Hello. This is me you’re son, send money Im in help of need.Many of us have likely seen something along these lines pop up on our phones—whether we have a son to begin with or not. But, phone scamming is only one of the numerous ways some people might try to take your money away.Members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community have recently discussed all the different shapesscamming tacticscan take. They startedthe discussionafter one user asked them which prevalent ‘modern scams’ made them realize that there were entire industries that are ripoffs, and quite a few netizens gave their two cents. If you’re wondering which industries they considerscams, scroll down to find their answers on the list below, and if you feel like sharing your story about someone trying to separate you from your hard-earned money, feel free to do it in the comment section.This post may includeaffiliate links.

Hello. This is me you’re son, send money Im in help of need.Many of us have likely seen something along these lines pop up on our phones—whether we have a son to begin with or not. But, phone scamming is only one of the numerous ways some people might try to take your money away.

Members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community have recently discussed all the different shapesscamming tacticscan take. They startedthe discussionafter one user asked them which prevalent ‘modern scams’ made them realize that there were entire industries that are ripoffs, and quite a few netizens gave their two cents. If you’re wondering which industries they considerscams, scroll down to find their answers on the list below, and if you feel like sharing your story about someone trying to separate you from your hard-earned money, feel free to do it in the comment section.

This post may includeaffiliate links.

Woman filming a skincare review on a sofa, engaging with viewers about industry insights with beauty products on the table.

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The big scam: religionA tax-free industry gets people to believe that happiness, health and economic prosperity truly depends on the frequency of attendance and the extent of donations ,The Catholic Church used fear and indulgences to extrude wealth from hapless participants.Modern religion uses HOPE as the way to bleed congregations and keep any abbherant thinking in check.Gotta accrue those golden nails for your heavenly ✨️ mansion.

Priest in red robe kneeling at the altar in a stone chapel, with people seated in pews, reflecting on the industry as a ripoff.

Worked a month as a pharmacy clerk, health insurance price disparity is insane, especially on things like insulin.SocraticIgnoramus:This is also why you can’t ever get a straight answer in medicine regarding how much a given procedure costs. Everyone’s got these contracts with wildly different prices, but they know that can’t say “$5,280 with Cigna, or $37 with Medicaid” so they give all kinds of non answers.The American healthcare system’s lack of a transparent fee schedule should literally be against the law.

Pharmacist handing a package to a customer across the counter, illustrating industry services.

Software as a Service models. No one needs or wants their software to update and change formats every few months. We all just want a stable software that we can learn to use for a few years before a major performance upgrade. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t still be using Microsoft Word Millennium edition.

Laptop updating Windows, reflecting on industry as a possible ripoff.

TICKETMASTER IS TICKETBASTARD.

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

Two people examining carpet rolls in a store, discussing the industry as a potential ripoff.

The funeral industry.You dont need a $5000 box to put a dead person in.The whole stuff they do with dead people is weird and creepy and intended to suck as much money out of the family as possible.

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

I worked one day for some environmental fund raising b******t. We basically went door to door and begged for donations. We got 25% of all donations given, so if someone donated 100 bucks, 25 went straight to our pocket. They told us that people would ask how much went to the actual cause, we were instructed to say 91 or 92%. Some quick math there tells me they are telling us to lie.They also targeted “white, liberal suburbia” because they said they were the most gullible, and from what I can tell their charity name changed often.Don’t donate to unreputable charities.

Three people in casual attire smiling and discussing in an outdoor setting, one holding a clipboard, related to industry insights.

The “service fees” scam.You see a price, think you’re getting a deal, and then—BAM!—at checkout, a bunch of mysterious fees appear out of nowhere. Concert tickets? “Processing fee.” Ordering food? “Convenience fee.” Even some hotels now have “resort fees” for things like using the pool (which you didn’t even touch). It’s like companies sat down and said, “How can we charge people more without actually raising prices?” And we all just… accept it.Pure daylight robbery.

Person holding credit card and using a laptop, representing the realization of an industry being a ripoff.

Weddings. Everything about a wedding is incredibly overpriced and so far booked out for no real reason.

Wedding industry ripoff concept with bride and groom cake topper on a decorated cake.

Man giving a presentation to a seated audience in a modern room, illustrating industry insights.

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.

Person holding Bitcoin in front of a computer screen displaying stock charts, illustrating industry ripoff concept.

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.

Person with gloves holds glasses in an eyewear store, illustrating industry ripoff concerns.

