This pisses me off so much. Here's a perfect example:
I purchased a number of Amazon Alexa devices for my home. Several of them have screens on them, so I could cycle through photographs. After having these for many years, suddenly, I'm getting ads on the screen. I'll be sitting in my living room, and the screen lights up with an ad for a movie, or some product. in my fucking home. It pisses me off so much I want to throw them all in the trash, but they're integrated with a ton of smart devices I have in the home, so I'm stuck for now.
I'm sure when I purchased them, I agreed to any future changes in service. Fuckers.
It's just one more reason I hate Amazon and have stopped purchasing from them. They couldn't figure out a way to monetize those devices, so they threw ads on. The joke's on them. I've completely stopped using Amazon for anything because of it.
Look up how to set up a Pi-hole. It’ll block all ads on your network on all devices. Great for skipping bullshit ads like that or on smart TVs and such.
https://pi-hole.net
Lot of routers do have basic filtering now but the steps will be different for every router. A Pi-hole will work on pretty much every network and there’s lots of guides online.
>the fact that companies can change the terms of service on you, and by continuing to use the product you automatically accept those terms
Ugh, it's so frustrating! Like, you sign up for something, everything seems cool, and then bam! They hit you with these new terms you gotta accept or you can't use the app anymore.
On more than one occasion, I have just reached out to the author of the study directly and they have shared the study directly without any charge or fuss.
It’s great that authors do that, but it bugs me when (some of those) authors then turn around and say “we don’t need open access publishing models, because I can send a copy to anyone who asks”. That’s not scalable, or searchable, and it’s not accessible to the people who don’t know they can do that (ie 99% of the population).
“There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public information.” - Aaron Swartz
RIP Aaron.
Obligatory Fuck u/spez
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 fucking 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.
Well they are starting to evolve now, they are selling course and instead of saying "how to be a millonaire" they are straight up saying "ill teach you how to sell course for 500$, all you have to do is sell it 200 times and there's 100k"/
Friend of mine got a printed letter on her windshield a while back. It said "Make $500 a weekend in your spare time, send $20 to this P.O.Box with a stamped self addressed envelope, and find out how!"
She figured it was $20 to see what the scam was, and went for it. It came with a copy of the letter from her windshield with no P.O.Box address and instructions to put her own P.O.Box number in there, make a hundred coppies, and put them on windshields somewhere where she hadn't seen it done yet.
Times are very different now.
But back in the day - that was the only picture of me that really existed.
I know some people complain about everybody taking photos all the time - but so much of youth only exists in my memory.
Which is why they need to try harder. Its quite bs they cant even catch a good photo when its digital. they can have 100 pics in a few seconds and still cant manage a good one.
You’ve clearly never experienced taking children’s photos in a school. It’s an incredibly tight schedule and even though they only take one photo, somehow they are always behind schedule.
As a teacher, they would let me look at mine and retake, but I would go early before the kids started pouring in.
You’re looking at it wrong.
Sure digital pictures are cheap.
People are now the expensive part not the tech. The cost for the labor has dramatically increased.
What is awful to me is that the pictures are all digital now and so would cost nothing to retake right then, but they still let kids get a picture with their eyes closed.
A burst would solve this, every camera can do it. But it takes time to process through all those pics so I get why they don't. That said, if cell phones can do it automatically why isn't there a corresponding feature for DSLRs?
I think this is a dying industry. A buddy of mine was a VP at one of the big ones, but in the past few years people just started taking their own photos (since smartphone camera tech is arguably better) so his whole division was laid off as part of downsizing
Yep, and at least in my area, they've lowered pricing sigificantly because of it. I can get a whole school photo "package" for like $20 these days, when it was $75 a few years back. I think these business have lowered their overhead and are just trying to stay relevant/alive.
I also know, these days, most seniors just hire their own photographers for senior pictures and just have a formal portrait for the yearbook done at the studio (but don't purchase any of the prints). There's so much more flexibility with hiring your own photographer for an hour or two and it's not that much more expensive.
Imo the best thing you can do is pick the location and then hire a photographer doing their own thing on like facebook. Often times it’ll be their side gig since it doesn’t pay very well so the extra $’s really helps your local aspiring photographer.
Some of the savvier photogs pick a local spot (local park, beach, etc) and schedule sessions for the students, like a hour each, for a much reduced cost. Win/win - photog books the day, students get a break on the price.
The sports pictures have majorly started to piss me off. I love buying them. I will always buy them. I’m SO TIRED of them photoshopping the kids together. It looks terrible, every single child has that stupid white halo around them even in the single pose pictures. $40 every time for you to take 1 single picture of my child and then not bother to put the group together for a full shot? Wild.
The UK has a great system for deposits, although it can still be abused (take as many pictures when you move in to prevent it). You don't pay the deposit to the owner, you pay it to a deposit protection scheme.
At the end of the period, if both agree to a situation it's done quickly, if there's disagreement both parties have 30 days to submit all evidence for them to decide how the money is sent back.
To add, the deposit scheme is mandatory, so if a landlord "decides" not to use it, well fuck you that's a boilerplate letter to a court to get it back.
