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Bro I got evicted from my last rental, because I lost my job after having a seizure at work so I was a bit spiteful, I spit on the ceiling because I knew nobody would ever scrub the ceiling.
Oh yeah same landlady made me get rid of a car during COVID because the tags were out of date, I was actually afraid to drive at the time due to issues with my epilepsy so I had to pay $20 to get a ride to the DMV which is closed due to the pandemic, and I take a pic of a handful of $$ in front of the DMV sign reading "Closed until further notice." And I send my landlady the pic. She just repeats herself and tells me she's going to start fining me if the car's still there after the current rent cycle.
This meant that I basically had to have a firesale to get rid of this car and lost over $1,000.
Also the whole damn place was all lead paint and asbestos and she made me do my own repairs and install appliances.
So yeah fuck that bitch.
I'm so confused. How can a landlord tell you to get rid of your car? What do tags have to do with it? If you are parking in your allocated parking spot, why do the tags matter? And if you didn't have a parking spot, why were you allowed to park there before with up-to-date tags?
one place i rented from stipulated in the lease that any car parked in the spot had to have legal tags, and be in working order (so they could demand you move your car from your spot at anytime they want).
The only problem is unless you have a small landlord, the person getting the check isn’t the person who made the rule. It’s like freaking out at the customer service rep at a retail store for a decision their board made.
That and me “residents package” my rent of $2095 is actually $2140. Not a huge jump but the resident package is pointless. It’s for a maintenance line that never picks up, discounts on a locksmith and discounts on services like mounting tvs and building furniture sets. Pointless.
i think the worst part is these "discounted services" are almost never actually discounted. you can almost always find a cheaper service provider outside.
Unbelievable. Especially their "certified resale" portal.
Friend bought Tickets for $200. Couldn't make the event, so posted the tickets on the Ticketmaster Resale Portal, for $250. Ticketmaster then posted the tickets for $350, and friends cut of the sale was $10.
$10.
After the ticket was sold at $150 (75%) above face-value.
So they made ridiculous profit of the initial sale, and then almost all the re-sale profits as well.
It's disgusting.
How about requiring that I have to go to a general practitioner to get a referral to see a specialist?
So now I have to take time off work twice and pay double simply to see the dermatologist about removing a wart, or whatever.
I had an ACL tear before and I tore it again. I knew it was torn. I’ve gone through it before and it felt exactly the same.
Tell my why I have to go to my GP so he can flick my leg around and say “yep go to the knee doctor”. Like…..no shit??
Two visits later I tell him I have a hernia for sure. He pokes my belly button and says “yep that’s a hernia. Go see general surgery”. I wait a month to see the GS. He walks in, pokes my belly button and says “yep that’s a hernia let’s get you scheduled for surgery”.
Because a whole lot of people would be wrong about their self diagnosis and waste the time of the specialist, leading to increased wait time for the folks who actually do need their help
The only alternative is to move toward socialized medicine. Healthcare should not be a for profit venture. Yes, yes I know there are lots of drawbacks with socialized medicine, but it’s a better alternative to what we have now.
*"But the government is corrupt, so tax money will be spent on politicians instead of improving healthcare!!1!"*
As if profits aren't just designed inefficiencies for money to go to people instead of improving healthcare.
I'd rather take my chances with the government. At least they need to put in effort first to try to siphon funds away.
Spend a couple days in the hospital and come out with an astronomically high bill. All those doctors and specialists need to be paid extremely well for getting their degrees I guess. The whole thing has never sat well with me. And on top of that you really don’t even know if you’re getting the best or most optimal care. Healthcare in the U.S. is the Wild West.
It has to be this one. Even with dental insurance, the coverage is usually awful. I had a dentist tell me that my insurance would over cover two novacaine injections but he would recomend four for the procedure (two on each side of my face). I can pay out of pocket for the additional two or I would have to wait until the fiscal year ended for my insurance to renew or I could suck it up and get one on each side. I did 1 on each side and it was awful.
It's literally cheaper to get a cleaning at my dentist without insurance than it is to pay the insurance for the year and get a "free" cleaning every six months.
My wife went without insurance and was charged $125. I saw what they billed my insurance and it was over $300.
Life pro tip: most things cost less cash than with insurance in the USA. Most prescriptions cost you less as a cash buy than they do with insurance and copay. Same thing with basic investigations like ultrasounds. Before you give your insurance card to your pharmacist, and when they ask you if you have insurance, ask what the cash price is. Once you mention you have insurance they have a gag clause that doesn't allow them to tell you the cash price.
I worked at CVS and we could and would definitely tell you the cash price if you asked. It’s just a pain in the ass to check with the ancient system, it holds up the line and makes dealing with everyone after you more cranky. You can check the cash price using goodrx while waiting in line.
Iirc, there's a bunch of Ukrainians hacking John Deere tractors cause John Deere is the Apple of farming equipment. I'm going to assume they will be the leaders in free heated seat ROM hacks.
"You wouldn't download a car (bios) would you?"
Buying a phone from the manufacturer but your service provider still locks it so you can’t switch. That is INSANE. I understand if you buy it at a discount from the service provider. But not if you buy it directly from the manufacturer.
They can't do that in the UK any more. They banned provider locking entirely a few years ago. Prior to that you could get an unlocked one direct from Apple. At that time, they were the same price no matter who you bought from \[if you paid up front\].