Companies posting that they are hiring but in reality the jobs were only posted as a way to show company is growing. I believe it’s a way to manipulate their stocks. Fake job listings make it so much harder to find actual real jobs.

Person smiling at the camera holding a resume in a business meeting, highlighting industry ripoff realization.

I had pet insurance for my dog for about 7 years. Every single thing that went wrong with him wasn’t covered. Teeth, heart problems…nothing. Ended up putting the money into savings instead.

Veterinarians bandaging a small dog’s paw, illustrating concerns about industry practices.

Women’s magazines. You literally invent the problem (“we see your saggy arms, honey!") and sell the “solution” in the ad on the next page.

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

Aromatherapy. Marketing perfumed chemicals being pumped into your home as healthy and therapeutic.Sector of the chemical industry that has no obligations to test products for long-term exposure/harm. Have funded fake “research” saying breathing chemicals is beneficial - better than breathing clean air. Then created multilevel marketing schemes to induce stay-at-home housewives to sell to each other.Straight out of Idiocracy.

Aromatherapy scene with a diffuser and essential oils, questioning industry’s value.

I’ve seen it pop up a couple times this week, but BlossomUp is a scam. If you pay to take any IQ test, especially online, the last thing you should be worrying about is how high your IQ might be.

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

Bottled water. I am old and remember when people were like, what?? Like water from the sink? In a throwaway bottle? My mom would buy the giant jugs w/ the spout from the grocery store and keep them in the fridge. That seemed less whacky. But she herself was a little whacked out, and was convinced that the water was poisoning us. I live in the midwest, so she was probably actually right. But now companies siphon off municipal tap water and sell it back to us in plastic bottles that end up littering the whole damn world.

Rows of small plastic water bottles represent a ripoff industry.

Designer clothes, or designer anything really.Many people spend so much money on name brands and all that stuff. I literally stopped buying special clothes since recently.If I want special clothes, I have them custom made from a tailor and its WAAAAY cheaper.

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

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.

Tow truck operator loading a white GMC pickup, highlighting potential industry ripoff insights.

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 then 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.

Man shaving in front of a mirror, highlighting ripoff concerns in grooming industry.

Factory Outlet Stores.The products being sold in these stores are not the same products you get in their retail stores. Or that are sold through other retail stores. They are rarely excess inventory or discontinued product lines.They are low quaility, cheaply made, editions of their products expressly made for their factory outlet store.I wonder if they contract with those Chinese companies who get busted for making counterfeit goods?

Person browsing clothing rack, contemplating industry ripoff potential.

Resort Fees.A below the line “tax” that inflates the cost of staying at hotel. It allows them to advertise one price, but get away with charging a higher price.This is a pox upon the hotel industry. It should be illegal. It is false advertising. Any fee that is not optional should always be included in the price.

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

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.

Construction workers in vests and helmets, assessing a building site with an industry critique in mind.

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

Nutritional Supplements.Applied judiciously, they can be very effective at treating specific conditions in specific circumstances. Applied per marketing, though, they are dubious at best (and dangerous at worst).

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

Nfts.The whole idea is so stupid yet some few made a metric ton of money that some poor gullible people.

A smartphone on a desk with a laptop in the background, evoking thoughts on industry ripoffs.

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, s**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.

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

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Just as many people are unaware of specific legal constraints, there’s also a vast array of scams preying on the uninformed.This lack of awareness parallels the surprise many people feel when they learn about certainlesser-known lawsthat are still enforced today. While these laws can be a source of amusement or shock, scams often carry more severe consequences if not identified and avoided.

Just as many people are unaware of specific legal constraints, there’s also a vast array of scams preying on the uninformed.

This lack of awareness parallels the surprise many people feel when they learn about certainlesser-known lawsthat are still enforced today. While these laws can be a source of amusement or shock, scams often carry more severe consequences if not identified and avoided.

Pre-school, elementary school, and middle school graduation ceremonies.WTF? They literally have capes, gowns, and diplomas handed to them now. Even for pre-schoolers!I graduated HS in 1981. I don’t recall anyone one of us having a ceremony before we finished 12th grade. When you finshed one grade, you just simply started the next. There was no big deal. The only thing that would change is that you switched to the different school when you went from elementary, to middle, to high school.

Chiropractors are absolutely a scam. I worked for a state agency and they were involved in most of our fraud cases.

