People Expose Scams That Far Too Many Folks Fall For Without Realizing

More Like A Donation

"The "add a tip" line at the end of EVERYTHING. No I'm not tipping the electric company, thanks."

– chyna094e

"I went to a restaurant last week and the “recommended” 20% tip they put at the end of the receipt was actually more than an actual 20% of the total when I pulled out a calculator to do the math. It’s crazy how brazen tip culture has become."

– sushimane1

"Went to a restaurant where you ordered your food when sitting down, but had to go grab it yourself off the counter when it’s ready for you, you had to pour your own drinks and such also, and lastly you out your dishes away in a bin, and they’re labeled by specific dish."

"Nothing wrong with this and I don’t mind it, but then they have that stupid a** “add a tip” sh*t to the bill and I’m like, bro they didn’t do anything worthy of earning a tip from this."

"Worst part too is when the add a tip menu comes up, it’s like some dramatic a** number like 20-25% lol."

– Illustrious_Town_924

"I don't live in a country with a tipping culture and get stressed when I travel anywhere where tipping is a thing. It low key feels like extortion."

– Jealous-Treacle5736

"Help Me, Grandma"

"As a teller manager, I've had a few elderly customers who truly think their grandchildren are in jail and need to withdraw $20,000 in cash from their accounts to bail them out."

"Tell them outright to contact their grandchildren in front of me and that they are falling for a scam. Naturally, the youngster replies next."

"Their intentions are good, but before they part with such significant sums, they should consider whether they provided the con artists access to their home addresses."

– CreativeBudaw

"My mom got a call like that, she listened to the whole story before saying "but grandson, you're 5? How did this happen?" And the scammer hung up."

– eveeNicks

"My grandparents got suckered into thinking I was in jail in Canada after going there for a concert with a friend when I was 17."

"They didn’t think at all about how my mom would never let me go to a different country with a friend for a concert in a million years and that I was a complete square anyway. They only called me before sending the money because the teller at Western Union had seen other people get scammed and said they should reach out to me first."

"Sure enough, I got a call from them while I was at an academic decathlon luncheon and had to assure them I was home and in no trouble. Since then, I’ve had a secret magic word with my grandma in case she gets scammed about me and my grandpa passed away years later still certain the scammers had recorded my voice and engineered the story and responses lol"

– pgenius

"My dad got a call that his grandson (my son) was in jail and that my dad needed to send money. My dad told the guy he'd have to call his brother, Richard because Richard is the one with the money. We don't have anyone in the family named Richard."

– Special_Possession46

It's On Sale...Right?

"My local grocery store uses yellow price tags for things that are on sale AND random things that aren't on sale but they're hoping you don't actually look closely and just assume it's a great price because the tag is yellow. I fell for it all the time cause it took me about a year of shopping there to realize it."

– doghorsecatbaby

"It's amazing what "SPECIAL" and "ON SALE" does to people's brains."

"Often a customer will bring something to the checkout and ask me to check the price."

"Me (scans item): "It's $4.95.""

"Customer (thinks for a moment): "Is that on special?""

"... Does it matter? It's still going to cost $4.95."

– DoctorWho_DMC

"My job is putting the tags up. A lot of them, especially over the last couple years, will disguise a price increase by keeping the item on "sale", but the new sale price is the old regular price."

– Doodleyduds

"My main store has red tags on "locked down" prices then they have orange for "this week only" which sounds like it's also a deal but it's not. I only noticed this after raspberries were on sale the week before for 1.88. The next week they were advertised as 2.88 this week only!. I wonder how many times I've fallen for that."

– RoosterMiserable1275

Tell Me How To Live My Life

"Life coaching/Business coaching etc. I was one for years, and can promise you that 99% of them poorly regurgitate info from each other, with absolutely no experience in the areas outside making money selling courses on things they’ve never done."

