People Break Down How They Realized An Entire Industry Was A Total Scam

We unfortunately live in a world where scams are on the rise.

Thankfully, some of them are pretty easy to detect, such as an automated call from the IRS telling you a warrant is out for your arrest, or an email claiming to be from Amazon or the USPS asking for your credit card information, only to look closer and see the email address is a yahoo account.

Unfortunately, some scam artists have fine tuned their game a bit more, making it a bit more difficult to detect.

In some cases, they've gotten so good at conning people out of their money, that they are hiding under the guise of a seemingly reputable industry.

Redditor OkraCharacter4588 was eager to learn about how people learned that certain business and industries were 100% fraudulent, leading them to ask:

"Redditors who unexpectedly discovered a 'modern scam' that's everywhere now - what made you realize 'Wait, this whole industry is a ripoff'?"

Time Share? More Like Time Served...

"Once upon a time, I attended a time-share presentation because they offered money to go."

"Yes, they are all high-pressure sales and scammy by nature, but on this one I spotted exactly how they were going to hose everyone involved."

"I read the contract carefully (since I was there anyway and it made their salesperson shut up while I read), and quietly buried near the bottom was a mandatory cleaning and maintenance fee about half the rent of a modest apartment at the time that could be adjusted by them, at any time, with no stated limits."

"Fortunately, they'd supplied a shuttle to pick up people and take them to the timeshare presentation location."

"There were about 15 of us in one of those little shuttle vans with seats that face each other."

"We started chatting on the way back, and I pointed the clause out to everyone in the group."- Terpsichorean_Wombat

One Argument For Going Cashless...

"Don't know if this counts, but I found an empty lot with barely visible no parking signs next to an ATM."

"Tow trucks would wait just behind the building for someone to park there."

"The person would park and walk around the corner to use the ATM."

"Then return to their car and it was already hooked up and the tow truck driver would unhook it for a fee... conveniently able to be obtained from the ATM."

"You'll never guess how I learned of this scam."

"It's been years but I'm still enraged when I think of it."- cinnapear

So Lazy They Can't Even Switch The Label?

"Furniture."

"My wife is a huge fan of home design shows especially one called Dream Home Makeover."

"That'll be important later."

"So anyways, one day she picks out a rug for our dining area."

"It's called The Janettte (yes, they name rugs) and we order it."

"It's something like $1500."

"When the rug arrives it has a label on the back that says The Samuel."

"I'm thinking we ordered the wrong thing so I Google the brand and 'The Samuel'."

"I find it on Wayfair for $300."

"This can't possibly be the same rug can it?"

"I take a chance and order it from Wayfair and when I have both in my possession I do a side by side."

"The EXACT same rug."

"Basically, these designer brands are buying stuff directly from vendors, changing the name, and charging 5x the price."

"Fast forward a few months."

"She finds a dining table on Studio McGees website (the folks who have the Dream Makeover show)."

"I do a Google reverse search on the picture of the table and find it on a random furniture store's website for 1/3 of the cost."

"Now I know these 'designers' are nothing but glorified resellers."- schaudhery

Loop Home GIF by Homepoet.deGiphy

Putting Our Lives In The Hands Of The Wrong People

"Worked a month as a pharmacy clerk."

"Health insurance price disparity is insane, especially on things like insulin."- shadesofbloos

So Sad That Kindness Was The Red Flag...

"I had a 'job interview' with what you'd now call an MLM way before they entered the mainstream consciousness."

"The interviewer spent the while time talking all this hustle culture bullsh*t, talking about how hard you gotta work if you want to succeed, how it's all down to your network and you need to be a go-getter, you better earn that commission, and all that sh*t."

"Well, I'm a fiercely introverted person who wasn't very self-motivated at the time, so when I was called into the 1 on 1 with the interviewer I couldn't help myself, I told him I was a bad fit and the didn't sound like it was for me."

"To my surprise, his tone instantly flipped."

"He started talking about how it wasn't that hard, how you could work less and still make a good living, how generous the commission structure was at lower levels, so on."

"Exact opposite of his earlier vibe."

"And that flip, that's what made me realize it was a scam."

"They didn't care about my skills or my drive or my personality."

"Hard sell or soft touch, they'd do whatever, because all they wanted was for me to buy in."

"And though I didn't understand the whole scam, I knew that had to be a bad idea."

"That's the only interview I've ever walked out of partway through."- GrinningPariah

When In Doubt, Go For One And Done...

"Any form of roof installed solar that is not paid in full at the time of install."

"Specifically talking about 20-30 year solar 'leases' and even worse: 'Power Purchase Agreements'."

"Scammy scammy scams."

"They prey on people."

"They’ll lie and tell you it’s a great investment for your house that the next buyer will love."

"WRONGGGG couldn’t be more wrong."

"No buyer wants to take over the next 18 years of your solar lease."

"You’ll end up having to pay it all off at closing and GUESS WHAT it’s $50k+."

"Which is absurd because the panels should have cost less than $10k if you had gotten a real company to do it."

"Even worse: the systems are usually so poorly designed that they don’t even appreciably lower your electric bill."

"So $50k for nothing."

"Worse than nothing because you’ll have to spend more money taking them off any time you need to have work done on the roof."

"A decent chance too that the solar company that sold you that 20-30 year lease goes out of business and so there’s no one to talk to about your system but someone else bought the leases (but none of the service warranties) and you are still on the hook for the payments regardless of if it works or not, and if you stop paying they have a lien on your house."

"SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM."

"STAY AWAY FROM 'PAYMENT-PLAN' SOLAR."

"Regular solar, that you pay in full up front: fine."

"Good, even."

"Payment plan solar: SCAM."- shinywtf

Solar Energy GIF by NexampGiphy

Get Out Of My House!

