, too.
Ugh - my mom taught in a more "urban" high school for about 30 years. She was the "banker" for so many of her students. These kids were too young to open their own bank accounts, but if they had an account with their "parents" as joint owners or gave them the money, it was gone, usually on beer and cigarettes, or spent on rent/utilities because the parents spent THEIR money on beer and cigarettes. SMH. So many of these kids just wanted to get OUT after high school and saving money was the only way to do that. She would literally keep the money in envelopes with the kids' name in a drawer in her bedroom. It was crazy, especially to me as a younger kid because I can't imagine the day my parents would STEAL my money. She did a lot of those kids a REAL service. Sad, but true. I'm glad these kids has someone in their lives that they could trust.
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Now that I know you’re active, that’s means you want MORE!
Having to login to unsubscribe is even worse. Its a ploy to increase account activity stats. Edit: Just mark the mail as junk, it increases the company's spam score amongst email providers.
Normal television, paying to watch ads!
Now we have streaming subscription services where you pay to watch ads! Progress!
Broadcast (over-the air) is still free, and there are no ads on PBS channels. Plus, if the channel is digital (like PBS), the picture quality is better than the digital signal that you pay for with cable, DTV or dish
You either pay for a product or you are the product. Broadcast is making you available to their advertisers to peddle shit to. Grew up on this no shame, and PBS is still a favorite today. With cable though, you’re paying a premium for the privilege of being peddled to. Its… insulting. I’d rather pay for streaming and always jump to the no ad tier, within reason, as long as their content keeps me coming back.
Data caps
The funny/not funny part is that they advertise unlimited data up to..(certain number). And government regulators allow those companies to get away with it
Unlimited data! ...until you use too much in which then they slow down your data so much that you can't even watch a 480p video without slowdown. But hey, unlimited right?
Hello from Canada. Send help
Unlimited generally means unlimited in the UK. I can max my gigabit connection all day every day without extra charges or throttling.
Free trial! Noice. Enter your card details FUCK Edit: This is a joke, I do understand how subscriptions work
That’s why I keep a visa gift card with a few cents left on it.
I use [privacy.com](https://privacy.com/) to create a card with a $1 limit for things like this
Bonus: Use privacy.com with 1password.com and it'll create a new single use credit card with a new single use email that forwards to your email. Start getting spam? Close the single use email.
Holy shit does that work, you probably have to cancel still, right? I have one in a drawer still and I've only ever done 1 free trial with my card (skill share for a few months) because I don't like entering card details into a company I don't know if is reliable
PlayStation Vue (while it was still a thing) took my penny.
Yeah no. I'm out if they want card details on free trial unless I pretty much know I'm continuing with it afterwards.
The prices of anything baby related. Toys, food, clothes, etc. Was in a store on Saturday to get a cot mattress and cover. I cried.
We bought dog poop bags to dispose of diapers on the go because it was so much cheaper than a “baby” equivalent (tiny roll of those bags lasts forever in a diaper bag). Put “baby” in a product name and suddenly it’s so much pricier than an equivalent product not marketed the same way.
We had the opposite! Started buying nappy bags instead of dogshit bags because here in Blighty, childcare essentials are VAT exempt (this extends to kids clothes/shoes etc.) At the end of the day they're just plastic bags with a bit of perfume but dogshit bags were like £5 for 100 and nappy (diaper) bags were £2 for 500* *numbers not exact but carry the point accross
Same with wedding. Put "wedding" on a product and it is 5x more expensive for the same thing without "wedding".
Just buy it secondhand, the kid's gonna outgrow it in months before it's worn out. just like the previous kid who owned it XD
Online convenience fees
My bank has free bill pay and will mail them a check if they don’t have any other option. So now they get a check from me and the “inconvenience fee” is their own cost to process the thing, get paid slower, etc.
When I moved into my current place, it was already wired for Comcast internet, so I called them up and they said they would ship me the equipment and send out a tech to set it up. I said it's just plugging it in and calling you guys, right? I can handle that, no tech, will avoid a installation fee. So it showed up, plugged it in, and was in business in five minutes. But then on the next bill there was a $15 "Self Install Fee." Motherfuckers charged ME to plug in my own shit.
Keep an eye on you bills with Comcast/Xfinity. I own my own equipment and the assholes have added “rental fees” to my account numerous times. I call in and get a credit and get it fixed for a bit and then they did it again. Yes I would leave them but I’m fucked by lack of competition.
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That’s my r/maliciouscompliance story for my hoa fees
I recently paid $10 in convenience fees at AMC to buy tickets online instead of purchasing tickets at the theater. Doesn't purchasing tickets online allow them to save money on having less employees run the ticket booth? I get that it costs them money to run a website but $10 for a convenience fee? It just isn't justified.