"Not gonna pay me my $1500 deposit back? I can *cause* $1500 worth of damage to the building if you want and we'll call it even. I don't even have to live there to do that."
I live in a college town and these scum love the students because they'll nickel and dime them for everything and even blatantly make up crap just to get their deposits and since they're students they don't have the time, money, or knowledge to deal with it.
… and sending an email with one line way down in the body, without any indication in the subject line, that on a certain date during the lease changeover, they will cut the locks on all the bikes and donate the bikes to charity. ALL of them, even the bikes belonging to students who are not moving out.
You know, because once 20 years ago somebody moved out and left their bike behind.
What bothers me the most is there is no other option. Ok fine I need to pay extra for a ticket on your website but you also have a box office? Wait your box office won't sell me tickets directly? Screw that.
Literally a fee so they can arbitrarily price tickets for advertising and then tack the fee on to bring it to the price they actually want to sell for.
From what my mom has been dealing with for years: health insurance. She got diagnosed with a nasty life long disease that has symptoms like nerve damage, foggy brain, loss of muscle control, etc. Total nightmare for someone that dreamed of enjoying retirement. To keep these from worsening she needs an infusion every month. She needs this to live a somewhat normal life. Problem is that this infusion is super expensive, like thousands of dollars expensive. We just needed some help covering it; not even fully just anything would help.
Guess who refused to pay for any of it? And the one time we did manage to get them to agree to cover some of it? They changed their minds and denied it right as my mom was about to get an infusion done. The needle was in her arm when the doctor got the call.
> Problem is that this infusion is super expensive, like thousands of dollars expensive.
And it's only that expensive *because* of the insurance companies. It doesn't actually cost that much to make at any point in the manufacturing process, but the insurance company wants their fingers in it, and the hospitals need money from the insurance company, and there's a whole billing catch-22 back and forth that artificially jacks up the price. The medication probably only costs a few hundred at best.
Wanna go see your favorite artist? Pay us a fee. Then pay us for having tickets in the first place. Don't forget to also pay us because we charge the artist extra too. Okay, now you can pay us to give you the tickets.
I run a small business doing software development -- I deal with this all the time. I also get the "We didn't receive that invoice" excuse all the time when things aren't paid on time. I've just started sending certified copies of all contracts and then a separate certified copy of the invoice. It costs $10 to send both letters certified, but it's more than worth it to have actual legal proof that someone received the paperwork.
This is what I came into here to say. There's a reason why there are discounts for paying on time which is disgusting because Walmart does this all the time. What are you going to do? Not play with the 500 pound gorilla in the room and starve or suck it up?
Yep, there's one of these in the small mall a few blocks from me. While I'm at it, I'll also mention the payday loan place 1 block away from it, which charges up to 270% annual interest, according to the fine print on the sign they're legally obligated to put on their advertising.
Yeah say you want to rent to own a ps5 you’re going to pay about 2,000 for it when it’s all said and done. If you only make the minimum payment or a little above it each month.
My former BIL did this with a boom box. It was 2010/2011 when he went to the rent to own place and RENTED A BOOM BOX! He played loud music next to his apartment so people would look at him. It made no sense. He paid triple the amount for it because it was only $20/week.
I moved from Japan to New Mexico and rented a washer and dryer for $6 a month until mine arrived on the slow boat. Total cost=$12.00. Much cheaper than a laundromat for a month.
Health insurance. Tell me again why I pay so much money for a company to tell me that I don't actually need a medical procedure that my DOCTOR has decided that I do actually need. Explain to me why the doctor's office will charge me three times as much for a treatment that is being run through insurance than they would if I was paying out of pocket.
You missed the best part. It isn't even a doctor or other medical professional that is not aware of your situation making the call as to whether or not the plan of care is appropriate, [it is some random asshole practicing medicine without a license](https://www.newsweek.com/doctor-explains-unqualified-insurance-companies-are-practicing-medicine-viral-video-1599012)... and even when it is a doctor doing the review, [they sometimes do them at a rate of 10 claims per second](https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims).
My wife had a C5/C6 ACDF surgery (surgery fusing two vertebrae together in her neck) a few years ago because *she broke her fucking neck*. This is generally considered a fairly emergent surgery - if you present to the emergency room with it, you're likely being admitted and having a surgery scheduled in the *very* near future because the wrong movement or further trauma can *easily* paralyze you for life if not kill you.
In her case, she had apparently been living with it for a little while, and had *some* stability from muscles strengthening to pick up the slack (or something, I don't recall exactly what it was), and the surgeon scheduled the surgery for a week out..... the insurance company initially rejected her claim and said that she had to start with *physical therapy*.
Don't get me wrong, physical therapy is fucking phenomenal... but "Jesus Christ DPT" himself isn't going to fix a *broken fucking neck* through therapy.
The surgeon reversed the decision... but this is insurance in a nutshell.. they see something expensive and reject it, because if you don't push on it, and it ends up fucking you up for life, that's on you.
Fucking evil industry.