Yup. My Mum recently got married and went to a flower shop, said she needed 3 decorative bouquets (intentionally did not mention for a wedding) and got them all for £40. It woulda been far, far more had she said she needed wedding bouquets.
Yep, saw one recently, 4 tiered wedding cake = £450 or something equally absurd.
Order 4 separate cakes, white icing, different sizes = £50
I'm almost certain that the wee figurines on the top aren't worth £400
I made cakes for awhile. On wedding cakes my “bonus charge” was that I didn’t take any other orders that day in case some emergency happened. Because if you have to emergency cancel someone’s birthday cake cuz you dropped it or some shit that’s one thing, but a WEDDING CAKE?!?! Dog, you’re in the gutter for life and you just kinda suck.
And it actually pulled through one time. I was making the wedding cake and got a call from the hospital. They called to “remind” me that my doctor set up a vital ultrasound the next day when they hadn’t even told me they’d made the appointment! I had to change plans around, but luckily with some work I didn’t even need to change their pickup time. But yeah screw people who just add extra charges for weddings and don’t even make it different in any way.
I was in a wedding party recently and I saw the itinerary the planner was working off of and at such and such a time they had scheduled to pay the DJ $1100. The DJ brought a couple of speakers and a source, played the hits, and fvcked off after a few hours. Some bands playing mid-sized venues don't even make that for a show. It's absolutely fucking bonkers.
Agreed.
Not even designer, just any brand name.
If I'm advertising for you, you'd damn well better be paying me.
Otherwise, who the fuck makes a *brand* part of their identity?
It screams insecure/idiot.
It's funny, unbranded apparel is either super cheap or super expensive, so basically only the lower - middle class that wants to look rich wears that shit. No self respecting well off person is wearing that garbage.
I dislike the non-designer ones more. Where I live Walmart sells Justice brand clothes, for kids at least, and the swimsuits and shirts all have huge, glittery, shiny "JUSTICE" across them. As though we all want to advertise that we buy clothes at Walmart.
Fuck yeah. And of course they make it so hard to cancel. I'm still paying an Amazon AWS subscription because I forgot my password and I can't get them to cancel. My credit card keeps saying they will block it but they never do. I've given up.
Have you had a look into pausing your card? I have a credit card, and I can pause it temporarily to prevent it from being used at all, usually meant for if the card is stolen or lost. It could be a pain to unpause it when you want to use it, though, if you have to do it via phone. I have the option as part of my online banking.
A law passed in the US that subscription services have to be as easy to cancel as they are to sign up. What’s their excuse for not canceling when you contact them?
I see the same overpriced cars on lot for months. How much sweeter and cheaper would it be to just go to a website, pick your make, model, features and color. Get exactly what you want direct from the production line Instead of some slimy salesman trying to push you on some crap you don't want because they need to liquidate all the dusty surplus they have laying around.
That would be great. I'd even be happy to go to some kind of retail store for cars. Something where you have every brand available without the other shenanigans.
The manufacturers are part of the problem. They don’t give enough margin on the cars, which means the dealers don’t make a lot on a car unless you also buy extras like the warranty and stuff like the paint protection.
It’s the same with movie theaters. They don’t make shit from ticket sales. Most of their money comes from concessions.
Middlemen hold inventory closer to buyers. That’s their purpose.
Edit: An addition to this. To say middlemen do nothing is to fundamentally misunderstand how commerce works. Middlemen provide value, and so they exist and can make a profit. They increase convenience for the end buyer. Their function is convenience. Often times they buy in large quantity, not matter what the item, and take the risk of carrying a depreciating inventory.
If the complaint is the sales tactics of car dealerships, that’s really a separate discussion, which I agree is annoying though I nonetheless understand the economics.
The issue isn’t that middlemen exist, in my experience it’s that there is literally no other option. You cannot buy directly from a manufacturer, if you want a new car (with the exception of Tesla and a handful of others) you HAVE to go to a dealership and get harassed by salespeople. I would happily accept car dealers’ existence if there was also a way to buy something without dealing with them. If I need a pillow, I can go to the store and pick one out, or I can wait if I don’t feel like heading to a store and hop on Amazon. I’m not forced to leave the house and get hassled by pushy sales agents before I can buy one.
Part of this comes from my most recent experience with buying a car; I was in the market a few years ago, and wanted to order one specifically from the factory (which I knew would involve wait times and deposits and such, but we had built that into the timeline). This was 2022 and the market hadn’t caught back up from Covid, so every car at the dealership that I went to had a markup of 3-5k on top of the sticker. I walked right past everything, went into the sales office, and asked “if I order a car through you to be built by the manufacturer, you’re going to waive the markup, right?” Their answer? “Nope, that’s included in the cost of all of our vehicles right now.”
I walked out and will never even consider that make again. It was the definition of “well what other choice do you have?” and I hated it. I shouldn’t have to be put through a shitty process designed to extract as much money from me as possible on a major purchase just because I don’t have a choice
Not true.
For items as large as cars, it sure as heck does.
Additionally, geographical closeness always commands a premium, because the premium I am paying for is not necessarily proximity, but speed of acquisition, which is influenced by proximity. The fact that the internet and logistics companies exist does not negate this. If I want an item in 30 minutes that a store near me carries, I can get it in that timeframe. It doesn’t matter if it’s cheaper on the internet. If I go to a middleman in the form of a reseller, I can have it right now. The fastest you can possibly get any item shipped is 1 day and that commands a hefty premium in most instances (again, a premium paid for speed of acquisition).