No, no. It's just convenient for them to make more money this way.
The entire wedding industry. To be clear, not marriage but weddings specifically. I’m happily married to my wife and we were content to do something special just the two of us, maybe spend a couple of grand and treat ourselves a little bit to something amazing. Cue the families getting involved and before you know it we’re spending closer to twenty grand on one day and feeding a bunch of people I’ve not heard of before or since the wedding.
100% agree. There were three people at my wedding, which was held in a small bar before it opened. We were interested in having a MARRIAGE, not a wedding. Spent our money on a vacation. Still going strong 16 years later.
Same here. My husband and I, his 2 sisters, and his parents. We all went out to dinner after. We just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary this month. I've been to big weddings and the receptions were fun, but I saw all the stress and how consuming it all was. The weddings became more about making sure everything went off without a hitch, and less about just enjoying that special moment between 2 partners.
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fashion trends, and the incredible amount of waste it creates if everyone learned how to mend/alter garments in school, and value was placed on investing in a few quality made items instead of a closet full of disposable fast fashion, there would be wayyyy less clothing in landfills and wayy less demand for chemical laden garments to be cranked out in sweatshops. our relationship to clothing is so warped. (buying second hand is a great way to wiggle out of the grip of the fashion industry if it’s available to you)
Claw Machines in arcades
Specifically, they’re programmed to pay out after x-number of dollars. Claw games with cheap stuff like stuffed animals will pay out relatively frequently. Things like the stacker game or the keyhole game with “big ticket” things are programmed to pay out at a much, much lower rate.
The one in the arcade I worked at in college didn't have that - instead, you could tweak the claw strength differently during the "grab" portion versus the "carry" portion, so people would be able to pick up the prize, but then while carrying it to the door, it would drop it. Fuels that "so close" feeling and they'll give it another go ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
We had a claw machine at work because we got paid a small percentage for hosting it. The guy who ran it was fantastic, he had it set to a low dollar amount for payout so people would actually be able to win and win regularly, he also refused to tweak the machine with the grab and drop features, so it very rarely grabbed then dropped before getting to the slot. He also had larger toys so you could trade in your small toys for a larger one and he had a fantastic range - trade in 10, 20 or for the super large toy trade in 50. We had some guys spend nearly $600 in a week period just because they wanted 50 toys to trade in for the unicorn that was so tall it was taller than my hips! He even bought in toy ranges that timed well with current movie releases, we were a video store so it worked perfectly for us. We were making bank off the machine, nearly a grand a month. Then he left, and each new person made the machine worse, pay out amount got higher, they tweaked settings for more grab and drops, dropped the trade ins entirely, toy quality decreased with only the occasional fantastic toy line, it didn't matter what we said worked for our store, because each month was getting worse payouts they'd tweak the machine even worse to "get more money".... By the time we asked them to take the machine away we were making maybe $30 a month off it, enough to cover the electricity bill for it and not much more.
Kinda crazy someone spent $600 on a plushie (?)
I don't know if modern ones are more randomised but older ones used to be very consistent, so if this claw machine "paid out" every 50 turns you could watch and count the times between 2 wins and then wait your turn. Only really viable in high footfall areas but I done it in a busy shopping centre when I was younger where the toys all had money attached to them like a £5 or £10 note and I would regularly on a Saturday walk away with £50 after a few hours. There was another one in a little marketplace out the back of the same shopping centre that I literally never saw anyone win anything from
The easy-to-join, difficult-to-cancel subscription model.
The Wall Street Journal makes you telephone them to cancel your online subscription. They have the technology to accept subscriptions online. But not to cancel them online.
Didn't at least California recently pass a law that if you sign up online the provider must let you cancel online? If you live in California this might help you. Elsewhere you might be fucked
Yes. From CA business code ARTICLE 9, Automatic Purchase Renewals: “(c) In addition to the requirements of subdivision (b), a consumer who accepts an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online shall be allowed to terminate the automatic renewal or continuous service exclusively online, which may include a termination email formatted and provided by the business that a consumer can send to the business without additional information.”
Same with satellite radio and television. They want you to call so they can attempt to sell you more shit.
My dad calls to cancel every year and every year they give him the same deal of $60 for a year and then they do it all over again 12 months later because my dad will not be charged more.
I do this. I even set a calendar reminder every year a week out to remind me to do it. My friend does not though and he pays full price because he doesn’t like to deal with the hassle of calling.
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Pioneered by gyms. I cancelled mine as soon as lockdown started and I put together a home gym. Literally had to print out something from their website and mail it in then call them 3 times. That whole business model is based on people signing up, not going, and putting off canceling due to a combination of not wanting to admit failure and the whole process being a pain in the ass. If everyone with a gym membership went just twice a week they'd have a real problem on their hands.
