Reddit Aggravating_Week5275 wanted to list all of the swindles we all need to be watching for, so they asked:
"What do you think is a giant scam?"
I have fallen for a few scams. I hate to say it. Ever heard of Columbia House?
Vital Needs
Diabetes Insulin GIF by diababelifeGiphy"Price of insulin."
eaa802
"Can't believe I had to scroll that much to find this answer. Or any other vital medication."
Lummita
Knowledge Scams
"Brand new college textbook prices."
NegativeReplies
"Unethical life pro tip: I’ve bought used copies and told my professor that the card didn’t come with my 'new' copy, they typically contact the publisher and get free codes. Especially if you get an old edition, you just have to skip around as the chapter order has changed but it’s the same material for pennies on the dollar. Also, many books can be downloaded for free at various online site."
Kronikinsanity
Worst ever...
"Every MLM ever."
Illustrious-Chip-245
"I used to be with one but I didn't know it was an MLM until years after I quit. I lost more money than I ever "gained" from it. When I joined I didn't know they had like a minimum amount of orders that had to be done within certain time-frames or whatever. That's part of what led me to quitting. I keep pouring money into it and over time I got less and less orders. Not worth it."
idratherchangemyold1
Digital Crap
"99.9% of NFTs."
darkhorsehance
"It’s digital proof of ownership of something, that can’t be forged, so there’s a market for things like digital tickets to events, exclusive clubs and memberships offered by companies for customers, etc."
"But in those types of cases the value is based on the real world services and goods provided by owning it (in addition to scarcity). I’m sure there will even be digital art that will increase in value over the years too, but your odds of getting one are pretty similar to your odds of winning the lottery, aka a pretty terrible investment."
Just4nsfwpics
Interruptions...
Social Media Marketing GIF by GrowthXGiphy"Majority of ads."
SujammaCartel
"It's bullcrap what I see today, especially on YT. Kids are seeing this garbage."
Efficient_Garden5976
This NFT thing sounds insane. Also... how do I make one?
I'll microwave...
Season 5 Cooking GIF by Living SingleGiphy"Cooking for 1 hour and finishing the food in 10 minutes."
BlockNarrow6745
Not so bright...
"Diamonds."
New-Sir-4662
"My wife is in the relatively minor school of thought that lab-grown diamonds are just as good as dug-out-of-the-ground diamonds. Her wedding jewelry is something like 3 or 4 carats of diamond. probably something like £6000 if we'd bought natural diamonds, but only a fraction of that in reality. We're not telling anyone. :D "
Ruadhan2300
'get a better rate'
"Credit scores. Basically, a few companies convinced us it was totally fine to take all of our financial information and sell it to others, under the guise it would help us 'get a better rate' when we wanted to borrow money. In reality, although banks do care about these credit reports, they are only checking for debt-to-income ratios and other obvious red flags. Regardless, an entire industry has sprung up around optimizing credit scores."
triley368
After we breathe...
"Funerals. This include Majority of funeral homes, coffin stuff, and making the body look pretty for said funeral. It's a pretty American thing and actually also a pretty new concept that dead bodies are gross. Until pretty recently people would keep the bodies of dead loved ones in their homes for days and even pose for pictures with them. It helped with the grieving process and it just doesn't feel natural the way we treat our dead."
yammsandasideofguac
Accolades
season 8 episode 23 GIFGiphy"Most college degrees. Unless you're aiming for an industry that requires one (doctor/lawyer/etc), it really feels like a way to saddle 17 year olds with a lifetime of debt."
CHUNKY_BLOODY_QUEEFS
So much money...
"Health care, medical insurance and medicine. I've been fighting for over a month to get life sustaining medicine approved by insurance. It's 8000 dollars self pay per month for a 10ml vial. Talk about liquid platinum... I work in the medical field and I'm paying for insurance that hasn't done a damn thing for me yet this year."
Jam_Sauce
The Moon
"Companies selling stars and acres of the moon."
Graceoc323
"Actually I did once buy my parents the name of a binary star for their anniversary. Yeah, we all know it was bogus but it was pretty fun to think there was a solar system named Mabel (red dwarf) and Frank (yellow star)."
celticxcross
What's up with that???"