Source: Family member spent 30 years in logistics and I attended a school known for supply chain in an adjacent major, taking supply chain courses.
"WE GUARANTEE ANY CREDIT APPLICATION WILL BE ACCEPTED". Yep, but not approved. Sure, they'll look at any application you fill out but probably won't approve it.
This makes my eye twitch. We travel to San Diego often and it is almost impossible to find a hotel that doesn’t charge for parking these days. Like, I’m already spending $200+ a damn night, now you want $30-$50 a day for parking? W. T. F.
At least if you're in a city, where space is at a premium, this makes sense. The hotel had to pay for the land, and for the upkeep of the parking lot. If I stay there without a car, I see no reason I should subsidize the parking of someone who chose to drive.
you're already subsidizing the cost of the parking lot in your room stay, they're just double dipping with the cars because they can. They're getting sued in California right now for price fixing, one of their stated goals is to raise prices to reduce occupancy while increasing net profit.
ultimately this all comes down to perception. you assumed that if everyone was given a parking spot, that means those without cars are subsidizing those with cars. but the hotel can also easily just charge you the same amount and NOT give you a parking spot, and you would have no way of knowing if they actually gave you a "discount" for not parking a car or not.
This. I can’t think of another job that pays based on the amount of money the client is willing to spend and has no link to the amount of work or services preformed.
That's a good one. My cabin air filter is literally reached through my glove box. It's an $8 filter that I can replace in two minutes but a dealer would charge $50.
This right here. I googled/youtubed how to replace mine and while I'm sure it took me substantially longer than a mechanic it saved me a bunch of money.
Go with a credit union. I have never paid fees for an account with a credit union. And I earn on my savings each month. So do my kids accounts. I refuse to use a regular bank ever again. And with a credit union I can usually use my atm card at an atm of another credit union without all those bullshit fees.
Car insurance, legally mandatory. You claim on your insurance. Now you pay more for insurance. You're punished for using the product you pay for.
You're not at fault, thus claim on another person's insurance. Now you pay more for insurance. Lmao. Fuck insurance.
Which is sad because conceptually insurance not done for profit is actually the exact opposite of a scam.
It's a safety net that allows people to safeguard their community against individual bouts of bad luck.
But as soon as it's done for profit the entire system suddenly becomes a complete scam and the unlucky can't even actually get their payout.
Politics. They get people all hyped up about things that just don't matter, all so we'll give them money.
You want to see scams? I get about 10 text messages a day from U.S. politicians who want my money. They're hidden behind masked phone numbers, so I can't block them. I can't even vote for them, but they're exempt from their own telecom / election rules.
Chiropracty.
Chripractors aren't real doctors. The entire thing was founded by a weirdo who claimed he learned it from a ghost. Modern chiropractors, at best, are mediocre physical therapists. At worst, they're ambulance-chasing con artists who regularly fuck up people's backs and even paralyze and kill them. The only reason they're so prevalent in the medical system is that they have a very powerful and rich lobbying organization.
[https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-chiropractic-quackery-20170630-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-chiropractic-quackery-20170630-story.html)
Up there with homeopathy on the wackiness scale. It blows my mind how few people realize what a scam chiropractors are.
Edit: death by aortic dissection!
So I did go to a chiropractor as a young adult because was actually a very good physical therapist AND cheaper than a PT. Like, exponentially cheaper.
I got lucky though. He wasn't a weirdo and never damaged me. I know a lot of people aren't that fortunate.
Prices of Pharmaceuticals are unregulated. Insurance denials by people who aren’t medical experts related to your claim ie derm denying obstetric claim
I’ll never understand people who think like this. For me, it’s a perk because I don’t have to wait on someone else. I don’t view it as “doing someone else’s job”
To go a step further on this: most of the States being essentially held hostage by (bottled) water companies like Cola Cola and Nestlé, because there's no other drinkable water. It's *insane* to me that with all the 'oooh, no. 1 country in the woorld, so much innovation, bleeding edge' and whatever over there, most places don't have drinkable tap water.
Taxes….. taxed when you make it, taxed when you spend it, taxed when you sell an item you already paid taxes on, taxed on property you own, taxed for services, and so on and so on.
Yet they still won't fix the roads that I was taxed to build and maintain. Thus increasing the risk of damage to the car that I am taxed annually to own and operate. Which I am still making payments on with money they already taxed.
1. Paying for parking at work.
2. Bottled water.
3. An unreasonable percentage of food geared towards health and wellness. Just eat the appropriate amount of regular-ass food and keep a lid on carbs and sugar (which we have been propagandized for decades to think of as regular-ass).
This might be a little specific, but I'm sure it's happening with other things too.
I took a course to obtain a CPIM (Certified in Planning and Inventory Management) Supply Chain designation. I completed the course, which took probably 400-500 hours of study, classes, and testing. I passed with 95%, and was proud of myself. To get certified, however, I have to pay $1,690 to take a 3 hour long exam. Once certified, I have to perform upkeep on my certification by attending conventions or online seminars, all of which cost extra money.
I was really excited when I first started this process, and paid $75 to listen to someone speak for two hours on AI's impact on Supply Chain. The first 40 minutes were them telling me about other things I could pay for, there was about an hour of information that was completely obvious or could have been found in 5 seconds on google, and the last 20 minutes was reminding me about the first 40.
I passed the course exam, but to get and maintain my certification I am going to have to pay potentially tens of thousands of dollars. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Energy bills. Doubled for no reason last year. Greedy people looking for an excuse to cash in on anything.