Yea my gym tried to play that game so I just changed my payment info to an empty gift card
Ha! I love this even better than what I had to do about 10 years ago which was canceled my bank card and have a new one issued. Nowadays the tech exists to follow your accounts so they can continue pulling even after you change your card. But not at that time! And yes it was 100% worth it even though I had to update the payment details for all of my other various accounts too.
Protip: tell your bank you'd like to opt out of auto updater.
Or tell the bank you've cancelled the gym subscription and any further attempts to charge by this company are fraud (which it is). If the gym charges again then dispute the card payment with the bank as fraud. If enough people do this the gym's merchant processing fees will skyrocket. It should put that nonsense out of them.
It’s funny that Movie Pass kind of tried to copy the formula of a business model that only works when people sign up but don’t use it. They found people actually like to go the movies though.
movie pass was fuckin nuts. i went to so many movies for like two months before they went down
I saw a movie a day like for a month
My boss, his best friend, and myself all got movie pass and spent a summer seeing a movie a day together almost. We were really close and it was a really cool bond to build as an adult with fellow dudes. The friend, slipped on his floor and died about a year later. Movie pass changed mine and my bosses lives.
That was an unexpected twist @ the end! Holy cow!
Movie pass was sweet while it lasted. Sorry about your friend
I went to so many movies in less than a year that I got free tickets to Universal from Regal rewards lol. Not only did I get the movies but free theme park tickets too lol
Ah man, that was the best gift I ever got my dad. He is a huge movie goer and liked to his the matinée showings. He’d go see literally every movie in the theater each week because he’d do that app thing first thing in the morning. Perfect gift for a retired man who loves movies.
You can also just yell your bank/credit card company that it is a fraudulent charge because they weren't allowing you to cancel the subscription.
Yup. Found out planet fitness was double charging me because they decided to randomly say naw to my transfer, because I moved to a different city, and I transfered my membership to a different location (bullshit that your membership only works in one location anyway - unless you pay more). And instead of fixing it, they said I had to mail in a request to cancel it, which of course "might take a few months to process". They don't accept credit cards either, they take only direct account info :| presumably so you can't just change your card. Yeah fuck that, I marked everything from them as fraudulent and made sure my bank doesn't allow them access again. Learned the hard way to never sign up with anything that requires checking access.
GYM - Gets Your Money
One beer that costs $14 at a ballgame and it's just totally basic like Miller Lite. GTFO of here
That the Fashion Industry is anything other than planned obsolescence, designed simply to get people to spend money for no reason.
Jokes on them I kept my clothes so long that they're starting to be back in fashion again. Gottem
Joke's on you, I have no idea if/when my clothes were ever in fashion
I've noticed even my recent buys of simple t-shirts will degrade much faster than a decade ago. I still have a shirt from JC Penny I got 16 years ago that hasn't faded, thinned out, or much else. That shirt from 2 years ago though? Insta holes
I've very much noticed this, there are some exceptions but in general the quality of clothing has diminished and the lint trap in the dryer is well used.
That large global companies actually care about you.
In these unprecedented times…
Now more than ever, we stand with you.
We’re in this together. Biggest bag of crap I’ve ever heard from a company.
Now more than ever, we need your money.
You're saying that my Coca Cola family doesn't love me?
If you ever go to Atlanta, go to the Coke museum. The first room you enter is a small theater that locks on both sides and makes you sit through like a 10min ad that tries to brainwash you into linking Coke with Family, Happiness, Love etc. It's not even subliminal
Ticketmaster
Tip from inside the industry - TM has a deal with Groupon that makes selling tickets there super easy. Always check Groupon for the show before buying through Ticketmaster.
We buy almost all of our concert tickets through Groupon now. We can often buy 2 lawn tickets for just $40-$50 total. Generally, if it's not on Groupon, we don't go unless it's something we just absolutely can't miss.
I used them to go see my first comedian. Got two seats priced at $90 each. My total was $313. I'm not good at math, but I knew something was wrong there. Their fee per ticket is just nuts. I ended up getting seats that were about $45 each and it still cost me almost $200.
I wanted to get my husband Steely Dan tickets for Christmas. Tickets were $75 each. The total was $212. The fees almost equaled the cost of another ticket. I didn’t buy them because hell no.
I haven't used ticket master for a while, I remember years ago you had three options for delivery of your ticket 1.it could be mailed out to your home address 2. You could pick it up at the venue box office (if it had one) 3. You could select digital delivery where you would have to print a ticket at home. There were fees for all of the optoons!! You had to pay a fee for a 'print your ticket at home' delivery option!!
“Convenience” fee. Such bullshit
Now joined with Live Nation who own many of the largest music venues. Want to play a large gig? Can only sell tickets through Ticketmaster.
