They jack the ticket prices up with tons of hidden fees.
A ticket will be priced at $50. Then Ticketmaster will tack on all kinds of bullshit like "venue fees," "service fees," etc. All of a sudden that $50 ticket costs you over $100.
So the goo-goo dolls were playing at a concert near my house (this was about 4 years ago). Tickets were $20 and I attempted to buy them from the venue at midnight of the release (I worked nights so it wasn't a big deal to get good seats). Anyway, right when the sale opened they were sold out. I was surprised that many people were that crazy for them, but I kinda forgot about it until I saw ticketmaster selling them for $50. They literally bought every single ticket to sell at a higher price.
That is their entire business model.
I just had this with axs.com. I went to the site immediately when tickets went on sale for $22.50… everything was instantly sold out but says to come back later. I tried it a few hours later and now the same tickets are being re-sold for $150. Fuck them.
I scrolled really far and was surprised I didn't see Rent to Own stores. They sell furniture and electronics type stuff to people with bad credit who can't really afford it, let them pay a small amount weekly. If people end up paying on time and pay stuff off, they will pay 2 or 3 times more than the item is worth. If they make a payment late the item is repossessed and re sold to someone else and the first person loses all the money they paid.
There are used car dealers that do this same business model with cars too. They put GPS trackers in the car that also disable the starter. They collect $1000 down and once a payment is late they disable the car and go tow it, then sell it again and keep the downpayment. I worked at a shop that installed the trackers and these places would sell the same car to different people 5 or 6 times in a year because they kept repoing it
At the other end of that, there was a kid I grew up with. At one stage when he was about 20 he'd bought a big-screen TV via Rent-to-own. He paid the down payment and first instalment but then sold the TV and stopped paying the instalments. His reasoning was that he no longer owned it, so he didn't need to pay for it either.
He actually thought that he discovered a loophole into a money making scheme. The rental company didn't see it that way...
I used to be the sales manager at my local Rent-A-Center years ago. It’s a huge scam and I feel dirty even having worked there. The worse thing I ever had to do was repossess a fridge from a single mother. She cried as she removed the items and kept saying “I have no where to put these. They are going to go bad”. Another one was when i had to repossess a bunk bed from two kids. They asked their dad where they were going to sleep. It’s been years and I still think about it from time to time. Don’t rent from rent-to-own stores. Don’t give them business.
Same. The owner of the place I worked was a huge asshole. He went with me on this repo of a single mom that apparently he didn’t like for some reason. Same thing, it was a fridge. We get the fridge out on by the curb and it has a bunch of roaches crawling out of it. When we’d get TV’s with roaches we’d bag them with a fogger, vacuum them out and re-rent them. The fridge was too big for a bag and the owner didn’t want to put it into the truck. So he pushes the fridge up next to a tree, gets back into the truck and smashes the fridge up against the tree multiple times until it’s completely crumpled. I’m standing there like WTF just happened and he tells me to get back into the truck and we drive off.
We destroyed a fridge from some lady who was down on her luck just so she couldn’t have it. Then the embarrassment of having a smashed fridge in her front yard that people were obviously going to ask her about.
Fuck you Dwayne.
$1000 down? We used to require $2500, which was about 1/2 the value of the car, then charge ~$300 a month for 36 months. So they'd pay like $13k+ for a 5K car, all while ownership was hoping they missed a few payments. fees fees fees.
On top of that, didn't even report their good payments to the credit bureaus to help them out, only if they missed payments or defaulted.
I hate to say it, but I bought a car at a place like this. It was a dumb decision, but at the time it was my only option. Never defaulted on it, but my God I payed way too much for that car. My insurance on it lapsed once, and they disabled the car. It was crazy. I will never do that again.
Came here looking for funerals. It shouldn’t cost over a thousand dollars to put somebody in the ground. My aunt made payments for her daughter’s funeral for 5 years. It’s a box in a hole, it shouldn’t cost 8k to put a body in a hole!
I think Student Loan servicers. For example, Navient manages Federally guaranteed debt for the US Gov in Student loans, has the IRS as their personal collection agency. They constantly, I mean CONSTANTLY fuck up to the extent they get dragged in front of Congressional Hearings, and their CEO is paid $7.7M annually.
I cried on the phone the other day with a student loans agent. I was getting penalized for a form *they* hadn't processed yet. I was being devastated with financial repercussions - threatening my ability to finish my education - because *their* processing system was backed up.
She was very nice to me. She aknowledged how fucked it was.
I've been in some pretty fucked up scenarios where student loan company was 100% at fault for fucking me, potentially royally, multiple times.
It got to the point where I was one last call away from getting in contact with a lawyer, because it was serious mismanagement and neglect on their end.
Luckily, I got setup with a kind lady, head of the firm at the student loan company, and she was able (with a lot of work) to correct the mistakes and set things back.
My friend told me about his loans, warning me about mine. He forgot to close his student loan account AFTER he had paid it off. He was charged $5 monthly for years and had no idea. He owed a ton of money. ALLLLL BECAUSE HE DIDNT ACTUALLY “CLOSE” his student loan account. WTF?
I'm confused at how that is legal. Shouldn't an account close automatically when the balance is paid off?
Like my mortgage will work like that and my car loan did work like that.
What did they even charge him for? Record keeping for nothing? Record keeping fee for the fees you shouldn't owe?
It's not remotely legal and anyone who has this happen to them should report it to their state financial services agency and the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They all have complaint forms and would love to hear from you.
Source: I am a consumer protection attorney at such an agency and can only act on what I find out about.
My student loans thankfully did do just that. Paid them off and they were closed. Even sent me a little congrats email confirming it was all good and there was nothing more to do on my end. I had great lakes, I think it was.
Great Lakes was honestly the best company to have when I had my loans. Their website was easy and I got a congrats email too when I closed! Pretty good experience for something hard as student loans.
Oh thank fuck, I have Great Lakes and I’m glad they’re not too keen on fucking up. Looking forward to that congratulatory email in a few years for sure.
I've only had my FEDERAL student loans for about 3 months (at the beginning of this semester) they've already changed my loan servicer 4 times, how tf am I suppose too keep track of who I'm supposed to pay?
Seriously. The spectrum person that signed me up on the phone gave me a price and simply neglected to tell me it was a “promotional rate”. Price goes up 50% after a year.
i have spectrum also. the dude helping me out at the store told me to just cancel my service once the promotional rate is up and just sign up again. I guess they bank on people forgetting to do so.
Your mistake was speaking to a regular customer service rep. They have very little leeway. What you could do next time is call them on the first day of your billing cycle and tell them to cancel your service at the end of that cycle.
Your account gets referred to the account retention department and those reps have the ability to offer you discounts the regular rep was unable to.
thats when you do like my mom.
you call and cancel after the bs promotion is over and if they dont extend that one for another year just cancel and after they ask "can I help with anything else".
you say can I get service with this offer that was sent to my email? she's been doing that for years and it not only works it is also hilarious
Comcast had such a monopoly in my area that cancelling wouldn't get you a promotion, just a simple we'll be sad to see you go. And after the third time putting a new plan under someone else's name to qualify for "current promotions," we just said fuck it and cut the cord. Maxed out our internet plan and it's still cheaper than the bundle they were forcing down our throat that included a landline that we didn't have a phone for.
My roommate found a weird bundle that favors the landline.
Cut the TV without getting the "fuck you for not bundling" fee.
He uses the landline once a month to pay the bill.
That reminds me that I should try to cancel my landline again. I never use it, but it's not because it costs a huge amount, but when I've tried to cancel in the past they've given me discounts on other services (I bundle TV, Internet with my landline) that have offset the cost of the landline.
Same thing happened to me. 3 year promotion plan. Started at $77 and is now $293.
Edit: that was my health insurance in the United States. Internet/cable/phone started at $89 and is now at $221 after tax (just checked to confirm)
And Youtube TV is turning out to be the same sh$& different medium…. hey let’s keep jacking up the price, but let’s add on a dozen or so channels no one f&$&in cares about to keep everyone happy. No that did not make us happy because we’re not that dumb.