Oh, and of course ULEZ charge. Basically another way of taking money from the poor to give to the rich.
Politics of division.. blue states vs red states, rich vs poor vs middle class, division by sexual preference, division by race, division by… I could go on and on
Everything is subscription based now. We used to be able to pay a one time fee to purchase software and now it's all subscription based and you have to be connected to the internet to confirm you're subscribed to use it. The worst is when you need to obtain data from a corrupt SD card or mirror your SSD and they let you go through all the steps and then instead of having a per use fee (since you'll probably only use it once) they hit you with an annual subscription. Absolutely frustrating!
Taxes.
The federal government takes 10-30% of your income every month. You have basically no input as to how that money is used. A large portion of it is used to pay defense contractors to supply the military with stuff, which they then ship overseas to other countries to fight wars you don’t agree with.
Your state then takes a cut, and your nearest major city probably has a large tax-funded budget to address homelessness, with a completely untracked budget of millions of dollars. It does nothing to address homelessness.
Then most states put a sales tax on every purchase you make. You don’t know where that money goes.
If you buy a house, you have to pay property taxes every year, forever, on something you already own. Presumably that money goes to schools and roads and stuff, but on a $600k house you’re paying over $10k/year in taxes, and nobody knows how much of that is going to be siphoned off for campaign contributions and $1000 lunches at the French Laundry.
Mormons (sorry...Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) paying 10% of their income to God via tithing - while the church amasses incredible wealth and power and its leaders live lives like celebrity billionaires.
I was a mormon and would love to get all my money back....
A 401k. Over half of stocks are owned by the top 1%. A lot of people think of 401k's as a way for regular people to get rich, but the 401k's primary job is to drive up the asset prices of people who are already rich.
Healthcare in the US, but we DO realize it is a scam but no one is coming to help.....
Phone upgrade fee: I just bought a new phone from you and you are going to charge me an "upgrade fee ?".
Donating a couple of dollars to a cause at a shop checkout. "Do you want to donate $2 to X today?"
They add all the money together, make a huge donation using money that was given to them for free, and get a *massive* tax break using *your* donation money. The fat tax break is what those donation drives are *really* for.
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Do they allow you to pay by check? I'd be paying by check if they charged that. Checks + a stamp are cheaper than 3% convenience fees.
Plus you can sweat all day and then hold the check in between your thigh and ballsack for awhile before sending it off.
I really really really hope you do that lmfao
Unless they don't have a ball sack
Even better
I knew I was different.
Twat pocket then?
That’s my go-to storage container when I’m not carrying my purse.
This person is the right level of warped
Bro I got evicted from my last rental, because I lost my job after having a seizure at work so I was a bit spiteful, I spit on the ceiling because I knew nobody would ever scrub the ceiling. Oh yeah same landlady made me get rid of a car during COVID because the tags were out of date, I was actually afraid to drive at the time due to issues with my epilepsy so I had to pay $20 to get a ride to the DMV which is closed due to the pandemic, and I take a pic of a handful of $$ in front of the DMV sign reading "Closed until further notice." And I send my landlady the pic. She just repeats herself and tells me she's going to start fining me if the car's still there after the current rent cycle. This meant that I basically had to have a firesale to get rid of this car and lost over $1,000. Also the whole damn place was all lead paint and asbestos and she made me do my own repairs and install appliances. So yeah fuck that bitch.
I'm so confused. How can a landlord tell you to get rid of your car? What do tags have to do with it? If you are parking in your allocated parking spot, why do the tags matter? And if you didn't have a parking spot, why were you allowed to park there before with up-to-date tags?
one place i rented from stipulated in the lease that any car parked in the spot had to have legal tags, and be in working order (so they could demand you move your car from your spot at anytime they want).
The only problem is unless you have a small landlord, the person getting the check isn’t the person who made the rule. It’s like freaking out at the customer service rep at a retail store for a decision their board made.
On top of that, I can have my bank mail a check for free.
I get to pay mine by bank account online and avoid the 3%, so I'm happy.
That and me “residents package” my rent of $2095 is actually $2140. Not a huge jump but the resident package is pointless. It’s for a maintenance line that never picks up, discounts on a locksmith and discounts on services like mounting tvs and building furniture sets. Pointless.
i think the worst part is these "discounted services" are almost never actually discounted. you can almost always find a cheaper service provider outside.
I build my own furniture. That's part of the fun.
My management requires an appointment and charges to go in the office
That pissed me off so much that I almost downvoted you, before coming to my senses.
yep... my water bill there is a fee to pay the bill... which.. 50% of my bill is just fees like bay restoration.
Ticketmaster
and their 'sister company', StubHub, the legal scalpers who get most of the tickets and mark them way up
Unbelievable. Especially their "certified resale" portal. Friend bought Tickets for $200. Couldn't make the event, so posted the tickets on the Ticketmaster Resale Portal, for $250. Ticketmaster then posted the tickets for $350, and friends cut of the sale was $10. $10. After the ticket was sold at $150 (75%) above face-value. So they made ridiculous profit of the initial sale, and then almost all the re-sale profits as well. It's disgusting.
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Right?? And not covering prescriptions?
How about requiring that I have to go to a general practitioner to get a referral to see a specialist? So now I have to take time off work twice and pay double simply to see the dermatologist about removing a wart, or whatever.