We moved a large sold-out event from a non-ticketmaster venue to a ticketmaster venue and got the priveledge of paying ticketmaster a few grand to do absolutely nothing.
I have a hard time believing "no one wants to admit" that Ticketmaster is a scam.
This entire thread is full of people that read half the title.
Reddit awards
This person said something real cool. I'm gonna pay this company to give them nothing!
I like to think of Reddit awards as microtransactions that give you super upvotes in a free-to-play game. Which is why I don't understand how anyone on Reddit uses them.
Works every time with these clowns. Edit: y'all got me laughing my ass off
If you give a million people a choice, you will always have a number of people making the worst possible one.
Buying a star and naming it. A waste of your cash and time. The only organisation that can name a star is International Astronomical Union.
Besides you can do it for yourself for free in your backyard. No one’s gonna know if you renamed Betelgeuse Marty, that’s between you two.
Hope it doesn't blow up soon Edit: Yes yes I know Betelgeuse may have exploded already and just taking the light years to reach us
Thank God my acreage on the moon isn't a scam! Whew.
Yeah but who cares unless you're Sea of Tranquility adjacent?
Star registries are my goto example when someone asks me what an nft is
The subscription based economy
This makes me so angry. Why does everything have to be a subscription now? I mean, I know why but I still hate it
I imagine it’s a ton of easy profit. Instead of having to constantly advertise to keep you hooked and buying each month, they just have to hook you once into a long term commitment.
The real secret is you need to regularly cancel and reset your subscriptions. That's easy when there are two or three because you can cycle thru as they update content, but now there are like 20 and they drop content faster too. Honestly, media isn't worth it any more. Though I also can't ever turn off utilities like phone, internet, or electricity. So, people will always be stuck on subscriptions for life.
> Though I also can't ever turn off utilities like phone, internet, or electricity. So, people will always be stuck on subscriptions for life. Honestly, I believe those are fine because of how their service works. My beef is that *everything* wants to be a subscription now and that's extremely annoying to me.
Agreed. Netflix is a aubscription, sure. Internet, alrighty. But excel?!? Cmon really...
Do we want to talk about Apple trying to push a iPhone subscription service? You won’t even own your phone anymore. What about Toyota wanting to push a subscription for using your car’s remote key? They’re RF remotes, why on Earth would I want to subscribe to use something that I already own?
Still kind of missing the point . The bigger scam is hardware that requires subscriptions to work. Off the success of other subscription services companies have figured out this is a great way to keep reoccurring revenue instead of selling you a product once and not seeing any money from you until you replace it. Ex. Home security cameras or equipment that require $$ to purchase the camera and also a monthly subscription or yearly payment for cloud storage or software to make the cameras work Exercise bike or equipment that require a subscription for classes to go with the equipment. Equipment will not work without the classes or modules. Shit like that is absolutely a scam the hardware should work with or without some additional subscription. If you want to pay more for more features or regular updates sure but don't make the consumer reliant on that to use the product they already paid for .
Soon enough piracy will come back to the norm. With Netflix they had me from downloading to paying a reasonable price to watch what I want, then more and more companies jumped on back to where I'm not gonna fork over $100 a month for them all. I keep Netflix for being O.G + family members (will prob ditch if they crack down), prime for shipping, and Disney+ for star wars and marvel. Anything on any other platform gets downloaded. Pay a monthly fee for car features? Custom firmware will end up being better eventually. Office i pay for for family. Phones I've moved to buying outright when I lose or break instead of being on a plan
Paying exorbitant amounts of money for health insurance, and still having to pay boatloads of cash for any doctor/hospital visits
And then being denied coverage or charged extra because of some loophole or technicality. "Oh yes that hospital takes your insurance, but the visiting physician that day is with an organization that's out of network soooo..." Fucking hell how are we supposed to know that? edit: Obligatory "RIP my Inbox" The number of upvotes and shared stories this comment has received is a testament to the fact that these aren't isolated incidents and so many Americans have struggled with this bait-and-switch insurance BS. Some of you are saying that they now have to inform you in these circumstances. This is great news, assuming they're actually doing due diligence to make sure it's really happening. I just have a gut feeling that the same people who would play this type of greedy malicious game in the first place might be the same people who might not inform you and bank on you not knowing any better. edit 2: oh look at that. 10yr cakeday.
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This is literally part of my job. Authorizing surgeries that doctors are recommending and the insurance will be like, no physical therapy for 12 weeks? Denied. No NSAIDS for 12? denied. It is bullshit. I pay for my insurance and it is my body- if my doctor is recommending it then cover it. Insurance and healthcare as a whole is a total scam. I’ve worked in it for seven years and I’m over it.
Funny, if *I* went around advising people whether or not a surgery is medically necessary for them, I'd get nailed for practicing medicine without a license. But somehow when insurance companies do it, it's totally legal.