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

Super high end jeans are made in Northern Mariana Islands. As a US territory, the brand can claim their jeans are made in the USA, based on that technicality. These contractors making $500 jeans are making them in the same factories as WalMart branded jeans, which sell for about $15.

When the cashier asks you, “Would you like to round up to give to this charity?“NEVER do that.The company is going to use your money to donate it, but it’s nothing out of their pocket and then they get a tax return on it. You’re literally just giving them extra money.If you want to donate to a charity, do it yourself. .

“What Made You Realize ‘Wait, This Whole Industry Is A Rip-Off’?” (30 People Answer)

Subscription based anything. Why am I paying Amazon to let me buy things from Amazon? The movie selection sucks a*s, and if I buy something one month, great.. I might save on shipping… but if I don’t buy anything or watch a movie for a month I still pay them anyway? WTF?

Amazon delivery truck on city street, highlighting industry ripoff realization theme.

In grad school I had an amazing Economics Professor (RIP Dr Looney). If we had a few minutes left at the end of class he would basically do an AMA.One classmate asked about gold as an alternative to protect against money printing. His answer “If my dollars are so evil and your gold is so good, why would you ever trade your gold for my dollars?“A second student essentially asked about private equity investments. He responded that he gets offered them all the time. “They are always ‘cant miss’ and ‘guaranteed wins’ but for some reason they also always require my money. If they deal is as good as you say it is, why would you every want to let me get most of the profit?“Pretty much every “alternative investment” is a scam.

AI artwork and writing. It emphasizes the ‘artificial’ and minimizes the ‘intelligence’ of the creators and the audience.GreenOnionCrusader:ESPECIALLY for canning books. If you want to get into canning, go with a trusted source. (Like Ball, their entire business is canning, so they can teach you how to do it safely.) AI cookbooks have had some downright dangerous and deadly advice for people looking to can their own food. Know your source and never blindly trust a cookbook not to k**l you.

These days? Sadly thrift stores. They’ve completely abandoned the reasons most of them are in business (charity) and decided that “charity” now means abandoning helping those in need and outright actively scamming because they’re mad some people came in and flipped product in the 2010s.I rarely see items below 60-70% of retail. That’s already too high for basics like clothing that have a wear factor to their utility (it might be ok for things like Pyrex but still doesn’t incentivize turnover which should matter in this kind of business). But I also regularly see items well above 100% of retail both with tags and without.It’s pretty shady to walk into a Goodwill and see a WalMart $4.97 tag on an item the store is asking $8 for.

Women browsing clothes in a vintage store, exploring the fashion industry.

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.

Woman wearing headphones, smiling while using a smartphone, highlighting modern industry engagement.

School pictures!!! My kids just entered school and had their pictures taken. The “packages” you get make no sense. If you want to only get the class photo, you have to buy 49$ multi pack of dozens of your kids head on different fake backgrounds. Want just the digital image? You have to spend 50$ on real pictures before you can buy the digital versions. You cannot just spend 4$ and get one picture. It seems to me like the service is free for elementary schools to put on, or they even get a kickback for it. So it’s zero effort for schools to do, which is why it continues. Buts they’re so expensive and low quality. It costs 50 cents to print a picture myself. We all have phones and can take our own crappy headshots !! And the photographer is doing 400 kids a day, so why is the markup so high? It’s not like it’s a professional photo where you get 30 minutes of one on one time (justifying the cost). .

Audience in a conference room listening to a presentation about industry ripoffs.

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Well …. not so modern as it’s been going on for more than 50 years … most likely more than 100 years, but paying outrageous commission to some real estate agent/broker parasite for dumping your property on the MLS and/or opening the door while spewing, " … now this is the living room …” should qualify as a scam in any circumstance.

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 b****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 st.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.

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.xternal7:Honey is a browser extension for coupons. When shopping online, Honey claims it’ll search the internet for coupons that give you the best deal…. except that online retailers can partner with Honey and ensure that it won’t actually show you the coupon codes that give you the highest discount codes.And then there’s also the bit where it steals affiliate links.Dracious:Yeah, the whole thing was scummy and unethical, but I gotta respect the grift and how blatant it was.Basically paying influencers to push your product (that they didn’t research before pushing) onto their users, but the product effectively robs those same influencers of the income they would get from their users in the future.That’s pretty wild.

Woman excitedly shopping online with a credit card on a laptop, realizing an industry is a ripoff.