Yes. A close friend of mine had a father with stage 4 cancer. He underwent treatment because the Dr. said it could potentially buy them an additional 5-7 years. He completed treatment and seemed stable initially, but he started feeling ill again after a month. The Dr. sent him to get a scan to determine the state of the cancer, and insurance denied the claim because he hadn't been feeling badly for long enough after treatment. Insurance said they would only cover the scan if he experienced symptoms for three months. By the time he got his scan, the cancer had spread worse than before. I'm not saying that he would have lived if he had the scan earlier, but he would have had a much better chance of living for longer if he didn't have to wait an additional two months for treatment at a time when he was extra vulnerable.
My youngest has had a string of health issues since she was born. Just before her first birthday, she has a 4 night stay in the hospital. While there, they notice she's got hematuria and proteinuria.
Cue a year and a half of going back and forth with specialists, which includes a nephrologist who ordered a kidney biopsy. For those who aren't aware of what this is, the small of the long of it is they shove a massive needle into your kidney and pull out a "core sample" to later analyze.
This requires an overnight stay for observation, which, in a then almost 2 year old is pretty important since a 2 year old can't really communicate about what's going on in their body.
My insurance company denied the pre-authorization for the hospital stay, and in the denial letter, explained that if she felt uncomfortable, "take Tylenol and lie down. Return to the hospital if the pain becomes severe."
I appealed with a letter outlining the fact that a 2 year old cannot communicate about their body, and if something were to happen at night, after she went to bed, it would be fatal.
I received the notice that they have received my appeal on the same day I received the letter denying my appeal, claiming their "in-house doctor has reviewed the information and does not believe a hospital stay is "medically necessary."
For a 2 year old.
Recovering from a procedure that literally punched a hole in her kidney.
Thankfully, we didn't end up needing to do that procedure. But still, fuck insurance companies.
Had to spend an extra $1000 on PT before they'd approve my lumbar fusion. Pushed my surgery past the insurance reset so I got to pay my deductible twice.
Hey, now, I’m a NorCal boy, I’ll have you the tallest building in San Francisco is the Salesforce Tower. Maybe Benioff couldn’t afford an anatomically-inspired spaceship like Bezos and Musk?
The Transamerica Pyramid is the *second* tallest building in SF.
The best part of course is when they turn down a claim for whatever bullshit reason and you look back at the previous couple years' worth of money you spent on the company and realize you could've just paid for it yourself if you weren't paying them.
Yes! I was in the hospital for afib that I was actively having. When I got out, insurance denied the claim for a 2-week halter monitor to make sure that things were normal because I "wasn't at risk."
Those assholes didn't care that I was in the hospital with a diagnosis that I wasn't at risk for. They didn't care that I had 3 separate cardiologists say I needed to be on a monitor for 2-3 weeks to make sure things were stable. Because I clearly couldn't have afib. Fuckers.
There was a woman in my city who was having I think it was a kidney transplant or something who initially had been approved by the insurance company but these complete fuckers suddenly “realized they’d made an error on her paperwork” literally as she was being wheeled into the operating room and rammed through a decision to the hospital to deny her claim for it. The only reason they ended up reversing their decision a few weeks later was because of such a huge public outcry. I’m having trouble finding the article (and it’s making me wonder if whatever company it was took effort to have it taken down, because it was big news here for a little bit) but can you imagine going into surgery happy that you’ll finally be getting life saving medical treatment only to have it yanked away from you at the last possible second just because it would be an inconvenience to a few millionaires
Any insurance that makes the payment really easy to do, but if something happen it will take u so much stress to get 70% of the money even on small amount, that's a scam to me
It got one step worse yesterday. Supreme court overturned the case that prevented politicians from receiving payments after awarding contracts. You can now legally give politicians and judges a “gratuity” after the fact…
Well then, I encourage you to do less flag-waving next week on the 4th and go get angry somewhere about your situation.
Learn from the French public, they like to burn Paris to the ground twice a year when they want to get shit done.
Went to Pearl Harbor recently. The Arizona Memorial is a national park. They navy shuttles people over to the memorial. It's free if there are openings. You can reserve a ticket for $1. Tickets take priority over walk ups. Tickets are available at 3pm for the next day. They are all gone by 3:01pm. 75 tickets per time slot, times run from 8:45 to 3:15. Why are they gone? Because all of the local travel agencies buy all of the tickets at 3pm and resell them for $50+. The only thing they offer is a bus ride from local motels to the park. Last I checked, that's scalping, from a federal park...
I would be OK with it for something inexpensive, and it was upfront about.
Salesperson: "Hate cleaning microwaves. Then this $75 Zapomatic is for you. It will last a year, 2 if you are lucky."
For-profit colleges and universities. Most are diploma mills offering useless degrees and their business model is to milk the maximum amount of federal loans out of their students.
Also gotta love articles that say: "the date for Avengers 5!" And then you click it and see three paragraphs of summary followed by "at his time we don't know when the next Avengers film will be released. But given what we know it won't be this year." Like no duh. This article may as well not exist.
> Member and Rewards cards.
They are getting your info for their sales and marketing and product management and then they sell that data and make even more money.