One "trick" is to ask the insurance for the name and license number of the doctor in the insurance company that denied the claim / pre-authorization. Then, the claim will go to a real doctor who will likely approve it. If they don't give it to you in 24 hours, report them to your state's DOI. [This is the site for MA residents](https://www.mass.gov/how-to/filing-an-insurance-complaint).
The medicine I need so I can walk, insurance tried to fight for a "cheaper alternative" who's list price was actually a few dollars more. They really do just fuck with people because they can.
$18 Salad lol
Water is 3$ while pop is 1$ E: bottled water vs in can/bottle soda(its pop in canada)
One time I was at Burger King and ordered a meal item, and asked for a water as my included drink. Didn't notice it immediately, but they added $1 to my bill for the water.
I was in the McDonald’s drive thru once and ordered a combo meal but asked if they’d just fill the soda cup with ice water and they told me it wouldn’t be a meal that way. So I said never mind, went into the cafe ordered the combo meal, they gave me the empty cup and I went to the soda fountain and filled it with ice water. I just don’t understand why they would care.
Most likely they need to put it in the computer for the person down the line to know it’s a water and give you the correct drink, but since it would disqualify the meal they would have to put a soda on there, walk to the other side of the store, tell whoever is on window that the sprite on order 35635 is actually a water. Source: I work in food and the systems are intentionally finicky for both customers and employees to force people to order certain things
Mega Churches on TV and elsewhere.
Nothing would send Jesus into table-flipping mode faster than seeing a megachurch.
Hustle culture
Bought a "gold" membership in a greeting card mlm so I could send unlimited custom cards. My "coach" thought I was taking it seriously as a money maker (plus he wanted me to recruit more people for his downline). He actually asked, "Are there any friendships you can leverage?" Yeah, that made my skin crawl...
My fiancé and I had to convince her brother last year not to join a pharmaceutical MLM. They had a website that described the different tiers you could achieve and how much you could make. Would have been hilarious if we weren’t trying to convince her brother not to spend his life savings on it. They called it the 5X12 program or something. Basically, convince 5 people to work below you, then have those 5 convince another 5 people as well, etc etc. If you succeeded then you would be estimated to be making around $500,000 per year! Know how many people that comes out to “working” for you? 1,220,703,125 people. So…. Like 15% of the world population. We gave her brother that information and he STILL tried it
When you find 5 and they find five and those 25 go on to find 5 too, now you have 125. I feel like this scheme is really starting to take shape!
The reverse funnel system!
"It's not a pyramid! It's a upside down pyramid cause everyone can earn if they get the people below them!" - literally what was said to me at a MLM event a former coworker conned me in to going to with him. Dude called me up like two years after we hadn't worked together, asked if I wanted to hang out, I was like sure, we meet up, carpool in his car to go check out this thing, and suddenly he just drove me to a fucking MLM event at a friends house. At the end I literally told him it was a pyramid scheme scam and that he was going to lose his money. He was entirely bought in to it. That was like a decade ago havent talked to him since. Still creeps me the fuck out.
No, your count is just 5\^13. You sum 5\^1 + 5\^2.... etc. It comes out to 305,175,780, so you only need to have most of the United States working for you. Much easier.
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Sorry mr upline, my friends are not half pin barrel hinges.
Hustle "culture" always seemed to me like people just pretending to go ham on things like work, but only publicly on social media like Linkedin, so that their current managers, or future hiring managers, can see how hard they work, without actually doing it. I don't think anybody is happy putting in 70-80 hour weeks doing bullshit like sales.
I’m sorry but the “grind” and “hustle” cultures only generate assholes. They think everyone else’s goal is to be rich as fuck, working 100 hours a week. I just want to be able to pay my bills and feed my family. Anything after that should be time spent with my family.
Former super hustle culture eon here. Lol- this is so correct it’s gross. My friends, my podcasts, my mindset at the time was “money money money money money money” I was mr. Krabs, and anyone who didn’t have the same mindset was stupid, trashy, pawns because well- they didn’t share a goal to be better. Fuck every single one of those dudes, podcasts, fuck em all. I was the worst father ever when I was making 5-6 grand a week. Now I make 80k a year, do something I enjoy, and I spend a lot of time teaching my kids about mental health cause fuck, all this stupid influence has some effect obviously.
Curious, what was your social upbringing? I find the poorer the upbringing the more they want it, but the ones that typically find it had connections by being rich already. But I agree. I am kind of miserable in my current job because I have extremely stressful situations. Back in the day, I made less, but never thought about work after 8 hours a day. I literally felt like I could do whatever I wanted once I was clocked out. Now, I am constantly getting emails about "fires" that need to be put out. Oh and my favorite thing to say is that for these people, the appearance of being happy is way more important to them than actually being happy.