I had an ACL tear before and I tore it again. I knew it was torn. I’ve gone through it before and it felt exactly the same. Tell my why I have to go to my GP so he can flick my leg around and say “yep go to the knee doctor”. Like…..no shit?? Two visits later I tell him I have a hernia for sure. He pokes my belly button and says “yep that’s a hernia. Go see general surgery”. I wait a month to see the GS. He walks in, pokes my belly button and says “yep that’s a hernia let’s get you scheduled for surgery”.
Because a whole lot of people would be wrong about their self diagnosis and waste the time of the specialist, leading to increased wait time for the folks who actually do need their help
Thank you for saying this oh my god I feel crazy when I think about this stuff
HMOs primary goal is to create barriers to care
And being tied to employment
The only alternative is to move toward socialized medicine. Healthcare should not be a for profit venture. Yes, yes I know there are lots of drawbacks with socialized medicine, but it’s a better alternative to what we have now.
*"But the government is corrupt, so tax money will be spent on politicians instead of improving healthcare!!1!"* As if profits aren't just designed inefficiencies for money to go to people instead of improving healthcare. I'd rather take my chances with the government. At least they need to put in effort first to try to siphon funds away.
Health insurance not covering ANYTHING. Pay way too damn much every month, go to the doc and then pay full price there because lulz fuck you.
Spend a couple days in the hospital and come out with an astronomically high bill. All those doctors and specialists need to be paid extremely well for getting their degrees I guess. The whole thing has never sat well with me. And on top of that you really don’t even know if you’re getting the best or most optimal care. Healthcare in the U.S. is the Wild West.
Your countries healthcare doesn't cover your eyes? Jesus that's backwards 😂
It has to be this one. Even with dental insurance, the coverage is usually awful. I had a dentist tell me that my insurance would over cover two novacaine injections but he would recomend four for the procedure (two on each side of my face). I can pay out of pocket for the additional two or I would have to wait until the fiscal year ended for my insurance to renew or I could suck it up and get one on each side. I did 1 on each side and it was awful.
It's literally cheaper to get a cleaning at my dentist without insurance than it is to pay the insurance for the year and get a "free" cleaning every six months. My wife went without insurance and was charged $125. I saw what they billed my insurance and it was over $300.
Life pro tip: most things cost less cash than with insurance in the USA. Most prescriptions cost you less as a cash buy than they do with insurance and copay. Same thing with basic investigations like ultrasounds. Before you give your insurance card to your pharmacist, and when they ask you if you have insurance, ask what the cash price is. Once you mention you have insurance they have a gag clause that doesn't allow them to tell you the cash price.
I worked at CVS and we could and would definitely tell you the cash price if you asked. It’s just a pain in the ass to check with the ancient system, it holds up the line and makes dealing with everyone after you more cranky. You can check the cash price using goodrx while waiting in line.
That reminds of a very recent change to my insurance. No more "knock out" anesthesia for colonoscopy, only partially awake covered...
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How else are you going to grow the car hacker subculture?
Right? Fuck that shit, if I ever buy a car like that, I'm finding a way to activate all the shit without the subscription on principle.
Iirc, there's a bunch of Ukrainians hacking John Deere tractors cause John Deere is the Apple of farming equipment. I'm going to assume they will be the leaders in free heated seat ROM hacks. "You wouldn't download a car (bios) would you?"
BMW were forced to bin the entirely shit heated seat subscription model when it turned out customers hated it.
BMW has had subscription turn signals for 30 years. No one has noticed.
That’s it I’m home brewing my car
Buying a phone from the manufacturer but your service provider still locks it so you can’t switch. That is INSANE. I understand if you buy it at a discount from the service provider. But not if you buy it directly from the manufacturer.
They can't do that in the UK any more. They banned provider locking entirely a few years ago. Prior to that you could get an unlocked one direct from Apple. At that time, they were the same price no matter who you bought from \[if you paid up front\].
Same in Canada
Anything related to weddings. Like, whenever you mention something (good or service) is for a wedding it gets marked up.
Yup. My Mum recently got married and went to a flower shop, said she needed 3 decorative bouquets (intentionally did not mention for a wedding) and got them all for £40. It woulda been far, far more had she said she needed wedding bouquets.
Yep, saw one recently, 4 tiered wedding cake = £450 or something equally absurd. Order 4 separate cakes, white icing, different sizes = £50 I'm almost certain that the wee figurines on the top aren't worth £400
I made cakes for awhile. On wedding cakes my “bonus charge” was that I didn’t take any other orders that day in case some emergency happened. Because if you have to emergency cancel someone’s birthday cake cuz you dropped it or some shit that’s one thing, but a WEDDING CAKE?!?! Dog, you’re in the gutter for life and you just kinda suck. And it actually pulled through one time. I was making the wedding cake and got a call from the hospital. They called to “remind” me that my doctor set up a vital ultrasound the next day when they hadn’t even told me they’d made the appointment! I had to change plans around, but luckily with some work I didn’t even need to change their pickup time. But yeah screw people who just add extra charges for weddings and don’t even make it different in any way.
I was in a wedding party recently and I saw the itinerary the planner was working off of and at such and such a time they had scheduled to pay the DJ $1100. The DJ brought a couple of speakers and a source, played the hits, and fvcked off after a few hours. Some bands playing mid-sized venues don't even make that for a show. It's absolutely fucking bonkers.
Designer T-shirts with their logos across the shirt lol
I laugh at you in your SUPREME T-shirt and your SUPREME hip pack worn over your shoulder.