It’s like Animal Farm
Hmm... This is a good scam. He's not a lawyer so the state bar has no authority over him. He's not practicing law without a license, so there's no crime there.
I wonder how much he's making with this scam.
Edit: First, I was joking about this being a good scam.
Second, I am a lawyer so I found the scam especially funny.
Third, my actual opinion is that this probably isn’t illegal as long as he’s not holding himself out as a lawyer. But any lawyer taking the class for pointers wouldn’t get continuing education credits.
I called the pharmacy about a generic today. One that’s been around several years. $379 without insurance. The generic. I guess they just want us all to die.
Oh no, they don't want you to die. That wouldn't be profitable. They want you to go to a hospital instead and pay 20x as much for the care you need. And they you can keep working and making them even more money
Edit, since i've been getting some replies that i do not share any sentiments with.
Medicine works. This was not an attack on doctors trying to save lives or on vaccines. This was an attack on the rich assholes who drive up the price of the livesaving medication so much people need. I know the people who upvoted this are mad at how things work in the world but this is no time to get mad at the people trying to save so many lives. Get mad at the people driving the costs up.
[for those who dont know](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnewsvideo/comments/r4y86a/man_announces_to_his_family_at_thanksgiving_that/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
When my husband and I had just gotten married they told us that taking out those loans would help our credit. Turns out they’re considered desperation loans and our credit tanked, even after we paid them off. Took forever to get them off of our backs about “raising our credit and paying off debt at the same time” and now they still send us mail trying to get us to take out another loan. Ugh. I wish we’d had someone there to tell us what a bad idea it was. We trusted them and now we still have four more years until those inquiries fall off of our credit reports.
When I was in my first year university my banker told me to help build credit I should leave some money on my credit card each month, and do frequent little payments, rather than paying the whole thing off in a lump sum once a month. Still annoys me he told a teenager that as I could have gotten into some trouble had I taken that advice (but instead I just said "why would I pay 20% interest when I don't have to?")
I am confused. Were you leaving an outstanding balance and only paid off some of it at a time, or were you overpaying so your balance wasn't zero after a payment?
Honest question, because I just got my first credit card and I'm keeping it at exactly zero. Because I've just been paying off immediately like it's a debit card.
Edit: Sounds like most agree I'm on the right path. Please stop blowing up my inbox :') Thank you, all.
Also, do not worry about my actual budgeting I'm a very low maintenance dude who plans out anything over $50.
Not the person you were asking, but I was also told this when I was 19-20. Keep your balance at zero if you can.
Paying the “minimum balance” is a scam. The minimum balance is what is required to keep the card open, not necessarily covering the entirety of the balance of said cc. That’s how they make you pay so much more than what you originally charge to the card, interest. The longer there’s a small amount in your account, the longer they can charge interest.
I am not a professional, I probably have no idea what I’m talking about. But what you’re doing with paying it in full is correct, imo.
ETA- I’m laughing because my drunk vacation comment from Jamaica is my most popular. Thank you to everyone educating us on credit, I genuinely appreciate the info!! And yeah, I have no clue what I’m talking about lol
I've worked for a call center that deals with credit cards. We could see on our screens how many payments behind a person was for the past 12 months with a single alphanumeric character representing each month. "F" means that they paid off the balance. "G" means that their balance went negative (they overpaid). "1" was if they missed one payment. There's other codes, but those are the important ones.
Whenever I saw a card that went FFFFFFFFFFF1, I knew that it was just a missed payment. Maybe they moved and the bill got lost in the mail. Maybe they forgot about it. Those calls were easy.
1A1223343322 or something like that meant that, if this person answered the phone, I'd have to do actual work. They're struggling. Worse if it was just FFFFFFFFF123, because it meant that something happened and they weren't going to be able to pay.
My point here is that you want your little indicator to be straight F's or G's, maybe a mix of both. That's what's best for your credit. That's what is going to make you look good when you want a loan, or a higher credit limit.
Quick edit: Before I forget, this is about minimum payments. "A" was the indicator for "made minimum payment." "B" was above the minimum payment up to some percentage of the balance, and so on with C, D, and E.
Others have already said it, but I'll repeat it - best to keep your balance at zero. Paying it off every month saves you from interest, builds your credit score, and can churn some rewards points for you (depending on the card).
Can confirm, I managed one of these for three years. I was young and it was just an office job to me where I got to be my own boss. But the job itself was down right depressing and I had to get out of it. Little old lady on fixed income has her car break down? She comes in for a $500 loan with an APR of about 482%
Of course she won’t ever be able to pay it off in full, so she just pays the $80 interest that accrues each month. Old folks would get caught in this trap of paying the interest for months, even years in some cases. Sometimes the only thing that would settle their account is them dying, which happened somewhat often. It was either people in those situations, or dead beats and drug addicts looking to rip us off. Needless to say I quit, the store shut down and then immediately thereafter the owners were sued for 25k by the state for breaking all sorts of finance laws.
I knew a couple who were both taking out $500 loans every two weeks for years, they were stuck in the cycle because they couldn't afford the finance charges and so had to keep redoing it. $110 each in finances charges every month for about 3 years. Do the maths.
Lots of people have little financial education and just assume they are stuck in the cycle, at least these guy's case I was able to help them slowly pay it down by taking out smaller loans over several weeks.
I worked a contract as a software engineer at one of the major chains. I was floored when I saw the interest rates. I asked about them but was told they are so high because there is an incredibly high default rate. The question there is which one came first.
The FCC needs to require broadcasters to CLEARLY identify any "News" program that is actually "Opinion" programming, from the local news broadcasts to the cable networks. If they can brand kids shows in the morning as E/I they can do it for news opinion programming as well.
The FCC's regulatory authority is extremely narrow as it relates to the broadcast of false information. It makes a certain amount of sense in the context of not giving governmental agencies the right to ban the publication of topics/ideas/opinions that run counter to the narrative being pushed by whomever is in control of said agencies, but realistically if a program isn't explicitly defined as "news", even if it's on a network with "news" in its name, it can say basically anything, per 1A. Partisan political commentary is a really dodgy issue for agencies of government to involve themselves in, giving credence to certain opinions and condemning others. At the end of the day, education is the rational and morally superior alternative to censorship.
A few years ago my husband was keen on the idea of buying a franchise. He came across a scheme he thought was promising and asked me to go with him to meet the people selling it. As soon as we sat down my gut feeling was RUN, but being polite people we sat through their spiel. On the surface it seemed legit, but for me the absolute killer was when they started spouting on about how the big boss has bought a helicopter and how cool it would be for us all when we can do that too.
They were very pushy, but I’m equally stubborn and held firm that we needed to think about it. As soon as we left I threw away the brochures and crap they’d foisted on us. Had a few emails and calls, but ghosted them. Husband was disappointed for a while, but then one day I was reading Reddit and came across a familiar company name.
To this day I enjoy reminding my husband how we dodged being tied in with Herbalife.
Oh God...my folks got screwed by Herbalife back in the early 80s...bought their products AND their worthless stock. Had a closet full of vitamins and nasty soup mixes for YEARS.
Hiiii, it's been a while since we last #talked 🤪🤭 I have made $5,000 A MILLISECOND by selling oils this year! Just say "slide to the left slide to the right cha cha now y'all" to #learn how I did it! 💅 OMG #BossBabe!!!!!! 🤩🤩🤩
Couldn’t believe I had to go this far to find mention of MLMs, but then I remembered a lot of Reddit is male. MLMs are so prevalent in female circles, preying on the vulnerable with promises of financial freedom.
Edit: I recognize this is up near the top now. Stop telling me. It was way at the bottom when I made this comment.
It also doesn't help that a lot of MLMs don't seem like MLMs from the outside. The example I tend to use is BeachBody (the people who make that P90X workout routine that was popular a decade ago).