"Having to pay for life-saving medicine. Like insulin. What's up with that???"
KittyMori
"Also medicine expiration dates. Most of the time they just want to make more money by having to re-fill. Or needing more medicine you need to see your doctor first which is more expenses."
Latter-Project536
America
"The American healthcare system provides the same service as most developed nations for twice the price, with the balance going primarily to a bunch of entitled hothouse flowers who inherited shares in publicly traded health insurance companies so they can fuck off and do whatever they want for their entire lives without ever being forced to provide value to other human beings. The idleness of the born rich is paid for in the blood of everyone else."
Flaky-Fellatio
a wonderful thing...
"Prayer for pay. Honestly, anyone who is preaching about the champion of the poor, whose gospel states its easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Mark 10:25) then drive off in a Lamborghini to his mansion is a scam artist and horrible person. Religion can be a wonderful thing, it can also be weaponized, monetized, and b**tardized by those with bad hearts, bad judgment, or bad intentions."
WarLawck
Uni
"The fact that spending thousands of money and time for college and being broke doesn't get you anywhere but a related diploma of 6months gets you a job and a better pay?? Not for all the fields of study but for the ones relevant isn't the University just scamming us?"
zakiel_faith
Fun
"Sims 4 and its respective DLCs. It's a bare bones game with like 20 hours of playtime total... and to make it fun, you need DLC. Problem is, each of the largest DLC only gives like 10ish hours of playtime. In addition, whilst playing, you'll always have that itch to buy more DLC to make the game more fun."
"Before you know it, you're $200 down the drain and only have like a chunk of the actual DLC packs, and still feel bored. Only game I am willing to pirate and I encourage others who want to play Sims 4 to do so. It's a f**king scam."
SirChopslice
Sexist
sexist GIFGiphy"The pink tax. Don't know what I'm talking about? Go buy something for men like razors or deodorant then go buy the exact same thing but the women's version. It will be more expensive. For no reason."
PartSwimming
Points
"Credit Score definitely a scam. They be like congrats you've paid your credit cards on time, here's a 7 point increase in your score also them you've spent $50 on a credit card your score has dropped 50 points. 💯 scam designed to keep you poor & in debt!"
Few_Lobster7961
Steer clear of all the scamming succubus. Succubi? You know what I mean. They are strong in numbers.
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Valentines Day Love GIFThe Bling....
Diamonds, worthless stone.
Diamonds are not a scam. They are precisely what they are claimed to be: sparkly rocks that will raise your social status because humans have collectively decided that owning these sparkly rocks is a sign of high social status.
Is this silly and arbitrary? Yes, but no more than certain clothes, watches, cars, phones, even accents being also regarded as signs of high social status.
Would many people be better off if they stopped caring so much about raising their social status via owning stuff? Also yes, and it's literally been thousands of years since this has been first observed.
But nonetheless, there is nothing deceptive about diamonds. If you own an expensive diamond, you will be able to show people that you are rich enough to own an expensive diamond; and this is exactly what expensive diamonds are for.
A Little Big!
My favorite scam is the World's Littlest Skyscraper in Wichita Falls, TX. It's a little skyscraper, but a pretty big scam!
The engineer who took up $200,000 to build the skyscraper in 1919 (which would be $2,927,876.16 in 2020) clearly noted 480" height on the plans rather than 480', but no one noticed. However, because they'd agreed to these plans, it was legally binding. That's how Wichita Falls, TX obtained a 4-story skyscraper that was too narrow to contain stairs.
That Mess....
blog value GIFGiphyAmway.
The problem isn't the products or even their quality. The problem is that the market for them just doesn't really exist. That means that the products largely just serve as nodes that transfer wealth back to the top.
Pay as you go?
You have an inheritance of $70,000 waiting for you, all you have to do is send them $10,000 to get it. Them = the people trying to scam you. They say the inheritance is waiting for you, as soon as you give them money to start the process. I had a friend fall for this, but he didn't have the money they wanted. He asked us to lend it to him, and we had to explain to him it was fake. He was into ancestry, and had distant relatives, which made him an easy mark.