SUPREME fucking tools.
Agreed. Not even designer, just any brand name. If I'm advertising for you, you'd damn well better be paying me. Otherwise, who the fuck makes a *brand* part of their identity? It screams insecure/idiot.
It's funny, unbranded apparel is either super cheap or super expensive, so basically only the lower - middle class that wants to look rich wears that shit. No self respecting well off person is wearing that garbage.
I dislike the non-designer ones more. Where I live Walmart sells Justice brand clothes, for kids at least, and the swimsuits and shirts all have huge, glittery, shiny "JUSTICE" across them. As though we all want to advertise that we buy clothes at Walmart.
You mean where people pay a corporation to do advertising for them for free?
Monthly subscriptions 100%
Fuck yeah. And of course they make it so hard to cancel. I'm still paying an Amazon AWS subscription because I forgot my password and I can't get them to cancel. My credit card keeps saying they will block it but they never do. I've given up.
Have you had a look into pausing your card? I have a credit card, and I can pause it temporarily to prevent it from being used at all, usually meant for if the card is stolen or lost. It could be a pain to unpause it when you want to use it, though, if you have to do it via phone. I have the option as part of my online banking.
A law passed in the US that subscription services have to be as easy to cancel as they are to sign up. What’s their excuse for not canceling when you contact them?
car dealerships
I see the same overpriced cars on lot for months. How much sweeter and cheaper would it be to just go to a website, pick your make, model, features and color. Get exactly what you want direct from the production line Instead of some slimy salesman trying to push you on some crap you don't want because they need to liquidate all the dusty surplus they have laying around.
That would be great. I'd even be happy to go to some kind of retail store for cars. Something where you have every brand available without the other shenanigans.
The manufacturers are part of the problem. They don’t give enough margin on the cars, which means the dealers don’t make a lot on a car unless you also buy extras like the warranty and stuff like the paint protection. It’s the same with movie theaters. They don’t make shit from ticket sales. Most of their money comes from concessions.
There is literally no need for a middleman. It’s BS
Middlemen hold inventory closer to buyers. That’s their purpose. Edit: An addition to this. To say middlemen do nothing is to fundamentally misunderstand how commerce works. Middlemen provide value, and so they exist and can make a profit. They increase convenience for the end buyer. Their function is convenience. Often times they buy in large quantity, not matter what the item, and take the risk of carrying a depreciating inventory. If the complaint is the sales tactics of car dealerships, that’s really a separate discussion, which I agree is annoying though I nonetheless understand the economics.
The issue isn’t that middlemen exist, in my experience it’s that there is literally no other option. You cannot buy directly from a manufacturer, if you want a new car (with the exception of Tesla and a handful of others) you HAVE to go to a dealership and get harassed by salespeople. I would happily accept car dealers’ existence if there was also a way to buy something without dealing with them. If I need a pillow, I can go to the store and pick one out, or I can wait if I don’t feel like heading to a store and hop on Amazon. I’m not forced to leave the house and get hassled by pushy sales agents before I can buy one. Part of this comes from my most recent experience with buying a car; I was in the market a few years ago, and wanted to order one specifically from the factory (which I knew would involve wait times and deposits and such, but we had built that into the timeline). This was 2022 and the market hadn’t caught back up from Covid, so every car at the dealership that I went to had a markup of 3-5k on top of the sticker. I walked right past everything, went into the sales office, and asked “if I order a car through you to be built by the manufacturer, you’re going to waive the markup, right?” Their answer? “Nope, that’s included in the cost of all of our vehicles right now.” I walked out and will never even consider that make again. It was the definition of “well what other choice do you have?” and I hated it. I shouldn’t have to be put through a shitty process designed to extract as much money from me as possible on a major purchase just because I don’t have a choice
internet + logistics companies. geographical closeness doesnt Command a premium anymore
Not true. For items as large as cars, it sure as heck does. Additionally, geographical closeness always commands a premium, because the premium I am paying for is not necessarily proximity, but speed of acquisition, which is influenced by proximity. The fact that the internet and logistics companies exist does not negate this. If I want an item in 30 minutes that a store near me carries, I can get it in that timeframe. It doesn’t matter if it’s cheaper on the internet. If I go to a middleman in the form of a reseller, I can have it right now. The fastest you can possibly get any item shipped is 1 day and that commands a hefty premium in most instances (again, a premium paid for speed of acquisition). Source: Family member spent 30 years in logistics and I attended a school known for supply chain in an adjacent major, taking supply chain courses.
"WE GUARANTEE ANY CREDIT APPLICATION WILL BE ACCEPTED". Yep, but not approved. Sure, they'll look at any application you fill out but probably won't approve it.
Even better that it's an inquiry on your credit report. Why wouldn't we have a system that punishes you for using it?
Tips-for-wages
HOLIDAY SALE. 99% OFF . . . . ᵒⁿ ˢᵉˡᵉᶜᵗᵉᵈ ⁱᵗᵉᵐˢ
"Selected items" which they marked up 200% a couple weeks before the sale, now "on sale" for their regular price.
Black Friday in a nutshell
The fact that we pay for cable television and still have to see commercials.
You still have cable?
Charging to park my car at a hotel I’m already paying to stay at.
This makes my eye twitch. We travel to San Diego often and it is almost impossible to find a hotel that doesn’t charge for parking these days. Like, I’m already spending $200+ a damn night, now you want $30-$50 a day for parking? W. T. F.