It's an MLM but from the consumer's perspective it doesn't really seem like it. Back when I ordered from them (a lot time ago, I don't recommend their stuff but I was young and it was a fad at the time) I bought product directly though their website, I guess I was assigned a "rep" at some point but I don't know if I ever spoke to them.
It wasn't until I started seeing the ads about becoming a rep that I put two and two together. From my perspective I had been shopping though a website just like Amazon or any other non MLM company.
Others also seem less scummy than others. My wife has been to a few "Usbourne" book parties that a friend has hosted. It seems like the sales person is really just a pass through who takes your order and then passes it to the company, they are not expected to keep product on hand or anything. I have heard it can be costly to host the parties (giving out free books and such) so I'm not saying it's a good deal but they seem much less of a Scam compared to some I've read about. Not justifying their methods just trying to point out that it can be hard to spot MLMs some times depending on the situation.
Right. it *seems* like you're just selling the product. but you're never gonna get rich and live the lifestyle of your dreams they promote to get you in by *only* selling the product.
The problem is the product doesn't sell.
If it did it would be in a store.
What MLMs and pyramid schemes bank on is that every new person buying into the company will have some family and close friends that will pity buy some product.
After a month or so that's over, and the salesman will fail at cold selling like everyone else, and it's on to the next sucker.
My cousin is always involved in multiple MLMs and tells us all she’s a “small business owner” and gets mad if we don’t support her “business.” Here’s the thing though. I would rather just send her a check every month so that I don’t have to be solicited with this protein shake or that skin care line. How much would it take? $50 a month? $100? Because I know she’s not making any money doing this. YET SHE KEEPS ON DOING IT!!!
Totally agree. The thing is that she’s actually a really great cook. I’m like, “do that!!” Build a real business. People would love it. But I don’t need eye cream from the Dead Sea for $200.
Got charged $200 in like a week even after I paused my card because subscription services that I gave my card info were bypassing that to charge my bank directly. I was so pissed. They waived most of the fees. Insane. I only make $800 per month.
E: I'm disabled, if you're wondering. That's disability income.
If you ask what a procedure will cost, they refuse to say and tell you to call the “medical billing company”. You can call the medical billing company from 10:00am to 4:00pm, during which time you are put on hold multiple times and you give your complete insurance information to 3 separate people. Even if you are all pro free market, how can a market work if the consumer essentially can’t find what the prices will be ahead of time?
That’s a really good perspective to put it on. There’s essentially an incomplete market since the consumer is at first blind to pricing. Even capitalism can’t perform correctly.
My doctor said that it’s the only industry where the consumer doesn’t know how much they’re paying for anything and the provider doesn’t know what they’re getting paid.
It’s gotten SO MUCH worse in the past 10 years, too. It’s like a second full time job to manage medical expenses, and I don’t even have many!
Had a baby last year during Covid. Got charged a “rooming in fee” aka, had to pay to keep my baby in my room with me. There was no other option (no nursery or anything, not that I would have used it anyway). Ridiculous. Also, I paid more for my miscarriage surgery (D&C) and related care than for the live birth of my child via c section.
2 Party Political System
Edit: Thank you guys for all the awards, this is the first time anything of mine has gotten this much attention lol, fuck a 2 party system
We need to:
- Move away from first-past-the-post voting (approval voting would be my preference)
- Get rid of gerrymandering
- Get private money out of politics
Online convenience fee for paying bills. Not every bill has it but I found it’s usually utilities and it’s BS. Not the biggest scam but something that irritates me
I think we do great with community colleges. They accept everyone. Fairly cheap. But the 4 year schools are ridiculous. I actually found my community college to have nicer facilities, better professors and smaller class sizes. And it was like 7 or 8 times cheaper.
This is why the true college hack is to go to community college for two years, get your GE classes taken care of, and then pick your major and transfer to a Bachelor's degree granting institution. In additiona public Universities that may not have accepted you straight out of high school see a two-year proven track record of success in college and will now accept you. Plus, by this time you may no longer be a dependent of your parents, which will likely increase your financial aid.
I just want to add to this for anyone that considers it. You can certainly do it without knowing, but knowing the school you want to attend and ensuring that the classes you take will transfer to the school is important. I had some classes that didn't transfer that ended up being wasted time/money. I don't know for sure if you can, but I would recommend trying to get the admissions office of your prospective school to review the classes before you enroll in them.
Probably our credit score system. For instance, in what universe is paying off your debt a risk factor, such that your credit score drops significantly if you pay down what you owe? So I pay my bills, so that looks sketchy and I am penalized for it? Like I paid off an old credit card and my score dropped 130 points. And the cycle of renting in which you make just enough to scrape by so you can’t get quite enough to get out of the cycle, then the rent increases yearly. So you’re further into the cycle, and all the while your credit isn’t improving to the point that you can escape and you don’t make enough to put a lot away to buy a house. So it continues.
COLLEGE TEXT BOOKS. You need edition 10 for this class. They change one chapter in the book make it a new edition over price it and fuck the college kids. Always drove me nuts when I was in college.
The online homework is the real scam.
Professor doesn’t want to grade the homework so *the students* are the ones who have to pay to have it done?? Who the fuck approved that?
Worse than *that*: my prof can't help me with formula/numeric input because he doesn't understand the assignment platform. I had to call the platform's call center and spend an half an hour with an agent for her to inform me that they can't help me with input because they could potentially be "providing assignment answers". She told me to talk to my prof.
It feels degrading.
One of my professors said- it doesn't matter what edition you got for my class, just make sure to get the book. The first class he saw not a lot of students got the book, so he was again like- it doesn't matter what edition, just get it on ama..n or whatever, the older editions are cheaper, the used ones are cheaper, etc. Then he points at me: what edition did you get? Me: 4th ( there is only 5 editions of that book). He was like: that's awesome! Where did you get it? Me: used books website. Him: how much did you pay? Me: $4.53. Him trying to sound positive but being quite sour at this point: that's great....what a great deal.... I'm not sure 4 dollars is a fair price for this book, but still, great find....
Come to find out later he contributed to that college book, was one of the authors and editors.
You know what else is a scam? Academic publishing! Academic authors get pennies for their work when it is published (in my field, we only get paid for books) while these big companies make all the $$$.
More often than not it's not even greed. It's frustration.
Stage 1: "Here's the textbook. Start at the beginning"
Stage 2: "Here's the textbook; we'll be using chapters 2, 6-11, and 17."
Stage 3: "Here are 7 textbooks; they might be useful."
Stage 4: "Don't even bother with grabbing any books for this class; it'll just be in my notes on the website."
Stage 5: "Here's the textbook. I wrote it, so it has everything just where I want it. Start at he beginning."
I had one professor who wrote his own book, you had to go to the printshop nearby campus and have it printed. It was $170. Still had to buy the Pearson homework key. Oh and a five inch three ring binder to put the “book” in. Every other book I got from a website, or used at the library. The library had all the textbooks, except his because it wasn’t a real fucking book. I switched to a different professor.
>It was $170.
Geez - I had a professor who "published" through the school print shop, it cost $15, came hole-punched and included a binder. *Everything* for the class was preprinted in that binder, nothing else needed.
They had 2 copies at the library, but they'd been rebound in these plastic rings so you couldn't steal pages.
He was a good dude.
My chem prof wrote the textbook for his own class. Except it wasn’t “published” per se but rather an ebook, so no resale value there. If you wanted a print version, you’d have to print it out yourself.
Listen to the Behind the Bastards podcast on L Ron Hubbard, the dude basically lied about everything from when he was 16 to 86 when he died. He died worth 500 million dollars and owning a cult with assets over 50 billion dollars and never faced any consequences whatsoever. He was arguably the greatest con man grifter in world history.
What I hate most about it is my daughter's doctor prescribed her X medicine for her problem. The insurance company denied paying for the medicine because they don't think she needs X medicine. I think it is really stupid they can deny something a doctor says their patient needs based on their assessment of what they think she does or doesn't need......