Sports betting. While most people know in a broad sense the house always wins, a lot of people think there’s a way to win with sports betting as if it is different than playing cr*ps. Most people don’t really understand casinos and online operations will ban you or force you into small bet sizes if you show any ability at making intelligent bets. There are people who get banned even while losing because they make smart bets (ie, your expected value for your bets is out of line for the norm). You will not be allowed to keep winning even if you could keep winning. If you’re allowed to keep betting, then you are losing.

The stock market.That s**t is literally made up and not based on any actual financial principles. Want proof? Tesla has a market cap of $912 billion dollars. Tesla, who makes most of its profits not from actually selling cars but from sellingregulatory creditssomehow is deemed more valuable than:Toyota, Honda, GMC (GM), Chevy (GM), Cadillac (GM), Buick (GM), Volkswagen, Volvo, Mercedes Benz, Hyundai, Jeep (Stellantis), Ram Trucks (Stellantis), Fiat (Stellantis), Opel (Stellantis), Peugeot (Stellantis), Dodge (Stellantis), Chrysler (Stellantis), Alfa Romeo (Stellantis), Opel (Stellantis), BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Hyundai, Ford, and Mazda.COMBINEDThat’s right: Wall Street has determined that the car company that doesn’t make money selling cars is somehow worth more than basically the entire auto industry combined. Furthermore, in 2024 Tesla revenue was $98 billion. GM’s revenue in 2024 was $187 billion, almost 2x more than Tesla. And yet, Telsa is “valued” almost 22x more than that of GM, despite the fact that Tesla only sold about as many cars as Audi.The game is rigged.

Fabric softener is nothing but a perfume for your clothes. It does nothing else.

Person adding detergent to a washing machine, highlighting industry as a potential ripoff.

LinkedIn. It’s entirely designed to lure you into making connections that will be gatekept from you unless you constantly post rubbish on the platform and/or use their premium services. Don’t get me started on the nuclear wasteland that is its “jobs” offering. Or the criminally malicious notification settings designed to spam you with everything everyone did or keep you in the dark about updates on your own posts.

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 SCAMSTAY AWAY FROM “PAYMENT-PLAN” SOLARRegular solar, that you pay in full up front: fine. Good, even.Payment plan solar: SCAM.

I had a too-good-to-be-true feeling about streaming services pretty early on. When interest rates started going up I thought “oh boy, here come the ads, price jacks, and quality drop”. So far 2 have become true, time will tell if quality stays good over time.

Remote control pointed at a TV displaying Netflix, hinting at the industry’s perceived ripoff.

Carbon Credits, started digging into them in 2007 and asked some tough questions and got very unsatisfactory answers that made me realize it was all so easy to fake. Years later the Nature Conservancy was outed for double selling credits which was one of tough questions I asked. The response I got at time from carbon credit company reps was basically, we are a big corporation of course you can trust us not to commit fraud. ENRON! Was my reply, the lady got uncomfortable and ended interview soon after.

Celebrity awards are all purchased. I knew they campaigned for the Oscar’s, but I did not realize that you can purchase things like the NAACP award or the Pat Tillerson award.dorktasticd:Lawyer/legal industry awards are the worst for this!

Audience in formal attire clapping, related to industry realization as a possible ripoff.

Private health insurance in Australia seems to be a ripoff.I remember when I got surgery on my nose. It had been busted during a high school fight. Ten years later I finally had surgery to fix it at a small private hospital.Bill time came and it was $2200. (This was 30 years ago!) They wanted to know my health insurer and I told them I didn’t have one.They took the bill back while I was still standing there at the counter and halved it. I wound up paying $1100.When you count in the fact that I also paid no health insurance for a decade, I came out WAY ahead.

I bought a 256GB micro SD card off Amazon a few years ago. It turned out to be an 8GB card that was fake after I contacted SanDisk about it (they told me the serial number was fake and wasn’t a licensed SanDisk product). I paid the 256GB price at the time (which was like $100).Then after I sent it back, I did some digging on the seller and it turns out there’s a metric s**t ton of sellers on Amazon and other web stores selling fake merchandise out there.

“fine art” portrait studios. Most get people in with a fake contest for a tiny piece of art, then guilt them using their love of their family to get a bigger size. The bigger sizes are WAY over priced. It might cost the studio $200 but sell for $10,000. They use hard sales and your love of your family to squeeze money out of you. I knew someone who bragged that they got $2k out of a homeless woman whose family begged her to save the money.

