Scams are abound on the internet.
But no matter how much we protect ourselves with two-step authentication and avoid opening malware-attached email from strangers, there is always a risk our private information might be vulnerable to being compromised.
But scams are also cloaked under the guise of what is perceived as normal, and it seems more Americans are being wise to the fact they have been duped for a long time.
Curious to hear about the sobering realizations of strangers, Redditor tycooperaow asked:
"What is clearly a scam but Americans have been conditioned to believe that it is 'normal'?"
Healthcare
"Politicians talk about the need for healthcare, but create legislation for healthcare insurance."
About Insurance
"I wouldn't mind health insurance so much if it actually functioned as insurance with fewer seemingly random underwriting stipulations that deny coverage."
"I pay into my car and rental insurance and have had little to no issue using their services when I need to."
"So why does health insurance constantly look for reasons to deny me service when I pay into it, and why do they have non-medical personnel deciding what is and isn't covered? Why is it my responsibility to argue with insurance about whether a prescription epipen or inhaler is 'medically necessary' after my doctor has prescribed it for its explicit intended purpose? Why is it that I can take an ambulance to the ER, be evaluated by medical doctors who then administer emergency care, and then have my claim denied by an administrative person at corporate HQ because they decided it wasn't an emergency and the hospital was out of network?"
The Middle Men
"Tax Filing."
"For the majority of wage earners, the IRS can easily determine how much you owe and tell you, or tell you what you're owed in a refund. It's simple."
"That they don't do so is only because tax preparation companies lobby lawmakers to keep the system as it is. Tax preparation companies only exist because they are legally allowed, middle men. They are slow, complicated, costly, and the opposite of free market efficiency."
Work Hours
"The idea that you need to work endless hours and never have time off."
"There are plenty of countries where people work reasonable hours, have five-week summer vacations and the economies don't fall apart."
"You are not lazy if you don't eat at your desk or while driving."
Considered Lazy
"Not only unsustainable, but almost unnatural if you look at most of human history. Usually humans only laboured as much as they needed to in order to put food on the table, and spent the rest of their time doing whatever (socialising, crafts, that sort of thing)."
"It's really only America's puritanical roots, combined with industrialist and capitalist propaganda, that's written that off as 'lazy.'"
Nuptials
"Wedding business. Everyone nowadays thinks their wedding has to be super grand and such. But paying +2500$ for a dress you can only wear once is super overrated in my opinion."
Girl's Best Friend
"Diamonds."
– adsvx215
"Diamonds have their uses in blades, industrial equipment. It's the prices of jewelry with diamonds that make my head spin while you can make perfect diamonds for cents per carat."
– sorean_4
Still Can't See The Logic
"Prescription eye glasses. They should be maybe $100 tops but we pay multiple times that for them."
Student Loans
"nobody is mentioning the push that 'college is for everyone! also you aren't able to default on your student loans so banks will give them to anyone. coincidentally, we started telling people that they should ALL go to college, no matter their situation, right after passing the bill that made student loans impossible to hide from.'"
– jude802
Better Than A Degree
"IT is an option. I managed to get a full scholarship in college, but really, the $600 I spent on a CCNA (I failed the first one) has been an enormously better investment than the time and effort I spent on my degree."
"And technology isn't going away any time soon."
About Buying Cars
"Car dealerships."
"They're literally just middle-man functions that do nothing more than raise the cost of the 'good' and produce taxation for the government on multiple levels of the transactions involved in purchasing a car through the third party."
Leave
Only getting 10 days worth of annual leave per year and then being encouraged not to use it
Pay me
"If you're not 15 minutes early, you're late." That adds up to 65 hours a year you should have paid me for. That is 8 full days of work.