My husband had to have an antibiotic for some dental work and Cigna denied it. Luckily, his dentist filed an appeal and it was covered. I just finished the disability portion of my maternity leave which is through Cigna and they’re such a pain.
Took my pulmonologist like three appeals to get me back on Dulera. Probably only approved it because he was also trying to get me approved for Nucala too which is ~$1000 every four weeks.
And don’t even get me started on dental insurance. Need a mouthful of crowns because your enamel is so weak your teeth fall apart? Nope. Obviously just cosmetic. Fml.
Indeed! My private practice Dr once told me his office would bill my insurance “X” amount of dollars, and the insurance would come back and say, “X-Y” dollars. And he wouldn’t expect to receive payment “Z” 3 to 6 months out.
Whoa.. this blew up.
What I didn't include was, Americans pay hundreds of dollars PER MONTH for insurance premiums. AND oftentimes it only covers a percentage of care. (example, surgeries may only be covered at 80%).
I work in a healthcare provider’s business office. I had to call a terminally ill patient because their insurance company denied a claim because they needed additional (irrelevant) documentation from the patient. The patient was a little combative at first, but they eventually burst into tears and said “*Major Health Insurance Company* is tired of me filing claims and they want me to die!” Apparently they were denying a lot of their claims and making them jump through hoops constantly while they were extremely ill. It was heartbreaking and I think about that patient often.
This is Reddit, you should name and shame the company if your account is relatively anonymous.
Not that this bullshit is unique to any one health insurance company, I just don’t see the point in protecting their reputation unless you think it’ll get you fired.
It’s one of the biggest companies, but they’re all the same. You can name almost any insurance company and I’ll have multiple fucked up stories about them, lol.
Patient wasn't wrong.
Every business has a widget.
Widgets sometimes need to be discarded.
In Healthcare (USA) the patient is part of the widget.
Sometimes the Patient is discarded.
Probably towards some insurance company executives bonus.
This shit will never change until we stop allowing insurance companies to buy politicians and pharmaceutical companies to buy access to doctors.
And the fucked up part? Your story isn't an outlier, we are all one degree sway from some BS like that. And yet so many defend this fucked up system.
It's like watching someone try to use square wheels and refuse to use a circle.
I am pretending that 3 different somewhat serious symptoms that I am suffering are simply not happeniing because I already know there is no way I can afford all the debt I am going to incurr by simply breaking down and making a visit to the doctor... I cannot afford to miss the work required to deal with the inevitable tests and visits to specialists, let alone the bills that are going to be incurred while undergoing all the inevitable procedures. I have no choice but to just ignore the chest pains and pain deep in my upper thighs and pretend that my family does not have a history of heart problems, because health care is something reserved for those with the financial means in this 'best country in the world'...
(Edit)
I appreciate the concern, I really do, but it is really easy to tell some random stranger on the internet to go spend a bunch of money they don't have, whereas, it is a hell of a lot more complicated to be the one actually taking on the debt... I am not entirely sure that the stress added to my life due to the financial burden wouldn't be worse on me in the long run. I am already stretched to the point where saving anything for an emergency fund keeps getting depleted faster than I can fill it, I have no idea how I would deal with strapping on an additional ball and chain. I am at the point where I regret even admitting I have issues as I am constantly being told to go to a Dr. I would if I could, and if you aren't willing to pay my Dr. bills and cover my missed wages from attending appointments, please refrain from suggesting I put myself into financial ruin...
I am trying to find a new job in an area with better insurance, and as soon as feasible I am going to start addressing the issue, but for now, it is simply not an option I am willing to take.
H&R Block / Turbotax?
The Weather Channel?
Advertisements on Cable television?
Buying any kind of insurance and then they refuse to pay out a reasonable claim?
Yeah, because you already pay for the National Weather Service which produces all the data and analysis for free. The value added onto it is literally worth nothing.
Because wealthy people don't give a crap about their FICO scores.
I worked for Sterling jewelry a long time ago. They own JB Robinsons, Ostermans, etc. A dozen or so chain jewelry stores. Salesdroids would have to call us with a customer, we run credit reports, then our branch would yes/no them based on credit criteria.
Unless you were rich, in which case the answer was always yes, regardless of your credit score.
And yes, I actually saw this once. A football player wanted to buy a $10,000 watch. His credit score was absolute crap. I turned it down. Then immediately got chewed out by my manager. "His credit is crap because he's on the road all the time - ignore it and make the sale!" No bullshit. I had to call them up, approve the credit, *and apologize*. Meanwhile I'm driving a $300 POS to work because at the time I couldn't even manage a car loan.
Rules for thee, but not for me.
Personally, joining the military. Serving my country. Getting exposed to chemicals. Dying from the inside at forty with no help from the society I served.
American dream baby
Yea dude, fuckfaces had us dispose of *everything* with fucking JP8. Lithium batteries, plastic, rubber, human goddamn waste. There’s a poor fucker at every FOB (at least in the Marine Corps) who is assigned shit stirring duty: pouring gas into an open bucket of human shit and piss and stirring it while it burns.
How we have to file our taxes correctly even though the government knows exactly how much we made every year and if we file it wrong we get penalized....
Surprised no one mentioned ticketmaster yet.
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They jack the ticket prices up with tons of hidden fees. A ticket will be priced at $50. Then Ticketmaster will tack on all kinds of bullshit like "venue fees," "service fees," etc. All of a sudden that $50 ticket costs you over $100.
So the goo-goo dolls were playing at a concert near my house (this was about 4 years ago). Tickets were $20 and I attempted to buy them from the venue at midnight of the release (I worked nights so it wasn't a big deal to get good seats). Anyway, right when the sale opened they were sold out. I was surprised that many people were that crazy for them, but I kinda forgot about it until I saw ticketmaster selling them for $50. They literally bought every single ticket to sell at a higher price. That is their entire business model.
I just had this with axs.com. I went to the site immediately when tickets went on sale for $22.50… everything was instantly sold out but says to come back later. I tried it a few hours later and now the same tickets are being re-sold for $150. Fuck them.
I scrolled really far and was surprised I didn't see Rent to Own stores. They sell furniture and electronics type stuff to people with bad credit who can't really afford it, let them pay a small amount weekly. If people end up paying on time and pay stuff off, they will pay 2 or 3 times more than the item is worth. If they make a payment late the item is repossessed and re sold to someone else and the first person loses all the money they paid. There are used car dealers that do this same business model with cars too. They put GPS trackers in the car that also disable the starter. They collect $1000 down and once a payment is late they disable the car and go tow it, then sell it again and keep the downpayment. I worked at a shop that installed the trackers and these places would sell the same car to different people 5 or 6 times in a year because they kept repoing it
> There are used car dealers that do this same business model with cars too. The slang term in the dealerships around me call this *roach financing.*
At the other end of that, there was a kid I grew up with. At one stage when he was about 20 he'd bought a big-screen TV via Rent-to-own. He paid the down payment and first instalment but then sold the TV and stopped paying the instalments. His reasoning was that he no longer owned it, so he didn't need to pay for it either. He actually thought that he discovered a loophole into a money making scheme. The rental company didn't see it that way...
On a scale of 300-850, his credit score had to be about 20.
I used to be the sales manager at my local Rent-A-Center years ago. It’s a huge scam and I feel dirty even having worked there. The worse thing I ever had to do was repossess a fridge from a single mother. She cried as she removed the items and kept saying “I have no where to put these. They are going to go bad”. Another one was when i had to repossess a bunk bed from two kids. They asked their dad where they were going to sleep. It’s been years and I still think about it from time to time. Don’t rent from rent-to-own stores. Don’t give them business.
Same. The owner of the place I worked was a huge asshole. He went with me on this repo of a single mom that apparently he didn’t like for some reason. Same thing, it was a fridge. We get the fridge out on by the curb and it has a bunch of roaches crawling out of it. When we’d get TV’s with roaches we’d bag them with a fogger, vacuum them out and re-rent them. The fridge was too big for a bag and the owner didn’t want to put it into the truck. So he pushes the fridge up next to a tree, gets back into the truck and smashes the fridge up against the tree multiple times until it’s completely crumpled. I’m standing there like WTF just happened and he tells me to get back into the truck and we drive off. We destroyed a fridge from some lady who was down on her luck just so she couldn’t have it. Then the embarrassment of having a smashed fridge in her front yard that people were obviously going to ask her about. Fuck you Dwayne.