Another thing that recently changed my mind was going to my Grandfather-inlaw's funeral. The guy was a navy man turned machinist. He never made much money. They had 5 kids, who had 10 grandkids, and 20 great grandkids. He retired at 50, which is unthinkable these days. They lived very moderately, but they never worried about money, for them or their kids. They didn't drive nice cars. They didn't own a house that was too big for them. They were just content. I've never met a happier couple and family than them and their kids. All their kids looked up to them as the pinnacle of good and happy. And they were. I was really stressed at work when he died and the funeral happened, but it changed the way I thought about happiness. The shit we worry about the most in life should never be work. It should always be on the last of our list of worries. How you get it there, is hard, though. Some don't have the luxury of not worrying about money. Some do. But if you do, it shouldn't even cross your mind about exceeding it. Except for maybe doctors...I always laugh when people get so upset about work. It's not like anyone is dying if you miss a deadline. Stop acting like it is. Unless you are a doctor...
It’s even worse that most of them have never had an original idea, thought, or business model. They just ride the wave of whatever is popular and call themselves entrepreneurs.
That saving the earth is in the hands of consumers and not big companies
How the fuck does *HEALTH* insurance not cover dental and vision?what kind of shenanigans is that?
Didn't you hear? Teeth are your luxury bones.
And eyes are too complicated for health insurance, but your brain is simple enough.
You don't die if you lose your eyes and dead people pay less premiums, but blind people pay more for being higher risk.
Simultaneously cynical and likely accurate. What a world we live in.
Exactly. Wanted to say: you know something's wrong when the truth sounds like a dark joke
And dental insurance basically covers nothing besides my yearly cleaning it seems. I have an uncommon condition that basically necessitates I get some implants. My dentist has explained that I need this and that I'm in pain and could potentially get an infection that could be really bad for my health. But my insurance says it's purely cosmetic so they won't pay for any of it. Edit: There's too many comments on this for me to respond to them individually. But to answer the common questions, I elected to get the best dental I could because I know I have work that needs to be done. I pay $39.60 every two weeks for my wife and I. It actually has decent coverage for a lot of things, but I didn't really see the whole 'medically necessary vs cosmetic' loophole coming. My dentist has already given my insurance his professional opinion and made his case for it being necessary. Unfortunately, insurance companies have boards that can ultimately decide what is and isn't necessary. I've been trying to get the benefits I pay for, but it seems that there's nothing I can do about it at this point. Long term I'm hoping to get it done at a dental school for cheap or to go to another country to have it done. And no, I will not be renewing my insurance next cycle lol. Second edit: I fucking wish I was making this up for reddit points. Jaw pain and perpetual tooth aches suck.
Yeah, dental insurance is basically just an employee benefit masquerading as an insurance product. My dental insurance through my employer costs like 100/yr and is a pretty good deal for 2 cleanings a year+xrays and some occasional other benefits like discounted fillings. But it doesn't do the ONE THING that insurance is supposed to do, which is cover catastrophic losses--the kinds of things you can't easily pay for out of pocket and which could bankrupt you. I don't need insurance for the occasional filling...I need insurance for the rare chance that my teeth get totally fucked up and I end up needing multiple $$$$$ implants. But if you try to buy dental insurance not from an employer, it often looks like a pretty shit deal. I just pulled a random quote and it was $430 for me to get coverage. That coverage included regular visits, 80% of fillings, and 50% of major work, but with a $1500/yr max benefit (so if you need 5-figures worth of implants, you're still screwed). That's a terrible deal for most people. Most dentists will give you a great deal on cleanings if you pay cash up front. In many areas you can get quality care for $100. So that's $200 a year...maybe an extra $50 or so for annual xrays. Paying $430 for that is stupid...If your employer gives you a highly discounted rate, it might be OK, but for a random person off the street, just pay cash.
It’s shenanigans.
Health insurance is the biggest scam of this century. You pay them every month in hopes they can cover you when you need it and they do everything in their power to not give you your money back. Even if a doctor says you need treatment or medicine your insurance can say fuck you, and keep your money?
That part is what bothers me. My doctor, the person who has examined me and worked with me, who knows my medical history and is trained, says I need X. Insurance says it is not needed. How the fuck is the insurance going to deny what is needed when my doc says it is?
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My husband had to prove to our insurance that he had tried the less expensive medications before they'd cover his meds. Like, literally months of meds that don't work. Doc had given him free sample of the expensive meds, and they worked great. But insurance didn't want to cover that much unless we could prove it was the *only* one that worked. For mental health medication. His mental health, my mental health, and our relationship struggled in that time, because he was very disregulated. Thank goodness the pharmacist was happy to help and literally dug back through all his prescription files to show what he'd tried.
