People Share The Common Scams That People Don't Even Notice Anymore

Charging Me For My Own Stuff

My cable company recently started trying to charge me for my router. Which I own.

I got a notice saying "we noticed an error in billing and we will be charging you for the equipment rental starting in December".

The f*ck you will, I have every receipt from every cable or phone transaction I've ever done for that exact reason.

I paid outright for my router so I wouldnt be renting their sh*tty equipment at $12/month. Now they want to charge me for my own property.

After receiving that notice I hopped right on to customer service to get it resolved, and they directed me to their "loyalty department" because "they could best handle it over there".

I cut off the conversation and just cancelled my service. Cable companies are pure scum.

- yvngjiffy703

What The Deceased Would Have Wanted

Funerals and everything to do with them.

The funeral industry has insane pricing. Some of the funeral homes and vendors are even predatory, getting grieving families to pay upwards of tens of thousands of dollars, because "that's what the deceased would have wanted."

- chickennuggs

"You didn't love your father at all, did you?" was the question that had me slam my fist down on the table.

My dad wanted a cardboard box cremation and no memorial. He got a cardboard box cremation and no memorial, with zero up selling from a different cremation service.

The state AG got a complaint about the first cremation service.

-dohmestic

Right To Repair

Manufacturers refusing documentation to private repair enterprises and requiring you to get your products fixed by the dealer.

Basically, the reason for the "Right-to-repair" movement.

- distrucktocon

We had a combine sit in a field for 4 months waiting for a hydraulic manifold. The part had to come from I believe Germany.

And zero chance you can repair it yourself because after the part is installed the tractor has to be hooked up to computer running an $800,000 software package. Just to tell the tractor, "yeah that part is okay"

After 3 generations of owning exclusively JD equipment we are considering alternatives.
John Deere is the Apple of tractors.

- Davidwtube

$1

The Verizon $1 scam.

Verizon tacked on a $1 fee onto 8% of their customer's bills each month so over the course of the year, they did it to every customer, about 150,000,000.

Their rationale was: 50% wouldn't notice and just pay the charge or would notice and wouldn't spend anytime fighting a $1 charge. 50% would notice the charge and call to have it removed. Of those, 35% would get frustrated while on the call and give up.

This added approximately $120,000,000 to the bottom line each year (3 total) until caught. Once caught, they paid a $25,000,000 fine.

- LISHPjuice

It's All Fun And Games

Those Keymaster games that usually have something like a Switch and a pair of Beats and stuff.

I work part time at an arcade and you physically cannot win a prize until the machine has taken it's retail equivalent in cash.

- totalimmoral

Can confirmed. I worked at an arcade and this was blatantly explained to me by the manager. Some of the machines I had (mostly the giant crane machine we had) would just shut off if it didn't make a certain amount of money at a certain point.

- xantohjan

They Aren't Special

The diamond industry, specifically as it relates to jewelry.

Everything that the average person "knows" about it stems from propaganda and advertisements created by DeBeers.

They aren't rare, they aren't worth what you pay for them, they don't appreciate in value and are a terrible investment. They aren't special.

- steelle88

I work in the industry, 10/10 can confirm.

Your $10,000 diamond you purchase at a jewelry store is worth maybe $1,000. Before I start to work up a number to purchase a diamond I take the appraised value and divide by 10. If the customer thinks its worth more than that, I'm not interested

- Fiasco6

Ink

Ink cartridges.

Printer companies make barely any profit off of actual printers, they're just vessels to make you buy unreasonably priced cartridges.

"Hey please print this document in black and white"

"F*ck you give magenta!"

- the_cretzel

Buy a laser printer. Expensive up front ($100 - $700) but pennies in the long run, compared to inkjet. Most come with scan/copy/fax features which come in handy in the Work-from-home era.

- atomic_razer

What's new and even scummier, just saw on Twitter a guy who couldn't print from his $300 printer unless he purchased a subscription to use his ink cartridges that were included with the printer. Absolute madness.

- scammerino_rex

Back To Base

Back to base security system monitoring is a Huge Scam.

My smart home security system alerts me faster than ADT ever did. They're the biggest offenders!

When you don't answer the call, they will send out someone and will charge you a fee.

And every-time your system messes up, it will send false error codes to the monitoring station, which they will charge you a huge fee to fix.

And oh if you want to disconnect it, good luck. They guy I spoke to from ADT was going to charge me $250 call out + $50 for every 15 minutes he was at my house, and the job would of taken at least an hour. He they said they may need to go onto the roof.

No.

I just called a security installation electrician and he said $50 call out and $30 for every 30 minutes he was there but that was depending on the type of job.

He was at my house for 5 minutes.

Power off. Remove power wires from control box. Protect the wires so its safe. Replace cover on control box. Done.

He only charged $50. Compared to ADTs service which would of cost about $450

ADT hardwired it into our power system... without telling us what circuit they plugged into. Basically one flip of a switch outside and the system turns off. So secure.

- BuriedUnderTheDirt

PayDay

Pay Day Loans.

One of the biggest problems is once you feel you need to start them it's, in many cases, a very hard and painful bullet to bite to be able to stop, and that's if you hit a point you can stop it while still making payments on everything you need.

- PrinceDusk

I was doing work in a payday loan office and started noticing that the line of people there were almost like a family. They knew each other, the cashiers knew all of them by name, and they all treated the astronomical loan as just a casual part of life. I'm looking at the interest rate disclaimer chart on the wall and then looking back at the people and forcing myself to not start screaming that this sh!t should be criminal

- bluecheetos

They're Not Millionaires

EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the Internet that sells some sort of "millionaire education" it's all bullshit.

Every single one of them. They are all f*cking liars, most of them are not even rich to begin with!

They fake it enough that some idiots buy it. You are customers to them. Nothing more.

- PinnochiosWoodBalls

Man, my stepfather used to fall for that sh*t all the time when I was a kid, only it was books and not online. I remember reading one where the guy spun all this bullsh!t about the courage of his convictions and whatnot, and it turns out he was a millionaire because his dad was one.

Or the guy who "built his own fortune" after getting a business loan of $250,000... In the 1970s.

Even as a kid I knew this was crap. And my idiot stepfather is worth less money than ever now.

- toomuchnetflix86