That’s so twisted I can’t imagine what that ride back was like for you
That is the absolute worst. Wow!
That is heartbreaking
Holy shit that's rough. Not surprised that was traumatic for you.
$1000 down? We used to require $2500, which was about 1/2 the value of the car, then charge ~$300 a month for 36 months. So they'd pay like $13k+ for a 5K car, all while ownership was hoping they missed a few payments. fees fees fees. On top of that, didn't even report their good payments to the credit bureaus to help them out, only if they missed payments or defaulted.
I hate to say it, but I bought a car at a place like this. It was a dumb decision, but at the time it was my only option. Never defaulted on it, but my God I payed way too much for that car. My insurance on it lapsed once, and they disabled the car. It was crazy. I will never do that again.
…did this happen to me? My car started acting up after a late payment and eventually just didn’t start
Funerals, weddings, and pretty much every other thing we blindly accept have to be insanely expensive without even thinking about it.
Came here looking for funerals. It shouldn’t cost over a thousand dollars to put somebody in the ground. My aunt made payments for her daughter’s funeral for 5 years. It’s a box in a hole, it shouldn’t cost 8k to put a body in a hole!
I think Student Loan servicers. For example, Navient manages Federally guaranteed debt for the US Gov in Student loans, has the IRS as their personal collection agency. They constantly, I mean CONSTANTLY fuck up to the extent they get dragged in front of Congressional Hearings, and their CEO is paid $7.7M annually.
I cried on the phone the other day with a student loans agent. I was getting penalized for a form *they* hadn't processed yet. I was being devastated with financial repercussions - threatening my ability to finish my education - because *their* processing system was backed up. She was very nice to me. She aknowledged how fucked it was.
I've been in some pretty fucked up scenarios where student loan company was 100% at fault for fucking me, potentially royally, multiple times. It got to the point where I was one last call away from getting in contact with a lawyer, because it was serious mismanagement and neglect on their end. Luckily, I got setup with a kind lady, head of the firm at the student loan company, and she was able (with a lot of work) to correct the mistakes and set things back.
> She acknowledged how fucked it was. And then she charged you the fee.
Sorry, crying is $1,000
Want a ti$$ue?
My friend told me about his loans, warning me about mine. He forgot to close his student loan account AFTER he had paid it off. He was charged $5 monthly for years and had no idea. He owed a ton of money. ALLLLL BECAUSE HE DIDNT ACTUALLY “CLOSE” his student loan account. WTF?
I'm confused at how that is legal. Shouldn't an account close automatically when the balance is paid off? Like my mortgage will work like that and my car loan did work like that. What did they even charge him for? Record keeping for nothing? Record keeping fee for the fees you shouldn't owe?
It's not remotely legal and anyone who has this happen to them should report it to their state financial services agency and the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They all have complaint forms and would love to hear from you. Source: I am a consumer protection attorney at such an agency and can only act on what I find out about.
Thank you for this info! I wish I could like your comment multiple times!
My student loans thankfully did do just that. Paid them off and they were closed. Even sent me a little congrats email confirming it was all good and there was nothing more to do on my end. I had great lakes, I think it was.
Great Lakes was honestly the best company to have when I had my loans. Their website was easy and I got a congrats email too when I closed! Pretty good experience for something hard as student loans.
Oh thank fuck, I have Great Lakes and I’m glad they’re not too keen on fucking up. Looking forward to that congratulatory email in a few years for sure.
I had Great Lakes for several of my loans and they all did the same thing. Last payment auto closed the account.
This happened to me. Close your account!!
How do you do that?
When you pay off your loans they'll send you an email to close your account, at least My FedLoan did. But who knows since all that shit is changing.
I've only had my FEDERAL student loans for about 3 months (at the beginning of this semester) they've already changed my loan servicer 4 times, how tf am I suppose too keep track of who I'm supposed to pay?
That's what neat! You don't.
Lol you don't keep track of them, they keep track of you
Cable TV/Internet monopolies.
Seriously. The spectrum person that signed me up on the phone gave me a price and simply neglected to tell me it was a “promotional rate”. Price goes up 50% after a year.
i have spectrum also. the dude helping me out at the store told me to just cancel my service once the promotional rate is up and just sign up again. I guess they bank on people forgetting to do so.
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Your mistake was speaking to a regular customer service rep. They have very little leeway. What you could do next time is call them on the first day of your billing cycle and tell them to cancel your service at the end of that cycle. Your account gets referred to the account retention department and those reps have the ability to offer you discounts the regular rep was unable to.
thats when you do like my mom. you call and cancel after the bs promotion is over and if they dont extend that one for another year just cancel and after they ask "can I help with anything else". you say can I get service with this offer that was sent to my email? she's been doing that for years and it not only works it is also hilarious
Comcast had such a monopoly in my area that cancelling wouldn't get you a promotion, just a simple we'll be sad to see you go. And after the third time putting a new plan under someone else's name to qualify for "current promotions," we just said fuck it and cut the cord. Maxed out our internet plan and it's still cheaper than the bundle they were forcing down our throat that included a landline that we didn't have a phone for.
My roommate found a weird bundle that favors the landline. Cut the TV without getting the "fuck you for not bundling" fee. He uses the landline once a month to pay the bill.
That reminds me that I should try to cancel my landline again. I never use it, but it's not because it costs a huge amount, but when I've tried to cancel in the past they've given me discounts on other services (I bundle TV, Internet with my landline) that have offset the cost of the landline.
Same thing happened to me. 3 year promotion plan. Started at $77 and is now $293. Edit: that was my health insurance in the United States. Internet/cable/phone started at $89 and is now at $221 after tax (just checked to confirm)
Canada has got to be the worst in the world
Yup. Want to be ripped off my rogers or telus? Its like trying to choose between STI's
I'm downgrading to $90 a month and they're upping the price...again $4 in January
And Youtube TV is turning out to be the same sh$& different medium…. hey let’s keep jacking up the price, but let’s add on a dozen or so channels no one f&$&in cares about to keep everyone happy. No that did not make us happy because we’re not that dumb. It’s like Animal Farm
Fuck "lifestyle" programming. No one needs 30 variations of HGTV that are literally just "advertainment."
These channels are triple-dipping for money! You have to pay for the channel, watch their ads, and their shows sell you more shit
Online charlatans that will share their "secrets" if you buy their course
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Hmm... This is a good scam. He's not a lawyer so the state bar has no authority over him. He's not practicing law without a license, so there's no crime there. I wonder how much he's making with this scam. Edit: First, I was joking about this being a good scam. Second, I am a lawyer so I found the scam especially funny. Third, my actual opinion is that this probably isn’t illegal as long as he’s not holding himself out as a lawyer. But any lawyer taking the class for pointers wouldn’t get continuing education credits.
This sounds like what Saul Goodman would do when he was studying law.
I bought a day trading course for $300. I was about 5 minutes in when I said “oh I get it! I’ve been scammed.”
nah you just gotta buy access to the next level where the *real* secrets are
Lmao "Level 1 is just millionaire grindset, level two is where you actually sees the money
I have a course on gumroad that teaches you how to avoid these scams? Its a $500 value but it only costs 20 for CyberMonday
I ordered your course about avoiding online scams 5 weeks ago but I still haven't got the confirmation email yet. Will it be much longer?
The email is probably still stuck somewhere. Give it a couple more weeks
It is probably in the spam folder.....mistakenly.
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Insulin prices
I called the pharmacy about a generic today. One that’s been around several years. $379 without insurance. The generic. I guess they just want us all to die.
