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When I first saw this question I thought, “how can there be this many answers out there,” which I guess means I’m an optimist or something, I don’t know.
But somehow, these 17 people (and many, many more) all came up with submissions for the most unethical profession around, so read through them and see if yours made the list.
17. Be nice to the olds.
Maybe not the most but rent to own companies are up there.c
If you want some sweet revenge look up Jim Browning on YouTube. He intentionally clicks the scams and calls them and let’s them access his computer.
He then reverse accesses their computer so he can take full control of their computer unknowingly and gains access to their finances and everyone they’ve scammed and sometimes even their computer cameras and security cameras. And then he reports them to the cyber police.
16. Extremely dangerous.
Media outlets that take money from interest groups (or owned by specific people) and espouses their talking points instead of reporting the factual truth.
“This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.”
15. Not in general, but…
Mediums and psychics who capitalize on the pain and grief their clients feel from losing someone they love.
“I will help you communicate with your dead loved one for $200 an hour” the Gabby Petito (sp?) Case was so f**ked up with all the Tik Tok psychos, oh I’m sorry, psychics posting videos saying she was speaking to them from beyond the grave.
14. Just feels icky.
Any profession where the source of your income is scamming the old and/or the gullible.
13. Not to mention they’re annoying.
Scam call centers. They will do anything they can to get money
12. Shouldn’t be a full time job.
Politician shouldn’t be, but the system makes it really easy for people to forget they are public servants and not out for themselves.
In Australia, it’s not even illegal for them to outright lie in their advertising. Every other business in the country has advertising rules they have to obey or get fined in the thousands but pollies can say what they want and get away with it.
11. Whatever it takes.
Outbound sales call center worker, you are literally told to lie to make sales especially to older people.
I once worked in a call centre and it was for a catalogue so not actual cold calling but definitely trying to make sales out of nowhere. Anyway I get a call one day and having a lovely chat with her for ages and putting stuff in her basket to send for her to try, and get son comes home mid-call and starts telling me how she has dementia and is getting these calls, making orders and forgetting them, then forgetting to send them back.
All while getting distressed about it because she can’t remember anything and they were in the process of legal action to try stop the calls and spending. after he hung up, I asked my boss what to do and she said to just send it through.
I felt like the worst person after that and the whole job just broke me. I left not long after that. Call centres are actual cesspits.
10. Pretty much theft.
Pay day loans. Want a loan with 600% interest?
I have a friend who works her ass off, has had a difficult life and had been struggling a bit, and needed $250 to make rent. I had just set up her computer and had stopped by to drop something off and she was filling in the financial info part of a payday loan form, and had already clicked “next” after she entered her contact information. I stopped her and helped her out with the money in exchange for one of her amazing dinners if I bought the groceries.
About a week later she called me crying, saying there was an officer coming to her house to arrest her for non-payment of the payday loan that she didn’t get. These ruthless fucks took her info and tried to scare her into giving them twice the amount she was going to take out. I calmed her down, assured her, then reassured her later that night when she called me again, that it was a scam and she wasn’t getting arrested.
This woman is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life. She’s older, doesn’t have much of an education, but has raised some amazing children and would give you the shirt off of her back if you needed it. F**k those douchebag scammers.
9. They’re scammers.
I worked in the Payday Loan industry for a minute…
Legal money sharks who prey on folks with poor credit to borrow money at insane interests rates (700+%)
Here’s how it woks. You need to borrow $700 until your next payday. On your payday (2 weeks from now) you will need to pay back $854 (700 plus interest.) If you don’t have $854 to part ways with in 2 weeks, no problem! Simply pay the interest ($154) and roll over to the next payday. Still don’t have $854 on your next payday? Cool, just pay the interest and roll it over another 2 weeks. You could roll it 3 times before we asked for the full amount.
The place that I worked at would allow customers to take out a new loan after that 3rd roll to start the process all over. This place had customers who had been stuck in this cycle for YEARS.
I worked there in 2008 for about 5 months. Xmas came and the big boss asked why our default numbers (people past due on their payments) were so high? I said, “If I were in our customers shoes, I would be buying presents for my kids and trying to feed my family instead of paying on this loan.” He grunted and snarled at me. Then I gave my notice.
8. Confusing on purpose.
I worked at an inbound call center selling checks. We had to follow a script that was full of doublespeak and confused almost everyone and our job was to literally trick them into spending more money on dumb stuff.