The auto sales industry. It’s a normalized scam.

This isn’t modern, but it’s how I feel about the dieting/wellness industry. I realized it slowly throughout my 20’s as I began to talk about my relationship to my body, and every. single. person. I talked to said they felt the same. Like wait, we’re all out here hating our body and feeling guilty about food, no matter what size, shape, color, configuration? This can’t be real.I know not everyone dislikes their body, but it’s damn near close enough that it just doesn’t make sense to me anymore. If the standard is so unattainable that everyone falls short, why do we even have that standard?Also I know there will always be a group of people who truly believe they are superior because they have so much “discipline”–good for y’all. I wasn’t given this one wild and precious life to weigh my f*****g oatmeal in the morning.

Veterinary services. It’s emotional blackmail and you’re in a fully vulnerable position with an animal that can’t speak for itself but you want the best for, facing a company that is going to take as much money as it can. Someone needs to regulate and audit these places.

Jewlery, my wife worked at a jewlwry store, one of the bigger retail ones, the markup on everything was about 400%. So even when they have a killer 50% off sale they are still making 200% profit.

Hearing Aids. My wife needed Hearing Aids, older people kept on telling her go to Costco. If you go to an Audiologist they charge you for an appointment and bill your insurance then charge you over $3,000 an ear for hearing aids if you buy the cheap ones. Costco on the other hand does the hearing test for free helps you select them programs them to your needs and then will clean them for you replacing the filters, domes and wire when necessary every quarter all for under $2000 for both ears if you want to go with the expensive name brand ones. Insurance normally caps reimbursement at $3000 every 3 years. The first pair my wife bought she tried the Audiologist and she wanted to charge is $8300 for hearing aids. We said no went to Costco where my wife got the same test and same hearing aids for just under $1800. So one meant no money after reimbursement the other meant a $40 copay and $5300 out of pocket. The choice was easy. Now you can even buy some from other sources for about $900 but they lack any service.

The first time I saw a kid spit take a Mr. Beast bar then reach for some gummy candy brand that some other Youtuber made barely two seconds later while I begged them to just pick a normal candy brand, I realized the YTers and TikTokers selling cheap s**t was gonna take over the world.

Mother and daughter shopping in a grocery store aisle, highlighting industry pricing perceptions.

CPAP machines - they should be OTC just like hearing aids. Mine works great but getting it and dealing with medical distributors is an overpaid nightmare.

Luxottica makes basically all the designer sunglasses/eyeglasses you can think of, and owns the stores that sells them.They even own the companies that make prescription lenses, do the antifog/anti glare coatings, and the optometrists. They even own the companies that make the equipment.Oakley, ray ban, Gucci, Prada, Chanel, sunglass hut, sears optical, pearle vision, Crizal, Optifog, Essilor Instruments, its all them (and like a hundred more)They have something like 80% market share, it’s practically a monopoly, and are able to dictate pricing for the entire market.Non-Lux brands can be literally 1/10th the price for the same product.

Health foods - they all contain more processed c**p, chemicals, gums, fillers, flavors and fake sugars or sugar alcohol.There’s no replacement for eating fresh food and vegetables - invest in yourself not corporations on a race to the bottom.

Ever try to get a painting framed? For what should be cost of materials plus 20 bucks will cost you hundreds.

A lot of the art world is designed around value inflation scams. Not all of it, but a good portion.- Commission a fellow rich friend’s kid to create a piece, or just buy a piece ~$2,000- Have your friend appraise it for ~$25,000- The artist sells other pieces to other rich friend’s of their parents- Because their sales show success, the piece you commissioned is now worth ~$100,000- Use the falsely inflated market value of that painting as collateral to borrow money from the bank- live off the borrowed money or use it to reinvest in property- buying power of $100,000 for an investment of $2,000.

Fractional Reserve lending mate. If everyone who held money at your bank right now tried to pull all the money out of their accounts, the bank would close and none of you would get your money any time soon if at all. Fractional Reserve lending is nothing short of legal fraud.

Tipping, when a friend who had never made more than minimum wage said tipping is mandatory at all restraints, like bro we in Canada they’re at the minimum making more than u.

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Modal closeOoops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.UploadUploadError occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermarkInstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermarkFacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermarkChangeSourceTitleUpdateAdd Image

Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.

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UploadError occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermarkInstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermarkFacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermark

Error occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.

TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermark

InstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermark

FacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermark

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