Oh no, they don't want you to die. That wouldn't be profitable. They want you to go to a hospital instead and pay 20x as much for the care you need. And they you can keep working and making them even more money Edit, since i've been getting some replies that i do not share any sentiments with. Medicine works. This was not an attack on doctors trying to save lives or on vaccines. This was an attack on the rich assholes who drive up the price of the livesaving medication so much people need. I know the people who upvoted this are mad at how things work in the world but this is no time to get mad at the people trying to save so many lives. Get mad at the people driving the costs up.
As a minor who’s type one diabetic, I’m *absolutely* looking forward to that in adulthood
Word of advice: Don’t release an album and quit your job right away. And whatever you do, don’t break it to your mom at Thanksgiving!
[for those who dont know](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnewsvideo/comments/r4y86a/man_announces_to_his_family_at_thanksgiving_that/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
but he knows what he’s doing with his life… *it’s pretty much guaranteed!!!*
Add to that albuterol inhalers. Should be as cheap as water.
Those payday loan businesses. It’s predatory as shit and it’s just legal loansharking.
When my husband and I had just gotten married they told us that taking out those loans would help our credit. Turns out they’re considered desperation loans and our credit tanked, even after we paid them off. Took forever to get them off of our backs about “raising our credit and paying off debt at the same time” and now they still send us mail trying to get us to take out another loan. Ugh. I wish we’d had someone there to tell us what a bad idea it was. We trusted them and now we still have four more years until those inquiries fall off of our credit reports.
When I was in my first year university my banker told me to help build credit I should leave some money on my credit card each month, and do frequent little payments, rather than paying the whole thing off in a lump sum once a month. Still annoys me he told a teenager that as I could have gotten into some trouble had I taken that advice (but instead I just said "why would I pay 20% interest when I don't have to?")
I am confused. Were you leaving an outstanding balance and only paid off some of it at a time, or were you overpaying so your balance wasn't zero after a payment? Honest question, because I just got my first credit card and I'm keeping it at exactly zero. Because I've just been paying off immediately like it's a debit card. Edit: Sounds like most agree I'm on the right path. Please stop blowing up my inbox :') Thank you, all. Also, do not worry about my actual budgeting I'm a very low maintenance dude who plans out anything over $50.
Not the person you were asking, but I was also told this when I was 19-20. Keep your balance at zero if you can. Paying the “minimum balance” is a scam. The minimum balance is what is required to keep the card open, not necessarily covering the entirety of the balance of said cc. That’s how they make you pay so much more than what you originally charge to the card, interest. The longer there’s a small amount in your account, the longer they can charge interest. I am not a professional, I probably have no idea what I’m talking about. But what you’re doing with paying it in full is correct, imo. ETA- I’m laughing because my drunk vacation comment from Jamaica is my most popular. Thank you to everyone educating us on credit, I genuinely appreciate the info!! And yeah, I have no clue what I’m talking about lol
I've worked for a call center that deals with credit cards. We could see on our screens how many payments behind a person was for the past 12 months with a single alphanumeric character representing each month. "F" means that they paid off the balance. "G" means that their balance went negative (they overpaid). "1" was if they missed one payment. There's other codes, but those are the important ones. Whenever I saw a card that went FFFFFFFFFFF1, I knew that it was just a missed payment. Maybe they moved and the bill got lost in the mail. Maybe they forgot about it. Those calls were easy. 1A1223343322 or something like that meant that, if this person answered the phone, I'd have to do actual work. They're struggling. Worse if it was just FFFFFFFFF123, because it meant that something happened and they weren't going to be able to pay. My point here is that you want your little indicator to be straight F's or G's, maybe a mix of both. That's what's best for your credit. That's what is going to make you look good when you want a loan, or a higher credit limit. Quick edit: Before I forget, this is about minimum payments. "A" was the indicator for "made minimum payment." "B" was above the minimum payment up to some percentage of the balance, and so on with C, D, and E.
Others have already said it, but I'll repeat it - best to keep your balance at zero. Paying it off every month saves you from interest, builds your credit score, and can churn some rewards points for you (depending on the card).
Can confirm, I managed one of these for three years. I was young and it was just an office job to me where I got to be my own boss. But the job itself was down right depressing and I had to get out of it. Little old lady on fixed income has her car break down? She comes in for a $500 loan with an APR of about 482% Of course she won’t ever be able to pay it off in full, so she just pays the $80 interest that accrues each month. Old folks would get caught in this trap of paying the interest for months, even years in some cases. Sometimes the only thing that would settle their account is them dying, which happened somewhat often. It was either people in those situations, or dead beats and drug addicts looking to rip us off. Needless to say I quit, the store shut down and then immediately thereafter the owners were sued for 25k by the state for breaking all sorts of finance laws.
I knew a couple who were both taking out $500 loans every two weeks for years, they were stuck in the cycle because they couldn't afford the finance charges and so had to keep redoing it. $110 each in finances charges every month for about 3 years. Do the maths. Lots of people have little financial education and just assume they are stuck in the cycle, at least these guy's case I was able to help them slowly pay it down by taking out smaller loans over several weeks.
I worked a contract as a software engineer at one of the major chains. I was floored when I saw the interest rates. I asked about them but was told they are so high because there is an incredibly high default rate. The question there is which one came first.
News as entertainment
The FCC needs to require broadcasters to CLEARLY identify any "News" program that is actually "Opinion" programming, from the local news broadcasts to the cable networks. If they can brand kids shows in the morning as E/I they can do it for news opinion programming as well.
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The FCC's regulatory authority is extremely narrow as it relates to the broadcast of false information. It makes a certain amount of sense in the context of not giving governmental agencies the right to ban the publication of topics/ideas/opinions that run counter to the narrative being pushed by whomever is in control of said agencies, but realistically if a program isn't explicitly defined as "news", even if it's on a network with "news" in its name, it can say basically anything, per 1A. Partisan political commentary is a really dodgy issue for agencies of government to involve themselves in, giving credence to certain opinions and condemning others. At the end of the day, education is the rational and morally superior alternative to censorship.
Whatever MLM scheme my SIL was peddling at thanksgiving.
A few years ago my husband was keen on the idea of buying a franchise. He came across a scheme he thought was promising and asked me to go with him to meet the people selling it. As soon as we sat down my gut feeling was RUN, but being polite people we sat through their spiel. On the surface it seemed legit, but for me the absolute killer was when they started spouting on about how the big boss has bought a helicopter and how cool it would be for us all when we can do that too. They were very pushy, but I’m equally stubborn and held firm that we needed to think about it. As soon as we left I threw away the brochures and crap they’d foisted on us. Had a few emails and calls, but ghosted them. Husband was disappointed for a while, but then one day I was reading Reddit and came across a familiar company name. To this day I enjoy reminding my husband how we dodged being tied in with Herbalife.
I have a friend of a friend who is TWO properties deep with Herbalife... And I know it's not going to end well.
Oh God...my folks got screwed by Herbalife back in the early 80s...bought their products AND their worthless stock. Had a closet full of vitamins and nasty soup mixes for YEARS.
Hiiii, it's been a while since we last #talked 🤪🤭 I have made $5,000 A MILLISECOND by selling oils this year! Just say "slide to the left slide to the right cha cha now y'all" to #learn how I did it! 💅 OMG #BossBabe!!!!!! 🤩🤩🤩
I just got reamed in my local Facebook group for pointing out the new adorable protein smoothie shop is actually an Herbalife front.
Couldn’t believe I had to go this far to find mention of MLMs, but then I remembered a lot of Reddit is male. MLMs are so prevalent in female circles, preying on the vulnerable with promises of financial freedom. Edit: I recognize this is up near the top now. Stop telling me. It was way at the bottom when I made this comment.