We were punished for any deviations from the script even to answer a question and were not allowed to build rapport or make conversation at all. Of course a lot of elderly folk just agreed to everything because they didn’t understand what was happening.
Occasionally their adult children would call back and understandably yell at us for tricking their relatives and try to cancel orders although it was often too late to cancel. It was absolutely soul crushing and I didn’t last very long.
7. They make me so mad.
Televangelists. Easy, they’re confidence men, and true pieces of crap. Looking at you Joel “I’m a garbage f**king person” Osteen.
That Peter Popoff (sp?) guy is pretty bad too. Just saw a commercial the other day where he’s selling “Holy Water” that will bring you good fortune. Had paid actors saying things like “I ordered the water, followed the instructions, and have been blessed with a $50,000 raise at my job”
6. Ripping off kids.
I used to buy, trade and sell trading cards. It seemed unethical cause you’d always be trying to get an amazing deal from people and especially kids.
If someone didn’t know the price of the card you’d still haggle with them to get it even lower.
I remember one of my buddies getting 3 cards worth $150 each for about $30 cause the guy didnt know the price had spiked a couple hours ago.
5. Banks, ugh.
I recently went thru a situation wherein my girlfriend (“Jenny”) had her car repossessed and I came away fully believing that system to be one of preying on poor people.
Jenny and I recently moved and she forgot to update car loan information so the auto-pay failed and missed two monthly payments (about $600). Definitely her mistake, but an honest one. The money was there but the system was in motion.
Repo guys showed up to take the car. Jenny realized the mistake and called the bank her car loan was with (Huntington). The bank said they couldn’t accept payment because the account was frozen so they had to let the guys take the car. Her car is taken, then the bank explains the process. The entire remaining balance is due within 30 days or the car will be auctioned and any amount of the remaining loan not satisfied by the auction is Jenny’s responsibility. That payment had to be made as a bank to bank transfer, which according to Bank of America, can only be completed by appointment with a bank manager. I expect this is because her loan account was put into a status that prevented payments from being made directly to the account via the website. Jenny’s checking account is with BoA so she went there and a teller said only a bank manager or specialist person (the people with the clear offices) could handle it. Jenny took out a small loan out of her 401k to cover the remaining loan balance because she didn’t have that amount on hand, scheduled an appointment with BoA to transfer funds to Huntington. It took about a week and a half to get the money and pay off the loan. A fun point was that BoA’s system was down so they couldn’t do it the day she first scheduled it and had to reschedule a few days later.
Now, Jenny calls Huntington and they confirm the car is paid off and she can pick up her car. It only gets worse from here. We’re in middle Tennessee. The car was towed about 2 hours away to Kentucky the day after being collected. It was then driven an additional two hours further away but still in Kentucky so Jenny would have to arrange a ride to get her car. Oh and the place is only open M-F and between 8am-5pm so her and I had to take off a full day of work to go pick up her car.
Once we get to where the car was (a company called Adesa), there was about a $100 fee to collect it, the gas tank was on empty, there was fast food trash in it that was not there when it was taken (likely left by the driver), and a handful of items were stolen from inside the car (CDs, phone charging mounts, sunglasses).
I don’t know that I’ve never been more furious in my life. That industry preys on those that are financially troubled by making it as hard as possible to pay the fees and get the car.
4. This makes me see red.
People who own private prisons.
Lobbying governments to make more shit illegal because they’re running low on slave labour is dystopian s*%t.
And don’t forget directly paying cash for prisoners too.
3. The poor and desperate.
MLMs for sure. They prey on the poor and desperate.
Nearly joined an MLM this year without realising. I feel bad for the young people who get sucked in, like a staff who interviewed me who I found out was actually younger than me by a few years. The stuff they say to get you on board is “too good to be true” levels of absurdity
”Join us to help sell water tanks and you’ll earn $400 per sale. The more sales you make a month, you can earn up to $6000 a month.”
I (22M) think what killed any hope of me joining was when they just devalued all my work experience prior by saying the skills I learned in my industry (retail) won’t help in the long run, but this job will.
2. It’s not helping anyone.
Those people that try to sell alternative medicine. I’m talking about people who sell beads or stones or “cream of grass root” or something made up to treat stuff like cancer or strokes or something.
Literally just a scam to make money with no science behind it.
1. It always comes up.
“We’ve been trying to reach you concerning your vehicles extended warranty!”
I’m…a little floored that there are so many professions people just assume are doing dirty business.
That said, did we miss one? Add it in the comments if you think we did!