"The house-building industry."

"Bought a new house recently and they wanted me to use their preferred lender."

"Did some googling and the lender was a subsidiary of the home builder's parent company and , as usual, sold the loan to another bank almost immediately."

"This is common and your initial lender will usually have a cheap-to-them loan, which they will sell to another bank for a slightly high rate, so on and so forth."

"The builder must make a ton of money on selling the loan, because they offered me a 7% discount on the home price if I used their lending company."

"Did some research on the history of the property the development was built in and they purchased it 15 years ago from another company for around $50 million."

"Did some research and, you guessed it, that company, which is no longer in existence, was an old subsidiary of the home builder's parent company as well and they had purchased the 35 acres 25 years ago for only a few hundred thousand."

"Why did they sell it to themselves for a much higher rate 10 years later?"

"My guess is that they wanted to inflate the value of the land."

"During design, they asked if I wanted the upgraded ceiling fans for $1500 (3 fans total)."

"I looked up the exact same model at home Depot and the fans were $200 each."

"By default, the home came with baseboards with a lot of curves in the cross section, which is no longer in style."

"The upgrade, which is just a straight piece of wood, was an extra couple of thousand."

"By default, the house came with the flip lights switches, which again are not really in style."

"The rocker switches are, and they were a $1k upgrade."

"They cost the same at a home improvement store!"

"They were offering some things as costly upgrades even though they didn't actually cost more to make, simply using outdated trends as the default in order to push the buyer to spend more money."- soap22

Candy Crush Was Only The Beginning...

"Mobile gaming."

"It's been like this for probably a decade now that mobile gaming is just psychologically designed to give you just enough satisfaction at first, but keep you wanting more and locking stuff behind paywalls or extremely long timers."

"It's near impossible to get where you want without dumping money for in game currency and stuff."

"Mobile games are designed to the core to be addictive and siphon money from people."

"So many people still play them."

"I can't touch them anymore and haven't for years."- PM_ME_HAIRY_HOLES

What A Shocker!

"This is a little niche, but it fits."

"Part of your car is the suspension shock absorber; usually one per wheel."

"It works by moving a piston with some holes in it through an oil-filled cylinder."

"One end is attached to the chassis, the other end to the suspension."

"If you go to your car and 'bounce' the fender (so the chassis moves down, compressing the spring) the chassis will usually move up and down about one and a half times."

"It is the shock that slows it down."

"If the shock is broken, the suspension will bounce multiple times until friction in the pivots finally bleed off the energy."

"In a racing context, the shock has a lot of influence on handling, and what matters is the force curve the shock produces as it is cycled."

"That curve must be matched to the suspension to produce maximum grip."

"I’m simplifying a lot - I actually wrote a book that goes into much more detail - I’m trying to keep this easy without disappearing down a tech rabbit hole."

"Racing shocks can get very expensive, but most manufacturers don’t actually tell you the curve the shock makes."

"So I got a “shock dyno”, which is a device that measures shocks and provides the curve."

"And I started dynoing shocks."

"What I discovered was a litany of horror."

"Aside from a couple of reputable brands, most shocks were complete garbage."

"And I don’t mean 'they made the wrong curve' - that’s more of a tuning issue."

"I mean things like four shocks with the same part number - supposedly identical - producing four wildly different curves."

"Adjusters that did nothing, or worked backwards, or controlled the opposite of what they were supposed to do."

"One set of very expensive Super Tuna 'magic' shocks had one of the pistons installed upside-down."

"I shared this info far and wide… and nobody cared."

"People still spend money on absolute junk because 'if it is a racing part and it’s expensive, it must be good!'”- NorthStarZero

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An Encryption That's Easy To See Right Through

"When I saw my first crypto rug pull."

"That's when I realized that most of the industry is a giant casino, and it's all about who can time when to get out of the coin the best."

"Very few coins offer any real utility, and no one's using most of them for anything legitimate."

"Most of it is just to move money across borders without the banks and governments seeing it."- shotsallover

A Telling Side When No Financial Aid Is Offered...

"For profit university was running a recruitment company."

"They would give you a list of jobs you were 'almost' qualified for, then offer classes and certification to get the jobs."

They were all thousands of dollars for a few hours of training in docketing software or something similar."

"Later that school was bought out by the University of Phoenix."- DeLaRey

A Close Shave

"Like a decade ago Reddit was big on safety razors, the old fashioned twisty open thing you out a single blade into like what your grandpa might have used."

"Eventually I tried it out because of this."

"I now spend less on shaving per year than I used to spend on a pack of razors for like a week or two."

"Blah blah plastics lobbies and advertising convincing us to consume plastic etc."

"I wish I knew more money-saving things like this."

"The ROI is damn near instant."- driftingfornow

Shave Shaving GIF by Shawn MendesGiphy

Oh, Honey...

"Anyone remember that whole Honey thing from just like... a month or two ago?"

"Well... that made me realize that whole thing was a load of bs."- UrMomsSweetA**

Proceed With Caution..

"I'm not sure why modern nursing care facilities/homes are not higher on the list."

"Some are good (but they're 10k/month or more) but most others, sh*t."

"Not to mention they drain older citizens' savings until they have nothing left, then push them to Medicare and then bill the government at a higher cost due to the 'extra' work involved in using that system."

"Total scam, that's making some of the larger corp's that own hundreds of these little out-of-the-way homes billions each year."- op4

As Long As Their The Right Prescription...

"Most glasses, esp ones you can get at an eye doctor.. one can get frames & lenses online for like $30."

"There's a big monopoly company that jacks up the prices in most brick and mortar stores."- Erlian

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The easiest things to miss are almost always hiding in plain sight.

Sometimes at an irrevocable price.