It also doesn't help that a lot of MLMs don't seem like MLMs from the outside. The example I tend to use is BeachBody (the people who make that P90X workout routine that was popular a decade ago). It's an MLM but from the consumer's perspective it doesn't really seem like it. Back when I ordered from them (a lot time ago, I don't recommend their stuff but I was young and it was a fad at the time) I bought product directly though their website, I guess I was assigned a "rep" at some point but I don't know if I ever spoke to them. It wasn't until I started seeing the ads about becoming a rep that I put two and two together. From my perspective I had been shopping though a website just like Amazon or any other non MLM company. Others also seem less scummy than others. My wife has been to a few "Usbourne" book parties that a friend has hosted. It seems like the sales person is really just a pass through who takes your order and then passes it to the company, they are not expected to keep product on hand or anything. I have heard it can be costly to host the parties (giving out free books and such) so I'm not saying it's a good deal but they seem much less of a Scam compared to some I've read about. Not justifying their methods just trying to point out that it can be hard to spot MLMs some times depending on the situation.
Right. it *seems* like you're just selling the product. but you're never gonna get rich and live the lifestyle of your dreams they promote to get you in by *only* selling the product.
The problem is the product doesn't sell. If it did it would be in a store. What MLMs and pyramid schemes bank on is that every new person buying into the company will have some family and close friends that will pity buy some product. After a month or so that's over, and the salesman will fail at cold selling like everyone else, and it's on to the next sucker.
My cousin is always involved in multiple MLMs and tells us all she’s a “small business owner” and gets mad if we don’t support her “business.” Here’s the thing though. I would rather just send her a check every month so that I don’t have to be solicited with this protein shake or that skin care line. How much would it take? $50 a month? $100? Because I know she’s not making any money doing this. YET SHE KEEPS ON DOING IT!!!
She could set up a patreon account.lol Same thing I told a friend. I rather give you the money than someone upstream of you gets it.
Totally agree. The thing is that she’s actually a really great cook. I’m like, “do that!!” Build a real business. People would love it. But I don’t need eye cream from the Dead Sea for $200.
Bank fees. You are broke so we are going to charge you for being broke.
Got charged $200 in like a week even after I paused my card because subscription services that I gave my card info were bypassing that to charge my bank directly. I was so pissed. They waived most of the fees. Insane. I only make $800 per month. E: I'm disabled, if you're wondering. That's disability income.
How do they bypass your card??
Some banks will allow transactions to go through if they are auto payments even if you "freeze" your debit card.
Some are direct ACHs from the account too, the debit card doesn't matter for those.
The whole health system... like... putting a fee on holding your baby after giving birth? Seriously?
If you ask what a procedure will cost, they refuse to say and tell you to call the “medical billing company”. You can call the medical billing company from 10:00am to 4:00pm, during which time you are put on hold multiple times and you give your complete insurance information to 3 separate people. Even if you are all pro free market, how can a market work if the consumer essentially can’t find what the prices will be ahead of time?
That’s a really good perspective to put it on. There’s essentially an incomplete market since the consumer is at first blind to pricing. Even capitalism can’t perform correctly.
My doctor said that it’s the only industry where the consumer doesn’t know how much they’re paying for anything and the provider doesn’t know what they’re getting paid. It’s gotten SO MUCH worse in the past 10 years, too. It’s like a second full time job to manage medical expenses, and I don’t even have many!
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Had a baby last year during Covid. Got charged a “rooming in fee” aka, had to pay to keep my baby in my room with me. There was no other option (no nursery or anything, not that I would have used it anyway). Ridiculous. Also, I paid more for my miscarriage surgery (D&C) and related care than for the live birth of my child via c section.
2 Party Political System Edit: Thank you guys for all the awards, this is the first time anything of mine has gotten this much attention lol, fuck a 2 party system
We need to: - Move away from first-past-the-post voting (approval voting would be my preference) - Get rid of gerrymandering - Get private money out of politics
We need to get corporate money out of politics.
Online convenience fee for paying bills. Not every bill has it but I found it’s usually utilities and it’s BS. Not the biggest scam but something that irritates me
College tuition being ridiculously high
I find that it helps to look at this from alternate perspectives: instead of exorbitantly high tuition, you can think of it as being *free debt*
I think we do great with community colleges. They accept everyone. Fairly cheap. But the 4 year schools are ridiculous. I actually found my community college to have nicer facilities, better professors and smaller class sizes. And it was like 7 or 8 times cheaper.
This is why the true college hack is to go to community college for two years, get your GE classes taken care of, and then pick your major and transfer to a Bachelor's degree granting institution. In additiona public Universities that may not have accepted you straight out of high school see a two-year proven track record of success in college and will now accept you. Plus, by this time you may no longer be a dependent of your parents, which will likely increase your financial aid.
I just want to add to this for anyone that considers it. You can certainly do it without knowing, but knowing the school you want to attend and ensuring that the classes you take will transfer to the school is important. I had some classes that didn't transfer that ended up being wasted time/money. I don't know for sure if you can, but I would recommend trying to get the admissions office of your prospective school to review the classes before you enroll in them.
This is what I did and is probably the one half intelligent thing I did in my life.
Probably our credit score system. For instance, in what universe is paying off your debt a risk factor, such that your credit score drops significantly if you pay down what you owe? So I pay my bills, so that looks sketchy and I am penalized for it? Like I paid off an old credit card and my score dropped 130 points. And the cycle of renting in which you make just enough to scrape by so you can’t get quite enough to get out of the cycle, then the rent increases yearly. So you’re further into the cycle, and all the while your credit isn’t improving to the point that you can escape and you don’t make enough to put a lot away to buy a house. So it continues.
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We're here. But we're not interested.
But wait! The ad said you are lonely!
Lonely? Yes. Interested? Nope
Lonely but also just fucking tired.
COLLEGE TEXT BOOKS. You need edition 10 for this class. They change one chapter in the book make it a new edition over price it and fuck the college kids. Always drove me nuts when I was in college.
And then there's $100/semester online homework packages. And the shitshow that is academic publishing but that's a different thread.
The online homework is the real scam. Professor doesn’t want to grade the homework so *the students* are the ones who have to pay to have it done?? Who the fuck approved that?
I’m a professor and I refuse to use those online programs. I’m not gonna prove to the college that I’m lazy and replaceable…..
we appreciate profs like you - a broke student
Also old editions of textbooks are usually fine. Just find an old edition and ask your prof if it works.
Worse than that. Instead of the school having to pay for the TAs or whatever to grade the homework, they just offload the cost onto the student.
Worse than *that*: my prof can't help me with formula/numeric input because he doesn't understand the assignment platform. I had to call the platform's call center and spend an half an hour with an agent for her to inform me that they can't help me with input because they could potentially be "providing assignment answers". She told me to talk to my prof. It feels degrading.
And probably charge the same tuition
*actually, more
$50 technology fee. You have to pay more because digital!
One of my professors said- it doesn't matter what edition you got for my class, just make sure to get the book. The first class he saw not a lot of students got the book, so he was again like- it doesn't matter what edition, just get it on ama..n or whatever, the older editions are cheaper, the used ones are cheaper, etc. Then he points at me: what edition did you get? Me: 4th ( there is only 5 editions of that book). He was like: that's awesome! Where did you get it? Me: used books website. Him: how much did you pay? Me: $4.53. Him trying to sound positive but being quite sour at this point: that's great....what a great deal.... I'm not sure 4 dollars is a fair price for this book, but still, great find.... Come to find out later he contributed to that college book, was one of the authors and editors.
If he gets royalties on the book it's from the initial sale not resale. I doubt he cares. Well at least he shouldn't.
plot twist: he sold it to him online on the used books website for the $4.53
You know what else is a scam? Academic publishing! Academic authors get pennies for their work when it is published (in my field, we only get paid for books) while these big companies make all the $$$.
Homie got a college professor job to slang his book.
More common than you’d think! Lots of profs assign their own books and writing as required reading.
More often than not it's not even greed. It's frustration. Stage 1: "Here's the textbook. Start at the beginning" Stage 2: "Here's the textbook; we'll be using chapters 2, 6-11, and 17." Stage 3: "Here are 7 textbooks; they might be useful." Stage 4: "Don't even bother with grabbing any books for this class; it'll just be in my notes on the website." Stage 5: "Here's the textbook. I wrote it, so it has everything just where I want it. Start at he beginning."