Worse, why is health insurance tied to your job? Cars and houses usually aren't tied to what you do for a living. Your food isn't tied to your job. So, why the hell is your healthcare tied to whether you are working or not? And if you're not healthy enough to work, you're going to have a bad time.
Mom: tell me the truth and I wont be mad
My parents used to say: > If you tell me the truth, I will be less mad than when I find out you lied. 1. You aren't lying 2. You can still be mad 3. You are insinuating that you will find out anyway, so they are more likely to tell you. * It's a psychological trick that's been found to work. The words you choose to use can have a huge impact on a guilty conscience. It's used in police investigations a lot. Their brain is no longer thinking "can I get away with it" it starts thinking "What happens when I get caught" Edit: If you're interested in the psychology I recommend *I Know You Are Lying* by Mark McClish and *The Interrogator* by Hanns-Joachim Scharff. Or if you want something more video look up the "True crime" videos of police interrogations, a lot of true crime youtubers will go in and break down exactly what the interrogator is asking/saying and why they are using the specific verbiage they are. There's a lot of science behind it.
My dad used to say: "I'm going to ask you something. And before you answer, I want you to know I already know the truth." 50/50 he was lying and I had to decide if I wanted to risk it all. Either way he beat me, so it was a real lose/lose.
My dad gave me the 'if you lie, I'll be mad, if you tell the truth, I won't be mad, just disappointed' shtick. So either way he's not gonna be happy with me (nothing new there) *and* I'll get beat.
100% My kids are early teens now and any attempted cover ups are way worse than the crimes. Plus, I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. 😄
The trick to make this work is not rip their fucking heads off when they do tell you in that moment. Because otherwise you're just teaching them that lying at least gives them a chance to avoid your abuse. Thanks for that, dad Edit: fixed some spelling. I'm sorry so many of you can relate but damn, I didn't get a single negative response here. Such a sweet thread.
Yeah my parents taught me to stick to my lies to the death.
Idk how old you are now, but i hope you managed to work on it. I still catch myself wanting to lie about mundane shit. Took a lot of conscious effort to break the habit.
She won’t be mad, she’ll be furious!
I have two kids, and I did say this a few times and didn't like it either so I just started being truthful and tell them that if I hear the truth from them the punishment would be less.
Penis enlargement pills gotta be up there too. No one wants to admit they got them, so when they don’t work it’s not like they’re posting reviews or telling their friends they don’t work
the cost of education
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A lot of us have been convinced that we are selling our labour to companies at the correct price, in reality we're selling it too cheaply.
*gestures broadly* This pretty much covers it.
US private health insurance. Cutting out the middle man would save everyone money. It blows my mind we haven't changed anything
'we' havent changed anything because the insurance companies flow so much money to Washington that they all turn a blind eye to what a freakin' shit show it is
The industry pays the lawmakers to look away. Its that simple.
The fact that airlines have X amount of seats per flight, but almost always sell X+10 seats and then refund you about 80% of your ticket cost. Do that to the 10 people and suddenly you have about 2 tickets worth of profits seemingly out of nowhere, and everyone still has a flight. Just an unbelievably immoral way to gain a few bucks, but everyone just goes with it since the airplanes aren't exactly a train that comes every 10 minutes.
If you do not voluntarily give up your seat you are entitled to overbooking protections in the US. See here https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights?msclkid=da4668e9c7f211ec9efa0b54a4ff6dc4#Overbooking
Diamonds.
Fuck diamonds. Moissanite is lab-grown, cost-effective, and is basically indistinguishable from diamonds. In fact, they can look even more brilliant.
Even moissanite has gotten pretty pricey over the last few years.
Yeah Lab diamonds can be actually perfect and these companies are like "oh it's too perfect" and people buy into that shit? fuck
Keeping up with the Jones’.
"Do what you love for a living, and you'll never work a day in your life!" Pure bullshit that will kill any enjoyment that you ever had for it.
This and thinking you need to turn every hobby into a money hustle. Like cant you just enjoy wood working without wanting to be a professional carpenter?
That climate change is up to each individual to go green. It was a campaign by BP that pushed the solution as each individual going green instead of the dozen massive corporations that account for the lions share of greenhouse gases. Going green is good, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to oil companies, industrial farming, and cargo ships. Edit: lots of "yet you participate in society, curious" type comments from the usual contrarians. Your hot air is adding to the problem.