"From your typical IG 20yo life coach, to the popular Jay Sh*tty’s. All completely full of sh*t scam artists that are never transparent about how they actually make their money, and post wishy-washy babble on social media that never provides a solution but convinces people low on their luck that they’re the experts."

"There's a few out there who are legit who have huge businesses and done well - but they are the huge names that are transparent- Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Gary V, Eric Thomas to name a few from the small few."

– FattestSpiderman

"I have a personal anger towards life coaches, which makes me sad because I feel like there could be genuine people out there. But I was scammed by one as a teen. I was very overweight and miserable and found a woman who had lost a lot of weight and was even on the news. I related to her with life experiences. She had a tiny coaching business and charged a few thousand dollars for a course that lasted.. a couple months at most I think? My parents helped pay, hoping their miserable daughter would finally get some help after they had tried so many things."

"She gave me such surface level advice. I was so disappointed. There wasn’t real substance and I felt like I was being fed positive quotes you’d find on a coffee mug at a discount store or something."

"I have also been preyed on by Beachbody coaches more times than I can count. I never accepted their sales. The most recent one was a woman who really impressed me by her massive weight loss and her Instagram page with lots of relatable and helpful content. I became so disinterested as soon as I found out she was a Beachbody coach."

"A lot of coaches are quite young and it’s not that I think young people don’t have something to offer, but being a life coach at that age seems… idk?"

– TheRareClaire

Our Time Now

"Timeshares. How do people still think these are good?"

– Historical_Ad2890

"Are people still selling these or were there so many people locked into them they don't need new blood?"

– timallen445

Winner, Winner!

"Enter to win this prize! Give us all your information"

– Pristine-Regret2797

"Hey my chances must be pretty high with how many I’ve applied to by now"

– Wizard_Level9999

What A Steal!

"Black friday sales. Some are great deals but the Big majority just the same price with a fake discount sign"

– Vegetable-Drawer-416

"I worked at Best Buy years ago. They would just take the sh*tty TVs and put them up front. Those TVs were already cheap, so ppl saw the low price and thought they were getting a good deal. Nope, all you got was a sh*tty TV that was more than likely Best Buy's own brand."

– CerealKiller3030

Speaking To Those In The Beyond

"Mediums."

"I dont care what youve experienced, its fake"

– Juizehh

"Cold reading and psychology are learnable skills people exploit to present themselves as mediums. It’s convincing. And it’s total crap. I feel happy for people who get the closure they’re looking for. I feel badly for people who pour their hard earned money into these scam artists and never get the result they’re after."

– caboozalicious

"It “helps” or gives closure maybe but its not moral imo."

"If you really have that “gift” youd do it for free"

– Juizehh

The Real Price Is Not The Sticker Price

"I just got to do this yesterday. I just bought a new car and the salesman was wonderful. But once in the finance guys office. He does the whole let me explain the standard warranty and then our extra warranty. He gets all done and shows me a paper with the cost of the extra baked into the payment. It raised the price of the car by nearly 20% but he was super smooth about it like it was no big deal just a little more per month. I said no and moved on but definitely a scam."

– jjzzxxa

Make Money Fast

"Multi level marketing schemes, no Karen I don’t want your stick on nails or random sugar shakes"

– SENDS-POSITIVE-VIBES

"But if you can get three friends to sell them for you and each one of them gets 3 friends to sell them, we will all get rich!"

– joesephexotic

It's Not Me!

"Pretty soon. AI scams."

"We are very quickly entering an age where AI tools are going to allow scammers to essentially full dox you, impersonate you with near 100% accuracy, and target the statistically most vulnerable people you know."

"We are about to enter a really damn dark age. And unless you have already talked with loved ones and have discussed codewords that won't get shared. You will never know for certain that the person on the other line is even human, let alone that person."

"Also going to be really easy for your coworkers to get rid of you by having an AI impersonate you and just quitting."

– Deleted User

That last one's pretty dark...but also completely possible.