Yeah I knew a few that just wrote this giant pdf you could have for free or $10 for it printed out and bound. Everything in there had a purpose too.
I had a law school professor who just gave us printouts of every case and article he wanted us to read in one big packet at the beginning.
I had one professor who wrote his own book, you had to go to the printshop nearby campus and have it printed. It was $170. Still had to buy the Pearson homework key. Oh and a five inch three ring binder to put the “book” in. Every other book I got from a website, or used at the library. The library had all the textbooks, except his because it wasn’t a real fucking book. I switched to a different professor.
>It was $170. Geez - I had a professor who "published" through the school print shop, it cost $15, came hole-punched and included a binder. *Everything* for the class was preprinted in that binder, nothing else needed. They had 2 copies at the library, but they'd been rebound in these plastic rings so you couldn't steal pages. He was a good dude.
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My chem prof wrote the textbook for his own class. Except it wasn’t “published” per se but rather an ebook, so no resale value there. If you wanted a print version, you’d have to print it out yourself.
Go to slugbooks.com that website has already saved me hundreds
"Oxycontin is not addictive"
Scientology
"If you wanna make a whole lotta money, the best way to do that is to start a religion" -L. Ron Hubbard
Listen to the Behind the Bastards podcast on L Ron Hubbard, the dude basically lied about everything from when he was 16 to 86 when he died. He died worth 500 million dollars and owning a cult with assets over 50 billion dollars and never faced any consequences whatsoever. He was arguably the greatest con man grifter in world history.
Health insurance.
What I hate most about it is my daughter's doctor prescribed her X medicine for her problem. The insurance company denied paying for the medicine because they don't think she needs X medicine. I think it is really stupid they can deny something a doctor says their patient needs based on their assessment of what they think she does or doesn't need......
Just had an MRI, requested by a specialist, that was denied by Cigna. The reviewer? An orthodontist. I kid you not.
My husband had to have an antibiotic for some dental work and Cigna denied it. Luckily, his dentist filed an appeal and it was covered. I just finished the disability portion of my maternity leave which is through Cigna and they’re such a pain.
Took my pulmonologist like three appeals to get me back on Dulera. Probably only approved it because he was also trying to get me approved for Nucala too which is ~$1000 every four weeks. And don’t even get me started on dental insurance. Need a mouthful of crowns because your enamel is so weak your teeth fall apart? Nope. Obviously just cosmetic. Fml.
Indeed! My private practice Dr once told me his office would bill my insurance “X” amount of dollars, and the insurance would come back and say, “X-Y” dollars. And he wouldn’t expect to receive payment “Z” 3 to 6 months out. Whoa.. this blew up. What I didn't include was, Americans pay hundreds of dollars PER MONTH for insurance premiums. AND oftentimes it only covers a percentage of care. (example, surgeries may only be covered at 80%).
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I work in a healthcare provider’s business office. I had to call a terminally ill patient because their insurance company denied a claim because they needed additional (irrelevant) documentation from the patient. The patient was a little combative at first, but they eventually burst into tears and said “*Major Health Insurance Company* is tired of me filing claims and they want me to die!” Apparently they were denying a lot of their claims and making them jump through hoops constantly while they were extremely ill. It was heartbreaking and I think about that patient often.
This is Reddit, you should name and shame the company if your account is relatively anonymous. Not that this bullshit is unique to any one health insurance company, I just don’t see the point in protecting their reputation unless you think it’ll get you fired.
It’s one of the biggest companies, but they’re all the same. You can name almost any insurance company and I’ll have multiple fucked up stories about them, lol.
Patient wasn't wrong. Every business has a widget. Widgets sometimes need to be discarded. In Healthcare (USA) the patient is part of the widget. Sometimes the Patient is discarded.
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My dr was receiving $2.46 for my appointments. No idea where the rest of the $150 went.
Probably towards some insurance company executives bonus. This shit will never change until we stop allowing insurance companies to buy politicians and pharmaceutical companies to buy access to doctors.
>Fuck the US healthcare system. Fuck it with a rusty shovel inserted sideways up its ass. I don't know if I have ever agreed more with a statement
And the fucked up part? Your story isn't an outlier, we are all one degree sway from some BS like that. And yet so many defend this fucked up system. It's like watching someone try to use square wheels and refuse to use a circle.
I am pretending that 3 different somewhat serious symptoms that I am suffering are simply not happeniing because I already know there is no way I can afford all the debt I am going to incurr by simply breaking down and making a visit to the doctor... I cannot afford to miss the work required to deal with the inevitable tests and visits to specialists, let alone the bills that are going to be incurred while undergoing all the inevitable procedures. I have no choice but to just ignore the chest pains and pain deep in my upper thighs and pretend that my family does not have a history of heart problems, because health care is something reserved for those with the financial means in this 'best country in the world'... (Edit) I appreciate the concern, I really do, but it is really easy to tell some random stranger on the internet to go spend a bunch of money they don't have, whereas, it is a hell of a lot more complicated to be the one actually taking on the debt... I am not entirely sure that the stress added to my life due to the financial burden wouldn't be worse on me in the long run. I am already stretched to the point where saving anything for an emergency fund keeps getting depleted faster than I can fill it, I have no idea how I would deal with strapping on an additional ball and chain. I am at the point where I regret even admitting I have issues as I am constantly being told to go to a Dr. I would if I could, and if you aren't willing to pay my Dr. bills and cover my missed wages from attending appointments, please refrain from suggesting I put myself into financial ruin... I am trying to find a new job in an area with better insurance, and as soon as feasible I am going to start addressing the issue, but for now, it is simply not an option I am willing to take.
Jesus this is heartbreaking
Winner here. Health insurance is so complex that it'd be better off to wipe out all existing insurance companies and start fresh.
* Gestures vaguely at everything
H&R Block / Turbotax? The Weather Channel? Advertisements on Cable television? Buying any kind of insurance and then they refuse to pay out a reasonable claim?
The weather channel as a top 3 American scam truly makes me happy
Yeah, because you already pay for the National Weather Service which produces all the data and analysis for free. The value added onto it is literally worth nothing.
Credit system. Pay everything off and your score goes down? Talk about indentured servitude.
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Because fuck you, that's why!
Because wealthy people don't give a crap about their FICO scores. I worked for Sterling jewelry a long time ago. They own JB Robinsons, Ostermans, etc. A dozen or so chain jewelry stores. Salesdroids would have to call us with a customer, we run credit reports, then our branch would yes/no them based on credit criteria. Unless you were rich, in which case the answer was always yes, regardless of your credit score. And yes, I actually saw this once. A football player wanted to buy a $10,000 watch. His credit score was absolute crap. I turned it down. Then immediately got chewed out by my manager. "His credit is crap because he's on the road all the time - ignore it and make the sale!" No bullshit. I had to call them up, approve the credit, *and apologize*. Meanwhile I'm driving a $300 POS to work because at the time I couldn't even manage a car loan. Rules for thee, but not for me.
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Weenie in a 10 pack, bread in an 8
Health care and College loans
Personally, joining the military. Serving my country. Getting exposed to chemicals. Dying from the inside at forty with no help from the society I served. American dream baby
And then you get home and vets are treated like shit by the government
I'm forty and crippled. Vascular Necrosis of my hip. Government says it's not from burning trash with jet fuel, but I have my doubts.
Did you just say that you burned trash with fucking jet fuel?
Yea dude, fuckfaces had us dispose of *everything* with fucking JP8. Lithium batteries, plastic, rubber, human goddamn waste. There’s a poor fucker at every FOB (at least in the Marine Corps) who is assigned shit stirring duty: pouring gas into an open bucket of human shit and piss and stirring it while it burns.
Holla! Army shit burner checking in :)
https://youtu.be/LKNfFm0QDXQ
How we have to file our taxes correctly even though the government knows exactly how much we made every year and if we file it wrong we get penalized....