I recently saw a commercial that offered free expert installation when you buy a better bundle for their home Internet. Do they send non experts if you don't pay more? Lmao
I work in the Internet industry, they don't send experts at all as they don't have any.. I do call center work. My company has several million customers, not a small company by any means... You'd be mind blown how many technicians will install a modem on the floor in a closet, directly behind a TV, in the garage, in the attic, etc..
I think the funniest one to this day, and I'm not convinced it wasn't intentional, a customer called in and stated all of his devices were disconnecting at the same exact time several times a day... The technician had installed the modem in a kitchen on a shelf below the microwave and above the stove. (For anyone that doesn't understand, both appliances operate off the 2.4GHz frequency band and can cause significant interference to WiFi)
This is such a grift that should absolutely be illegal. My sister applied for apartments about 2 years ago. The number of applications she put in cost her almost $200 for "credit checks and application fees." She got emails back from more than half saying there were no apartments available at that time and to apply again in 90 days, and no, the fee is non refundable. Like, what the actual f**k?!? How can you take money for a credit check/application processing you're not even doing because there's nothing available! How are you allowed to advertise for something that doesn't actually exist and charge money just to tell people that? And the apply again in 90 days? Oh please, let me pay for the privilege again. Such a scam!
Looking at you, BMW.
[https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/bmw-relents-on-heated-seat-subscription.html](https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/bmw-relents-on-heated-seat-subscription.html)
Ticket fees are a good example. When you buy concert or event tickets, the extra fees for processing, convenience, and delivery can sometimes add up to almost as much as the ticket itself. It's frustrating because these fees often feel like hidden costs that you can't avoid, yet they're considered a standard part of the transaction.
Ticket sales is the only industry I know of where the supply chain costs are directly tacked on to the cost. I can order a king size mattress off Amazon and have it shipped to my front door for free, but I have to pay ticket master $37 a ticket for a “digital download”. If Amazon was smart, they would start selling event tickets without crazy markups. Ticketmaster probably runs on AWS anyway.
Gym memberships with impossible cancellation policies! They lure you in with visions of a new, fit you, and then make escaping harder than leaving the Mafia. You end up paying for months, maybe years, because canceling involves more paperwork and stress than buying a house.
HOAs
I have to pay a third party to live in a home they have nothing to do with? I need permission to paint my house, have And if my car's not washed or some of my grass dies I owe you more money?
I understand the idea of HOAs, but so many of them are well beyond their intentions. I cut my grass every 2 weeks. Sometimes we get crazy rain stretches and my grass will be a bit too long. Of course I get the warning letter a week after I already cut it. What really bugs me is the warning has the spiel about “maintaining house values in the neighborhood” like my 1-day too long grass caused my neighbor around the corner to lose 100k value in their house.
Edit: right on cue 😂. I check the mail to see our second warning for weeds. Pictures were taken on the 18th, I cut on the 18th, and their letter was postmarked a week later. What a counterproductive program.
the fact that companies can change the terms of service on you, and by continuing to use the product you automatically accept those terms
This pisses me off so much. Here's a perfect example: I purchased a number of Amazon Alexa devices for my home. Several of them have screens on them, so I could cycle through photographs. After having these for many years, suddenly, I'm getting ads on the screen. I'll be sitting in my living room, and the screen lights up with an ad for a movie, or some product. in my fucking home. It pisses me off so much I want to throw them all in the trash, but they're integrated with a ton of smart devices I have in the home, so I'm stuck for now. I'm sure when I purchased them, I agreed to any future changes in service. Fuckers. It's just one more reason I hate Amazon and have stopped purchasing from them. They couldn't figure out a way to monetize those devices, so they threw ads on. The joke's on them. I've completely stopped using Amazon for anything because of it.
Look up how to set up a Pi-hole. It’ll block all ads on your network on all devices. Great for skipping bullshit ads like that or on smart TVs and such. https://pi-hole.net
I have a virtual pi hole running on my NAS. Even routers have basic ad filtering these days.
Lot of routers do have basic filtering now but the steps will be different for every router. A Pi-hole will work on pretty much every network and there’s lots of guides online.
Is it feasible for a person that gets annoyed when tech doesn't work real easy? Going to look but wanted to ask.
Should be plenty of YouTube videos on how to do it. Another option would be using a ad blocking DNS.
Oh wow thank you for this.
Got rid of mine for the same reason. Just normal speakers now.
Yeah Amazon is horrible with the ads. I try hard not to buy their brand of anything. I only trust them to deliver products other companies make.
>the fact that companies can change the terms of service on you, and by continuing to use the product you automatically accept those terms Ugh, it's so frustrating! Like, you sign up for something, everything seems cool, and then bam! They hit you with these new terms you gotta accept or you can't use the app anymore.
Hell, my phone plan has the right to change the cost if they feel like it. What's the point of a contract?
The point of the contract is, *you* can’t change the terms any time you want, just the billion dollar corporation.
So you can pay them a bunch of money if you cancel early.
[удалено]
On more than one occasion, I have just reached out to the author of the study directly and they have shared the study directly without any charge or fuss.