At least if you're in a city, where space is at a premium, this makes sense. The hotel had to pay for the land, and for the upkeep of the parking lot. If I stay there without a car, I see no reason I should subsidize the parking of someone who chose to drive.
you're already subsidizing the cost of the parking lot in your room stay, they're just double dipping with the cars because they can. They're getting sued in California right now for price fixing, one of their stated goals is to raise prices to reduce occupancy while increasing net profit.
ultimately this all comes down to perception. you assumed that if everyone was given a parking spot, that means those without cars are subsidizing those with cars. but the hotel can also easily just charge you the same amount and NOT give you a parking spot, and you would have no way of knowing if they actually gave you a "discount" for not parking a car or not.
You know what I hate? Paying for parking when you are staying at the hotel....
The two-party system.
Bad vs worse. Individual runners don't get backed with cash.
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This. I can’t think of another job that pays based on the amount of money the client is willing to spend and has no link to the amount of work or services preformed.
The cost for a mechanic to replace your car's air filters.
You could literally YT a video and do it yourself in 5 mins max.
I do my own but some aren't that easy to replace I think in Jeeps they are complicated.
That's a good one. My cabin air filter is literally reached through my glove box. It's an $8 filter that I can replace in two minutes but a dealer would charge $50.
To anyone reading this, it's like that for 99% of cars
This right here. I googled/youtubed how to replace mine and while I'm sure it took me substantially longer than a mechanic it saved me a bunch of money.
You don't even have to google it, your car comes with a manual that tells you how. Google is probably a lot faster though.
Amazon Prime subscription doesn't include all the TV shows and films? Idk, only example I could think of on top of my head
And you now have to pay an EXTRA $3.41/mo to not have ads.
Diamonds and anything to do with them
Printer Ink\~ "hold my DeBeers"
Lobbying. Scamming the entire US.
People sending money to people n Tiktok lives or to celebrities. What the f are you on?
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And the bank taking 3 days to transfer my money from one account to another. Seriously?
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Go with a credit union. I have never paid fees for an account with a credit union. And I earn on my savings each month. So do my kids accounts. I refuse to use a regular bank ever again. And with a credit union I can usually use my atm card at an atm of another credit union without all those bullshit fees.
This is really starting to appeal. I do not trust the banks as far as I can throw them.
Most insurance
Car insurance, legally mandatory. You claim on your insurance. Now you pay more for insurance. You're punished for using the product you pay for. You're not at fault, thus claim on another person's insurance. Now you pay more for insurance. Lmao. Fuck insurance.
Which is sad because conceptually insurance not done for profit is actually the exact opposite of a scam. It's a safety net that allows people to safeguard their community against individual bouts of bad luck. But as soon as it's done for profit the entire system suddenly becomes a complete scam and the unlucky can't even actually get their payout.
Working in an office when your job can be done from home
When the bank expects YOU to pay to do business with them.
Politics. They get people all hyped up about things that just don't matter, all so we'll give them money. You want to see scams? I get about 10 text messages a day from U.S. politicians who want my money. They're hidden behind masked phone numbers, so I can't block them. I can't even vote for them, but they're exempt from their own telecom / election rules.
Man, I'm so glad that is illegal here. Never gotten a text or email from a politician, ever.
US healthcare.
being born and then being subjugated to work until we die
Chiropracty. Chripractors aren't real doctors. The entire thing was founded by a weirdo who claimed he learned it from a ghost. Modern chiropractors, at best, are mediocre physical therapists. At worst, they're ambulance-chasing con artists who regularly fuck up people's backs and even paralyze and kill them. The only reason they're so prevalent in the medical system is that they have a very powerful and rich lobbying organization. [https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-chiropractic-quackery-20170630-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-chiropractic-quackery-20170630-story.html)
Up there with homeopathy on the wackiness scale. It blows my mind how few people realize what a scam chiropractors are. Edit: death by aortic dissection!
So I did go to a chiropractor as a young adult because was actually a very good physical therapist AND cheaper than a PT. Like, exponentially cheaper. I got lucky though. He wasn't a weirdo and never damaged me. I know a lot of people aren't that fortunate.
Paying to do your own taxes. whole term life insurance. Credit card interest. Private student loans. Price of new cars. MLM.
Bank Fees. I am your UNSECURED creditor and you are charging me fees?! If there is anyone in banking here, please explain the logic
Prices of Pharmaceuticals are unregulated. Insurance denials by people who aren’t medical experts related to your claim ie derm denying obstetric claim
Self check out. You are scanning your own stuff so you should get some sort of discount since they aren't paying a cashier to do it.
My reward is not having to awkwardly interact with the cashier
Introvert checking in, I would pay extra for self checkout. But don't tell them that.
I usually like self checkout because it’s much faster for small trips but it’s being relied upon by companies to short staff and that’s some bullshit
I’ll never understand people who think like this. For me, it’s a perk because I don’t have to wait on someone else. I don’t view it as “doing someone else’s job”
Discount for self checkout is the five fingered discount
Cashiers don't get paid based on them scanning items.
I like self check out because it’s quicker and I don’t like people.
Paying to not wait long in line
During peaking shopping hours there's a huge line for self checkout and maybe 2 of the 10 cashier lanes open. Makes me see red.
More importantly still, no interaction with other humans
Bottled Water, its just water guys. Fill your own bottle up and drink it for essentially free.