"royalty"
Payday and title loans.
The concept of "royalty." How one person/family can be deified and hold so much power over so many other people. It's ridiculous.
Do I Need It?
Buying something that's on sale just because it's on sale when they wouldn't have bought it otherwise in the first place.
Well that depends imo. If it is something you know you'll end up using it is ok. E.g. last week coffee beans I like were on sale with 40% off. I know I have enough coffee for at least another month and had no intention of buying coffee that day, but I still bought two kilo cause I knew that I'll end up using them.
Seriously?
Angry Fox Tv GIF by Hell's KitchenGiphyPay TV.
You pay to watch ads?
What is wrong with you.
The Share....
As someone who works in timeshare escalations.... definitely timeshares... even points based ones..... you spend buttloads of money for something and get hounded on future trips by sales people at the resort, and if you meet with them they will tell the owner 'your points are worthless, you need to buy more' and they usually do.
Let me explain.
Attention Listen GIFGiphyPermanent life insurance. Let me explain. So if you have dependents (kids, spouse, family living with you), and you are the primary breadwinner in the family, you want to have life insurance in case something happens.
But, once your kids grow up and get their own jobs, you don't really need the life insurance payout anymore. Thats why term life insurance exists, to get through the dependency, but with permanent life insurance, you end up paying more than your payout most of the time, and when factoring that with the interest you lost...
Damn Barney
barney dancing GIFGiphyPrinter Ink cartridges. I swear to freaking God they make me want to make the American war crimes look like a freaking episode of barney and friends.
Nothing Back
Tax refunds. So many people think getting a big one is great, when it actually means you gave the government an interest-free loan for a year.
Unless you have massive child credits.
School Fraud
The college textbooks, they just get minor changes every year to make the current versions outdated and force you to buy new ones which the school will buy back at fraction of a fraction of what you paid for them.
Yeah this one really grinds my gears. Libgen is the best work around. Saved me literally thousands.
bingo!
loser lottery GIFGiphyThe lottery has to be up there.. it's so depressing seeing 70+ people spending their social security on scratchers.
Just One...
"C'mon, we're only going out for one beer."
Going out for one beer is like trying to fall down one stair... you fall down them all and then pee on your floor.
$20 as a cure-all
It'd be easy to pick on religion or wealth distribution in this thread, but that's a downer and we're here to have fun.
So I'll say homeopathic medication. Pour tap water into a vial and sell it for $20 as a cure-all. You don't even have to do all that crap with diluting an ingredient because your product has been proven not do do anything and if it actually does do anything you'll get in real trouble.
Get a Broom
This Is Fine GIFGiphyKirby vacuum cleaners......
Damn you got me. It's been a good vacuum, but $1500 is a lot. My parents still have theirs they got back in the 80s for a wedding gift.
Fairy Tales
Religion: Fairy Tales for Adults.
Came here to say the same thing. The question says "in history" and most replies are modern day scams from within the past century. Religion has been using fear of the unknown to scam people since prehistoric times.
It's all the same....
Organic.
Everything living is organic, so you can slap that label on every food if you wanted to. Also if it's non-gmo they actually use farming methods worse for the environment, like harsher pesticides and taking up even more land to farm the same amount of product that gmo foods could grow on a smaller area of land.
Plus the foods that are "non-gmo" are actually gmo bc they've changed over the years. Corn as you know it was genetically modified from how it was in the past, even if it says non-gmo. There used to be no sweet corn 'til they modified it. The only difference is they don't want to keep up with the latest gmo's that help the crops protect themselves from insects and stuff, so they have to use more pesticides than the latest gmo farms.
Maybe it's changed the past few years to be something different, but that's what we learned when stuff like this first came out. I only know this stuff bc I was raised in an agricultural community, and all of us at some point had to learn a bit about farming in school and from talking to our farmer friends.
Frauds...
Donald Trump Animation GIF by Richie BrownGiphyBelieving that politicians care about the voters. Wrong. They care about getting elected and re-elected and kowtow to party bosses, not the citizens who voted for them. There is no credible evidence to refute this fact.