It’s great that authors do that, but it bugs me when (some of those) authors then turn around and say “we don’t need open access publishing models, because I can send a copy to anyone who asks”. That’s not scalable, or searchable, and it’s not accessible to the people who don’t know they can do that (ie 99% of the population).
Blood is on the hands of those federal prosecutors for putting Aaron Swartz in the position he was, while trying to make this known.
“There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public information.” - Aaron Swartz RIP Aaron. Obligatory Fuck u/spez
Herbalife
All other MLM companies too.
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 fucking 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.
Well they are starting to evolve now, they are selling course and instead of saying "how to be a millonaire" they are straight up saying "ill teach you how to sell course for 500$, all you have to do is sell it 200 times and there's 100k"/
Friend of mine got a printed letter on her windshield a while back. It said "Make $500 a weekend in your spare time, send $20 to this P.O.Box with a stamped self addressed envelope, and find out how!" She figured it was $20 to see what the scam was, and went for it. It came with a copy of the letter from her windshield with no P.O.Box address and instructions to put her own P.O.Box number in there, make a hundred coppies, and put them on windshields somewhere where she hadn't seen it done yet.
Damn, that’s an interesting idea.
The school picture industry. $80 for an awkward picture of my baby? Nah, thanks.
Times are very different now. But back in the day - that was the only picture of me that really existed. I know some people complain about everybody taking photos all the time - but so much of youth only exists in my memory.
Which is why they need to try harder. Its quite bs they cant even catch a good photo when its digital. they can have 100 pics in a few seconds and still cant manage a good one.
You’ve clearly never experienced taking children’s photos in a school. It’s an incredibly tight schedule and even though they only take one photo, somehow they are always behind schedule. As a teacher, they would let me look at mine and retake, but I would go early before the kids started pouring in.
You’re looking at it wrong. Sure digital pictures are cheap. People are now the expensive part not the tech. The cost for the labor has dramatically increased.
What is awful to me is that the pictures are all digital now and so would cost nothing to retake right then, but they still let kids get a picture with their eyes closed.
A burst would solve this, every camera can do it. But it takes time to process through all those pics so I get why they don't. That said, if cell phones can do it automatically why isn't there a corresponding feature for DSLRs?
Parents are paying a lot of money for these packages. It’s just wrong to let the kid have an upturned collar or closed eyes.
Tech has improved, care factor has not...
I think this is a dying industry. A buddy of mine was a VP at one of the big ones, but in the past few years people just started taking their own photos (since smartphone camera tech is arguably better) so his whole division was laid off as part of downsizing
Yep, and at least in my area, they've lowered pricing sigificantly because of it. I can get a whole school photo "package" for like $20 these days, when it was $75 a few years back. I think these business have lowered their overhead and are just trying to stay relevant/alive. I also know, these days, most seniors just hire their own photographers for senior pictures and just have a formal portrait for the yearbook done at the studio (but don't purchase any of the prints). There's so much more flexibility with hiring your own photographer for an hour or two and it's not that much more expensive.
Imo the best thing you can do is pick the location and then hire a photographer doing their own thing on like facebook. Often times it’ll be their side gig since it doesn’t pay very well so the extra $’s really helps your local aspiring photographer.
Some of the savvier photogs pick a local spot (local park, beach, etc) and schedule sessions for the students, like a hour each, for a much reduced cost. Win/win - photog books the day, students get a break on the price.
Relatedly, high school class rings
The sports pictures have majorly started to piss me off. I love buying them. I will always buy them. I’m SO TIRED of them photoshopping the kids together. It looks terrible, every single child has that stupid white halo around them even in the single pose pictures. $40 every time for you to take 1 single picture of my child and then not bother to put the group together for a full shot? Wild.
Big apartment complex refuses to give back any deposits. People must sue to get their money back.
The UK has a great system for deposits, although it can still be abused (take as many pictures when you move in to prevent it). You don't pay the deposit to the owner, you pay it to a deposit protection scheme. At the end of the period, if both agree to a situation it's done quickly, if there's disagreement both parties have 30 days to submit all evidence for them to decide how the money is sent back.
To add, the deposit scheme is mandatory, so if a landlord "decides" not to use it, well fuck you that's a boilerplate letter to a court to get it back.
"Not gonna pay me my $1500 deposit back? I can *cause* $1500 worth of damage to the building if you want and we'll call it even. I don't even have to live there to do that."
And big property management companies charging for anything they possibly can.
I live in a college town and these scum love the students because they'll nickel and dime them for everything and even blatantly make up crap just to get their deposits and since they're students they don't have the time, money, or knowledge to deal with it.
… and sending an email with one line way down in the body, without any indication in the subject line, that on a certain date during the lease changeover, they will cut the locks on all the bikes and donate the bikes to charity. ALL of them, even the bikes belonging to students who are not moving out. You know, because once 20 years ago somebody moved out and left their bike behind.
Convenience Fees. Why...?
Because it's convenient.... For THEIR wallets.
Resort fees. 100% scam.
What bothers me the most is there is no other option. Ok fine I need to pay extra for a ticket on your website but you also have a box office? Wait your box office won't sell me tickets directly? Screw that.