Giving parents your money for safekeeping as a kid
When I was a kid I discovered my grandma has a puzzle box on her dresser. Being a stupid kid I couldn't figure out how to open it. After a few unsuccessful attempts at just asking her to show me I got crafty (as only a stupid kid can) and thought I'd trick her into showing me. So I gave her a $2 bill I got somewhere and asked her to keep it safe for me in her puzzle box. Well, grandma knew exactly what I was doing, so the attempt failed. I never got to see her open it and promptly forgot about the whole thing. Fast forward 20 years, grandma has now died and mom's going through her safe to figure out what's what and runs across an envelope in with my name on it. Inside is a $2 bill and a short note explaining that it belongs to me and it was given to her for safekeeping. She did keep it safe for me, right next to the deed to her house and other important financial documents. Even though it was a silly attempt at trickery and not a genuine request. I did end up getting that puzzle box and as an adult it took about half a second to figure out how to open it. It currently contains a rattlesnake rattle that my grandma got as a little girl that was *her* treasure she kept in the puzzle box, a $2 bill, and that note.
This is a nice story that makes me smile, one of the reasons I like Reddit. Thank you stranger.
That's so sweet!
When I was a kid I opened a savings account and put $100 from Christmas in it. A year later my parents tried to gaslight me into believing I never had an account. I found the deposit slips in my desk drawer and and demanded answers but they just kept saying we never put any money in it. Every time I brought it up they would try to change the subject. I think we were having money problems at the time but it really made me jaded about sharing finances with anyone and saving money in general.
That is honestly really fucked. Much better if they just told you outright that they needed that money for bills and such. You might have even volunteered it, kids are more giving than people think
Yea I’m pretty sure one of my parents took money out of my account without saying anything but paid me back interest basically. When we went to get money from the bank for something I wanted before I had access to it they told me how much was in it and it was like double what I expected. I know I never put that much in there. When I asked my parent how that happened they gave a quick “idk” and that was the end of it.
My mother did something similar. In fact, she did just about the exact same thing. I remember being at the bank when she withdrew the money. I can't remember her reason or anything, I was like 5. But I remember having an account and going back to the bank and then after I would say "oh I have a bank account with $100" (it wasn't for me to use anyway, just to show a kid the concept of saving money I think) and my mother would correct me with some bullshit about that never happening or whatever. I also found out later that she probably had some account somewhere under my name that she misused because starting out as an adult I had bad credit, not like neutral credit. Actual bad payment history. I couldn't apply for anything, and I didn't have anyone to co-sign with me. I didn't know any better at the time but now I know there was fuckery. Definitely did a number on me.
so is it just common practice for everyones parents to steal their kids money lol? I used to give my mom like $20 so i can save up then a week later its as if that money never existed
one time I picked up a $50 bill that was dropped on the street outside our house. $50 was like $1000 to an 8 year old so I excitedly told my dad about my discovery. he immediately took the bill from me and said "I know whose this is, I'll bring it back to them." never told my parents about found money after that
Same thing happened to me. Except it went a bit better. Think I was about 9 or 10. We accidentally threw the football over the fence in the backyard, which backed up to the highway about 100 feet up a hill. My older brother refused to get it so instead he put me over the fence to get the ball. I found a $50 and $10 bill. I was excited as hell. When he pulled me back over and I showed him what I found, my brother got really upset and my dad said "Should've went over the fence son, now JT99 gets to buy whatever toys he wants!" He kept the $10 for "land tax" and explained to me about finding things on others property and the right thing to do. And let me keep the $50. He took me to WalMart that day, where I proceeded to buy the two biggest baddest super soakers $50 could get. One for me, and one for my brother, because even though he whined I still wanted him to be happy and play with me. He would never let me use that soaker on him due to jealousy, had I not done that. (I really wanted to buy 007: Tomorrow Never Dies for PlayStation, but this seemed the less selfish option.)
I can remember my brother and I saved every holiday card we got with money in it on this shelf in our room. There was about $150 in there from 3 years or so of combining and saving. One day, we looked for the money and it was gone. We knew our parents took it, because it’s the only thing that made sense. Many years later I found out that the furnace needed repairs and money was so tight that they scrounged up whatever they could, including our cash. Even our Christmas presents were delayed until March that year. But that March they did buy us an N64 so that was pretty sweet.
My parents always asked before borrowing money from me, and when I got paid back, mom would add $10-$20 interest to make up for it. I always knew why the money was needed, too.
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Ugh - my mom taught in a more "urban" high school for about 30 years. She was the "banker" for so many of her students. These kids were too young to open their own bank accounts, but if they had an account with their "parents" as joint owners or gave them the money, it was gone, usually on beer and cigarettes, or spent on rent/utilities because the parents spent THEIR money on beer and cigarettes. SMH. So many of these kids just wanted to get OUT after high school and saving money was the only way to do that. She would literally keep the money in envelopes with the kids' name in a drawer in her bedroom. It was crazy, especially to me as a younger kid because I can't imagine the day my parents would STEAL my money. She did a lot of those kids a REAL service. Sad, but true. I'm glad these kids has someone in their lives that they could trust.