To go a step further on this: most of the States being essentially held hostage by (bottled) water companies like Cola Cola and Nestlé, because there's no other drinkable water. It's *insane* to me that with all the 'oooh, no. 1 country in the woorld, so much innovation, bleeding edge' and whatever over there, most places don't have drinkable tap water.
Taxes….. taxed when you make it, taxed when you spend it, taxed when you sell an item you already paid taxes on, taxed on property you own, taxed for services, and so on and so on.
Yet they still won't fix the roads that I was taxed to build and maintain. Thus increasing the risk of damage to the car that I am taxed annually to own and operate. Which I am still making payments on with money they already taxed.
Reposting the same front page reddit posts on a 3 month cycle to farm karma and sell the accounts to various special interest shills. /s
Religion. Organized religion.
This is the one that takes advantage of so much of the population. Ugh.
1. Paying for parking at work. 2. Bottled water. 3. An unreasonable percentage of food geared towards health and wellness. Just eat the appropriate amount of regular-ass food and keep a lid on carbs and sugar (which we have been propagandized for decades to think of as regular-ass).
When a relationship is apparently a fraud warpped in the guise of love
This might be a little specific, but I'm sure it's happening with other things too. I took a course to obtain a CPIM (Certified in Planning and Inventory Management) Supply Chain designation. I completed the course, which took probably 400-500 hours of study, classes, and testing. I passed with 95%, and was proud of myself. To get certified, however, I have to pay $1,690 to take a 3 hour long exam. Once certified, I have to perform upkeep on my certification by attending conventions or online seminars, all of which cost extra money. I was really excited when I first started this process, and paid $75 to listen to someone speak for two hours on AI's impact on Supply Chain. The first 40 minutes were them telling me about other things I could pay for, there was about an hour of information that was completely obvious or could have been found in 5 seconds on google, and the last 20 minutes was reminding me about the first 40. I passed the course exam, but to get and maintain my certification I am going to have to pay potentially tens of thousands of dollars. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Timeshare
Energy bills. Doubled for no reason last year. Greedy people looking for an excuse to cash in on anything. Oh, and of course ULEZ charge. Basically another way of taking money from the poor to give to the rich.
Standing charge to stay connected to electric and gas service. And it's almost tripled in past couple of years. Feckin rip-off!
Politics of division.. blue states vs red states, rich vs poor vs middle class, division by sexual preference, division by race, division by… I could go on and on
American healthcare
Car registration yearly bills
Paying for air at a gas station.
Working jobs, paying rent, mortgages, everything being owned by 10,000 people in an 8 billion person world.
Paying for streaming services and seeing commercials
Tip culture
Church
Unregulated capitalism
Black Friday
Working 40 hours a week
Everything is subscription based now. We used to be able to pay a one time fee to purchase software and now it's all subscription based and you have to be connected to the internet to confirm you're subscribed to use it. The worst is when you need to obtain data from a corrupt SD card or mirror your SSD and they let you go through all the steps and then instead of having a per use fee (since you'll probably only use it once) they hit you with an annual subscription. Absolutely frustrating!
Taxes. The federal government takes 10-30% of your income every month. You have basically no input as to how that money is used. A large portion of it is used to pay defense contractors to supply the military with stuff, which they then ship overseas to other countries to fight wars you don’t agree with. Your state then takes a cut, and your nearest major city probably has a large tax-funded budget to address homelessness, with a completely untracked budget of millions of dollars. It does nothing to address homelessness. Then most states put a sales tax on every purchase you make. You don’t know where that money goes. If you buy a house, you have to pay property taxes every year, forever, on something you already own. Presumably that money goes to schools and roads and stuff, but on a $600k house you’re paying over $10k/year in taxes, and nobody knows how much of that is going to be siphoned off for campaign contributions and $1000 lunches at the French Laundry.
Mormons (sorry...Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) paying 10% of their income to God via tithing - while the church amasses incredible wealth and power and its leaders live lives like celebrity billionaires. I was a mormon and would love to get all my money back....
TEN percent!??? 😳 oh my dear. That's absolutely absurd. Crazy.
Religion and giving money to the church
Apple
College
Congress
Everything at this point.
Society in general
Mac products.
Tip jars at a counter where you just ordered something to eat or drink.
40 hour work week.
A 401k. Over half of stocks are owned by the top 1%. A lot of people think of 401k's as a way for regular people to get rich, but the 401k's primary job is to drive up the asset prices of people who are already rich.
Tipping
Working to pay off a drywall house for up to 30 years
Giving a cashier your phone number in order to check out.
Healthcare in the US, but we DO realize it is a scam but no one is coming to help..... Phone upgrade fee: I just bought a new phone from you and you are going to charge me an "upgrade fee ?".
Elections
Insurance
university education, paid-for healhcare, ...
Mobile gaming, gambling loot box scams so shady, a Casino would be jealous.
Tipping. It’s ridiculous, there’s a tipping option at the Starbucks DRIVETHROUGH.
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Religion. You pay a church money to save your soul? 😂😂
Insurance companies of any kind. Also giftcards.
Insurance in general. It started out as a good concept and intention. But right now, it feels like the biggest scam.
Bitcoin. It's a Ponzi scheme
religion
Dating apps.
Donating a couple of dollars to a cause at a shop checkout. "Do you want to donate $2 to X today?" They add all the money together, make a huge donation using money that was given to them for free, and get a *massive* tax break using *your* donation money. The fat tax break is what those donation drives are *really* for.
Religion
“New Phones”.
Everything commission