Literally a fee so they can arbitrarily price tickets for advertising and then tack the fee on to bring it to the price they actually want to sell for.
From what my mom has been dealing with for years: health insurance. She got diagnosed with a nasty life long disease that has symptoms like nerve damage, foggy brain, loss of muscle control, etc. Total nightmare for someone that dreamed of enjoying retirement. To keep these from worsening she needs an infusion every month. She needs this to live a somewhat normal life. Problem is that this infusion is super expensive, like thousands of dollars expensive. We just needed some help covering it; not even fully just anything would help. Guess who refused to pay for any of it? And the one time we did manage to get them to agree to cover some of it? They changed their minds and denied it right as my mom was about to get an infusion done. The needle was in her arm when the doctor got the call.
> Problem is that this infusion is super expensive, like thousands of dollars expensive. And it's only that expensive *because* of the insurance companies. It doesn't actually cost that much to make at any point in the manufacturing process, but the insurance company wants their fingers in it, and the hospitals need money from the insurance company, and there's a whole billing catch-22 back and forth that artificially jacks up the price. The medication probably only costs a few hundred at best.
Well it's also the pharmaceutical companies
Ticketmaster
It's a scam wrapped in a scam
Wanna go see your favorite artist? Pay us a fee. Then pay us for having tickets in the first place. Don't forget to also pay us because we charge the artist extra too. Okay, now you can pay us to give you the tickets.
As a small business owner… big companies paying net 30 invoices at like 50-70 days because you can’t do shit about it and fuck you.
I run a small business doing software development -- I deal with this all the time. I also get the "We didn't receive that invoice" excuse all the time when things aren't paid on time. I've just started sending certified copies of all contracts and then a separate certified copy of the invoice. It costs $10 to send both letters certified, but it's more than worth it to have actual legal proof that someone received the paperwork.
This is what I came into here to say. There's a reason why there are discounts for paying on time which is disgusting because Walmart does this all the time. What are you going to do? Not play with the 500 pound gorilla in the room and starve or suck it up?
Rent-to-own furniture and appliances.
Yep, there's one of these in the small mall a few blocks from me. While I'm at it, I'll also mention the payday loan place 1 block away from it, which charges up to 270% annual interest, according to the fine print on the sign they're legally obligated to put on their advertising.
Whaaa ? Never heard of this...do you just end up paying way more?
Yeah say you want to rent to own a ps5 you’re going to pay about 2,000 for it when it’s all said and done. If you only make the minimum payment or a little above it each month.
Basically put in debt to own a product that's not worth that value by the time you own it.
If you rent a big-ass TV for Superb Owl Sunday, they work great. If you rent a big-ass TV until you own it, expect to pay 20x its retail value.
Me and the Birdwatchin' Boys all love Superb Owl Sunday
My former BIL did this with a boom box. It was 2010/2011 when he went to the rent to own place and RENTED A BOOM BOX! He played loud music next to his apartment so people would look at him. It made no sense. He paid triple the amount for it because it was only $20/week.
I moved from Japan to New Mexico and rented a washer and dryer for $6 a month until mine arrived on the slow boat. Total cost=$12.00. Much cheaper than a laundromat for a month.
Health insurance. Tell me again why I pay so much money for a company to tell me that I don't actually need a medical procedure that my DOCTOR has decided that I do actually need. Explain to me why the doctor's office will charge me three times as much for a treatment that is being run through insurance than they would if I was paying out of pocket.
You missed the best part. It isn't even a doctor or other medical professional that is not aware of your situation making the call as to whether or not the plan of care is appropriate, [it is some random asshole practicing medicine without a license](https://www.newsweek.com/doctor-explains-unqualified-insurance-companies-are-practicing-medicine-viral-video-1599012)... and even when it is a doctor doing the review, [they sometimes do them at a rate of 10 claims per second](https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims). My wife had a C5/C6 ACDF surgery (surgery fusing two vertebrae together in her neck) a few years ago because *she broke her fucking neck*. This is generally considered a fairly emergent surgery - if you present to the emergency room with it, you're likely being admitted and having a surgery scheduled in the *very* near future because the wrong movement or further trauma can *easily* paralyze you for life if not kill you. In her case, she had apparently been living with it for a little while, and had *some* stability from muscles strengthening to pick up the slack (or something, I don't recall exactly what it was), and the surgeon scheduled the surgery for a week out..... the insurance company initially rejected her claim and said that she had to start with *physical therapy*. Don't get me wrong, physical therapy is fucking phenomenal... but "Jesus Christ DPT" himself isn't going to fix a *broken fucking neck* through therapy. The surgeon reversed the decision... but this is insurance in a nutshell.. they see something expensive and reject it, because if you don't push on it, and it ends up fucking you up for life, that's on you. Fucking evil industry.
