It’s a fact of life: scammers are everywhere.
And you gotta keep your eyes open and be aware of your surroundings so you don’t fall victim to any number of scams that are around us.
Unfortunately, some of these scams even get normalized by people.
AskReddit users talked about scams that they believe have been normalized by society.
Let’s see what they had to say.
1. Interesting.
“Funerals.
Paying for things like caskets for your loved once when you’re at possibly the most emotionally vulnerable that you could be.”
2. Scam!
“Amway.
Multi-Level Marketing in general is just a pyramid scheme that is only allowed to go on because the people behind the scheme actually sell a product.”
3. No thanks.
“The $130 a photography company is requesting of me to release the 4 electronic photos they took of me during my university graduation procession.”
4. Flashy.
“Diamond anything.
Just saw the front page post of McGregor’s watch and was thinking its resale value must be as low as it is hideous.”
5. Awful.
“Payday loans.
Unconscionable bulls**t designed to suck wealth out of the people who cannot afford to lose it, who would ptherise have spent that money anyway on something worthwhile for their families, that would improve their lives and potentially provide for the livelihood of others in their community.
If a payday loan place is in a community, it is literally putting 10s if not 100s of thousands of dollars into the hands of very rich people who are definitely not spending that money at the corner store.
It’s even worse in the UK. The US has a cap on how high a monthly loan can be, like 500% IIRC, which is still terrible, but in the UK there was a company putting people in hock to the tune of 5000%.”
6. Trendy.
“Being Trendy. Fast fashion.
People buy unnecessary clothes just to keep up with the trend.
Its totally fine if you wear old clothes for years.”
7. Absurd.
“100% HOAs.
I pay for my house then pay some Karen money for her to tell me I can’t do whatever I want to MY HOUSE.
Ridiculous”
8. Really bad.
“U.S. Health Insurance and Medical Billing.
I used to think healthcare was expensive because of equipment and the cost of the provider salaries, and then I learned about allowed amounts and how it’s the insurers that profit from healthcare not the hospitals or clinics.
What they do should be illegal. Randomly denying claims, paying partial reimbursement, hiking premiums – its madness.”
9. Working your life away.
“Working for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year for 50 years, and that’s assuming you’re lucky, and it’s the only way to even get by for most people.
I sell my life and get the bare minimum in return. Fun.”
10. Rip off.
“Weddings. Holy s**t are weddings a rip off.
It’s such a huge amount of money for one. F**king. Day. We have ingrained the idea in most young girls that they have to grow up to have their “special day” and passed that down from generation to generation.
You’re no less married than if you just go down to the courthouse on a Tuesday afternoon, and/or have your small religious ceremony.”
11. Not worth it.
“Superfoods, which is basically just a scam for people to spend tons of money on imported exotic foods which are not superior any way to the humble potato or raddish.”
12. A real pain.
“In order to cancel my smartphone contract this month, I had to fill out a form on my providers website, call a specific number within 7 days, only to sit on hold for minutes twice before being redirected, confirm the last four digits of by IBAN, answer a security question and finally, again listen to 10 minutes of, “Can I interest you in this special offer we‘ve designed just for you?“.
To contrast this, all I would have needed to do in order to continue or change my subscription plan, even to a significantly more expensive one, was pick an option on their website. No more affordable alternatives though, obviously,
Following that I received several calls a day by different customer retention numbers, which I had to block. They are now sending letters…
Never again. Sad thing is, I know this would‘ve worked had I been only a little less patient or busier. F**king vampires.”
13. Tips.
“Tipping, in particular how it’s viewed in the United States.
Biggest f**king scam that restaurants have pulled off. They don’t pay their employees a living wage then have somehow convinced both their employees and society to shift the blame from the establishment onto the customers.
It baffles me. Pay them a living wage, let me decide if I want to tip or not.”
Now we want to hear from you.
In the comments, tell us about the scams that you think are normalized by society.
Please and thank you!
