With the news the way it's been lately, not a day goes by that we don't hear the word "corrupt" in one way or another. Whether we're talking about politics, police, demons (or gems for you Steven Universe fans) - corruption is everywhere.
Reddit user imbasargarepa asked :
What line of business is generally more corrupt than people realize?
Turns out there are about a zillion more examples of rampant corruption than many people initially thought. What really made this thread interesting wasn't just the businesses and industries that people pointed out. It was the fact that a lot of the responses came from people with behind-the-scenes access, insider information, and knowledge that the average customer or person would never have.
The loopholes, angles, and technicalities that some of these industries exploit are honestly kind of stunning. Take a look.
Towing Trouble
Towing. Companies who tow cars are shady as AF. I had my car towed from the scene of an accident, and I couldn't get an insurance estimate for 4 days because the tow company claimed they didn't have it. Then they charged the insurance company for 4 days of "storage" after I went to their lot myself and took pictures of my car sitting there.
Here in WA, towing companies can sell your car at an auction if they have it for 100 hours. A friend's car got towed from an accident and it took him nearly that long to find it. I gave him a ride there, and they already had his car on a car carrier to take to an auction. He almost lost his car.
We have an automatic tow policy at my apartment complex. My husband and I got back from a trip with a rental car, and just parked it. Stupid on our part
They towed within 2 min. That leads us to believe they were watching, knew who/where we were, and had no interest in giving us actual time to move it - which sucks, but fine.
We went to go get it from the tow yard because we had to take the rental back the next day and their credit card machine was broken. It was -10 degrees, three a.m, and they wouldn't/couldn't give us our car back because of the card machine.
We asked "Well when will you have your card reader fixed?" They said they didn't know.
"Do you take cash?" They said no.
Then how the hell were we supposed to get our car back? They had no real answer. Well then you pretty much have just stolen our car.
Pinkwashing
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Susan G Koman and the other disease 'awareness' charities. Most of the money donated does not reach the scientists and doctors actually researching cures and treatments.
To add to this, the pink breast cancer ribbon isn't trademarked. Meaning anyone can slap it on anything to make it seem charitable when it's really just shady marketing. It's a practice called pinkwashing, a company slaps a pink ribbon on a product to make buyers think they're supporting breast cancer research, but they don't actually donate anything. The worst in when products with ingredients known to cause cancer do it. And they do it a lot.
As a former cancer researcher, I can confirm. They also reject any grant application that studies any treatment than can work on other cancers because they then feel like other cancer organizations are 'stealing' from their "brand" of cancer. However, scientific standards dictate that all potential treatments must be studied on several different cancer types in the lab and in vivo to be considered a legit study. So it's a catch-22. Do you have an amazing new discovery that could cure breast cancer but also works on prostate or colon cancer? Sorry, no money for you!
Sadly, because the US government cut NIH funding so badly over a decade ago, more and more labs have to rely on charity and industry funding, which leads to biased results or good research getting defunded and tossed in the circular file. Entire labs are shutting down because of it.
Also, look at who Komen takes money from. A lot of food and chemical companies. Dairy consumption is a known cause of breast cancer, but Komen takes money from yogurt companies and lets them slap pink ribbons all over their packaging to give it a false health halo to increase profits. It's hypocritical at best. If Komen was truly interested in preventing breast cancer, they'd stop taking money from the companies that cause it and start educating the public about how to prevent it. Full stop.
Mortuary Services
Mortuary services. You do not need to be embalmed, you do not need an expensive casket, and they are overcharging you for everything. It's a disgusting extortion racket no one does anything about.
Worked in the funeral business, can confirm. I used to be written up on evaluations for not up-selling caskets, vaults, and urns to families. Legally you don't even need an urn, if you provide the funeral home with a container they have to use it. I put someone in a coffee can once just like Donnie in the Big Lebowski.
Pest Control
Pest control. You can buy almost every single thing we use yourself online without a license. For the price you pay for one service you can get enough stuff to do it yourself for years. Also, almost all major companies now will spray the outside only if you aren't there because we're required to complete a certain number of jobs a day. So if you never confirmed the appointment we made for you that you never even knew about, guess what, you're still getting sprayed - and billed. I work for one and the policy now is that the techs have to do the outside only if no one is there. My boss even told me to not call the customer if we thought no one was home because they may try to reschedule. Just spray exterior.
Worked as a pest control tech for a summer and can confirm some of this, though at our company we would call if you weren't there and leave a note to reschedule the indoor treatment later. Also, training for this job took like 1 hour, and basically amounts to "hit corners, crevices, openings, and humid areas." People thought I knew a lot more about pest control than I did.
- Akomatai
The Temp Employee
Hiring temp employees.
Besides the low pay and zero respect there is also the health insurance scams. I had an agency charge me $8,000 per year automatically for a health insurance package that only covered $5,000 AFTER my initial up front costs of $5,000.
In short I had to pay $13,000 just to get $5,000 worth of coverage.
Which was of course denied claiming a pre-existing condition. Being hit by a car is, "pre-existing," apparently. I was hit that day. It's why I was at the doctor.
They denied paying for the CAT scan stating the injury occurred prior to being refereed by the doctor.
I had health insurance through a temp agency like a dozen years ago that didn't actually cover anything. It was weird. They had a network, no one was in network.
My husband was once hired as a contractor through a temp agency. The company who contracted him promised they'd make him a full time employee with benefits after a year.
I don't consider it a coincidence that he was fired less than a month before that year was up. Worse, he didn't qualify for unemployment since he was a temp.
It's a racket.
Megachurch Megabucks
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Former Altar boy here. All that money people give to churches makes me sick. Most of it isn't going to good works. It's going to the mega umbrella corporations, the Vatican, building Joel Osteen's mansion, and getting your pastor a new Benz. They take poor peoples last few dollars and hoard it or use it to develop their brand. It's just another business. The people who pay the price for their greed is societies most vulnerable like the elderly.
- Obladi
Mega Churches in the US: These guys are stealing money hand over first through the use of flashy sermons and trumped up versions of how the Bible actually works. Not to mention the fact that most of the donations they receive help the people that own the church pay for private jets and mansions. Remember that mega church pastor who "needed" a private jet so he wouldn't have to share his flight with "sinners?" Yeah...
Even if there's a catastrophe in their neighborhood they can't be bothered to send some money their way. After that last tornado in Missouri a local mega church didn't donate a dime, meanwhile a local casino donated a large sum of money to the victims.
- mbattagl
Yup, Joel Osteen didn't do shit here in Houston during Harvey. I lived right by the church and there was NO water like he tried to say. Meanwhile Mattress Mack opened all his stores for people and did a ton to help.
- Mper526
Joel Osteen couldn't be bothered to open the doors to his as a shelter, without a ton of pressure, after Harvey flooded Houston. His own congregation was basically told to suck it. Megachurch operators are ghouls, to their rotten cores.
My grandmother is destitute and relies on my mother for everything now despite having been well set for retirement, all thanks to the "prosperity gospel" preached on TBN. She sent them everything, on the promise that God would return her "investment" seven-fold. If hell is real, I have no doubt those snakes will be there with me.