Yes. A close friend of mine had a father with stage 4 cancer. He underwent treatment because the Dr. said it could potentially buy them an additional 5-7 years. He completed treatment and seemed stable initially, but he started feeling ill again after a month. The Dr. sent him to get a scan to determine the state of the cancer, and insurance denied the claim because he hadn't been feeling badly for long enough after treatment. Insurance said they would only cover the scan if he experienced symptoms for three months. By the time he got his scan, the cancer had spread worse than before. I'm not saying that he would have lived if he had the scan earlier, but he would have had a much better chance of living for longer if he didn't have to wait an additional two months for treatment at a time when he was extra vulnerable.
It seems like if you don't fit the "mold" for certain symptoms/ illnesses in the medical field, you're on your own to figure it out. Awful shit.
It seems like if they want your money they will literally kill you for it.
My youngest has had a string of health issues since she was born. Just before her first birthday, she has a 4 night stay in the hospital. While there, they notice she's got hematuria and proteinuria. Cue a year and a half of going back and forth with specialists, which includes a nephrologist who ordered a kidney biopsy. For those who aren't aware of what this is, the small of the long of it is they shove a massive needle into your kidney and pull out a "core sample" to later analyze. This requires an overnight stay for observation, which, in a then almost 2 year old is pretty important since a 2 year old can't really communicate about what's going on in their body. My insurance company denied the pre-authorization for the hospital stay, and in the denial letter, explained that if she felt uncomfortable, "take Tylenol and lie down. Return to the hospital if the pain becomes severe." I appealed with a letter outlining the fact that a 2 year old cannot communicate about their body, and if something were to happen at night, after she went to bed, it would be fatal. I received the notice that they have received my appeal on the same day I received the letter denying my appeal, claiming their "in-house doctor has reviewed the information and does not believe a hospital stay is "medically necessary." For a 2 year old. Recovering from a procedure that literally punched a hole in her kidney. Thankfully, we didn't end up needing to do that procedure. But still, fuck insurance companies.
A substantial portion of a doctor's time is spent dealing with insurance for their patients. This is not economically valuable activity.
Had to spend an extra $1000 on PT before they'd approve my lumbar fusion. Pushed my surgery past the insurance reset so I got to pay my deductible twice.
Well AI will solve that snail-like pace of 10 claims per second and get it up to at least 100 /s
To sum up: Healthcare costs: Way UP Patient care: Down Doctor's pay: Down Hmmmmmm.
There's a reason the tallest building in every city has an insurance companies name on it....
Hey, now, I’m a NorCal boy, I’ll have you the tallest building in San Francisco is the Salesforce Tower. Maybe Benioff couldn’t afford an anatomically-inspired spaceship like Bezos and Musk? The Transamerica Pyramid is the *second* tallest building in SF.
The best part of course is when they turn down a claim for whatever bullshit reason and you look back at the previous couple years' worth of money you spent on the company and realize you could've just paid for it yourself if you weren't paying them.
Yes! I was in the hospital for afib that I was actively having. When I got out, insurance denied the claim for a 2-week halter monitor to make sure that things were normal because I "wasn't at risk." Those assholes didn't care that I was in the hospital with a diagnosis that I wasn't at risk for. They didn't care that I had 3 separate cardiologists say I needed to be on a monitor for 2-3 weeks to make sure things were stable. Because I clearly couldn't have afib. Fuckers.
There was a woman in my city who was having I think it was a kidney transplant or something who initially had been approved by the insurance company but these complete fuckers suddenly “realized they’d made an error on her paperwork” literally as she was being wheeled into the operating room and rammed through a decision to the hospital to deny her claim for it. The only reason they ended up reversing their decision a few weeks later was because of such a huge public outcry. I’m having trouble finding the article (and it’s making me wonder if whatever company it was took effort to have it taken down, because it was big news here for a little bit) but can you imagine going into surgery happy that you’ll finally be getting life saving medical treatment only to have it yanked away from you at the last possible second just because it would be an inconvenience to a few millionaires
Any insurance that makes the payment really easy to do, but if something happen it will take u so much stress to get 70% of the money even on small amount, that's a scam to me
So....the whole industry?
'Lobbying' elected officials and judges. Legalized bribery.
It got one step worse yesterday. Supreme court overturned the case that prevented politicians from receiving payments after awarding contracts. You can now legally give politicians and judges a “gratuity” after the fact…
Well then, I encourage you to do less flag-waving next week on the 4th and go get angry somewhere about your situation. Learn from the French public, they like to burn Paris to the ground twice a year when they want to get shit done.
Payday loans.
Some people really do survive on them which is so horrible and exploitative.
Sadly enough that's exactly their goal.
Went to Pearl Harbor recently. The Arizona Memorial is a national park. They navy shuttles people over to the memorial. It's free if there are openings. You can reserve a ticket for $1. Tickets take priority over walk ups. Tickets are available at 3pm for the next day. They are all gone by 3:01pm. 75 tickets per time slot, times run from 8:45 to 3:15. Why are they gone? Because all of the local travel agencies buy all of the tickets at 3pm and resell them for $50+. The only thing they offer is a bus ride from local motels to the park. Last I checked, that's scalping, from a federal park...
One might contact the federal government about that…
I'd definitely recommend letting them know it's happening. Usually, the government (especially the NPS) doesn't like people doing things like that
That’s BULLSHIT!!! Why can’t they put some sort of rule in place that prohibits the resale of the ticket for anything beyond face value?
Planned obsolescence.
I would be OK with it for something inexpensive, and it was upfront about. Salesperson: "Hate cleaning microwaves. Then this $75 Zapomatic is for you. It will last a year, 2 if you are lucky."
For-profit colleges and universities. Most are diploma mills offering useless degrees and their business model is to milk the maximum amount of federal loans out of their students.
Unpaid (or exceedingly low paid) internships.
This is something that should be outlawed. If you’re working for a company/organization, they should pay you. Period.
The clickbaiting titles. Farming clicks by writing "Shocking! Check which Hollywood start blah blah blah" And people fall for it every time
Also gotta love articles that say: "the date for Avengers 5!" And then you click it and see three paragraphs of summary followed by "at his time we don't know when the next Avengers film will be released. But given what we know it won't be this year." Like no duh. This article may as well not exist.
Shrinkflation
Member and Rewards cards. Think you’re getting a deal. Really, everything is overpriced esp non-member stuff. Fake bargain.
> Member and Rewards cards. They are getting your info for their sales and marketing and product management and then they sell that data and make even more money.
I just paid for the privilege of setting up my router.
I recently saw a commercial that offered free expert installation when you buy a better bundle for their home Internet. Do they send non experts if you don't pay more? Lmao
I work in the Internet industry, they don't send experts at all as they don't have any.. I do call center work. My company has several million customers, not a small company by any means... You'd be mind blown how many technicians will install a modem on the floor in a closet, directly behind a TV, in the garage, in the attic, etc.. I think the funniest one to this day, and I'm not convinced it wasn't intentional, a customer called in and stated all of his devices were disconnecting at the same exact time several times a day... The technician had installed the modem in a kitchen on a shelf below the microwave and above the stove. (For anyone that doesn't understand, both appliances operate off the 2.4GHz frequency band and can cause significant interference to WiFi)
Application fees for apartment complexes
This is such a grift that should absolutely be illegal. My sister applied for apartments about 2 years ago. The number of applications she put in cost her almost $200 for "credit checks and application fees." She got emails back from more than half saying there were no apartments available at that time and to apply again in 90 days, and no, the fee is non refundable. Like, what the actual f**k?!? How can you take money for a credit check/application processing you're not even doing because there's nothing available! How are you allowed to advertise for something that doesn't actually exist and charge money just to tell people that? And the apply again in 90 days? Oh please, let me pay for the privilege again. Such a scam!
I saw some place charging a "lease processing fee". Edit: the processing fee was in addition to an application fee and background check.
Those registries that people pay money to “name a star”
That's like the make me a Scottish lord services 😂
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You mean getting children hooked on gambling isn’t on the up-and-up?
Subscribe to get a function turned on. It’s installed but behind the pay wall. Subscription should be only for services not part of the product.
Looking at you, BMW. [https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/bmw-relents-on-heated-seat-subscription.html](https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/bmw-relents-on-heated-seat-subscription.html)
Time Shares. Most dishonest business ever
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Timeshares
Payday loans- predatory loans foisted on the poor.
Resort fees. Everyone charges them now. And baggage and seat fees for airlines.
MLMs
Nothing wrong with men loving men
"Service fee" when paying for things online.
Data caps on cell phone service
Ticket fees are a good example. When you buy concert or event tickets, the extra fees for processing, convenience, and delivery can sometimes add up to almost as much as the ticket itself. It's frustrating because these fees often feel like hidden costs that you can't avoid, yet they're considered a standard part of the transaction.
Ticket sales is the only industry I know of where the supply chain costs are directly tacked on to the cost. I can order a king size mattress off Amazon and have it shipped to my front door for free, but I have to pay ticket master $37 a ticket for a “digital download”. If Amazon was smart, they would start selling event tickets without crazy markups. Ticketmaster probably runs on AWS anyway.
Real estate agent commissions.
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Chiropractors... far too many fucking people think they're a real medical practice.
Sometimes physically moving parts of your body around can improve physical ailments. Sometimes you get paralyzed!
And sometimes it does more damage
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Credit repair
Designer baby clothes.
Gym memberships with impossible cancellation policies! They lure you in with visions of a new, fit you, and then make escaping harder than leaving the Mafia. You end up paying for months, maybe years, because canceling involves more paperwork and stress than buying a house.
Internet providers in America.
Life in general
HOAs I have to pay a third party to live in a home they have nothing to do with? I need permission to paint my house, have And if my car's not washed or some of my grass dies I owe you more money?
I understand the idea of HOAs, but so many of them are well beyond their intentions. I cut my grass every 2 weeks. Sometimes we get crazy rain stretches and my grass will be a bit too long. Of course I get the warning letter a week after I already cut it. What really bugs me is the warning has the spiel about “maintaining house values in the neighborhood” like my 1-day too long grass caused my neighbor around the corner to lose 100k value in their house. Edit: right on cue 😂. I check the mail to see our second warning for weeds. Pictures were taken on the 18th, I cut on the 18th, and their letter was postmarked a week later. What a counterproductive program.
R+F skincare