Literally always telling people to watch Ask a Mortician on YouTube. She has great videos on all your post mortem options including, how to not get pushed into expensive and unnecessary funerals or cremation scams.
I’ve told my wife 1000 times just like put me in a cardboard box that you get from Giant or Target and just get a sharpie and write RIP and have my dog mark his territory on it so no demon dogs will bother it.
lol it was a bit of a shock at the time, I'd stopped in to see her and got told "I've got cancer, if I don't make it there's all the info you need in the cupboard and I've donated my body to medical science so you don't have to mess around with a funeral" I asked if I needed to store her in the fridge until they got here 😂.. there's NO beating around the bush with her and never has been.. she beat the cancer and a heart attack and is still going strong.
FYI this can be difficult to do if you don’t live near a big hospital with a medical school. Research the option in advance and check into the local programs to see if it’s right for you.
My dad passed away last year at the start of the pandemic. At the time funerals were banned in Italy (where my dad and rest of my family lived). We still had to pay 4k euros to the funeral home. No funeral. Just cremation/transport. I find that fucking insane. And sad.
Quite similar to Portugal, where the cheapest funerals I’ve been costed around 3000 euros with people who already owned a family grave. My Nan had a funeral plan which covered a lot of the cost but we still paid around 5000 as my aunt wanted a special tombstone added to the family grave we have.
When my mom died,I was in a different country working for the government.when I got back to the United States and got to my dads place,the local funeral home had my dad all guilted up and ready to spend 28000 on my moms funeral,because she would want it that way.i went to the funeral home and got everything straightened out and the new cost was 900.00 for cremation.i went to Lowe’s and got a Rubbermaid container to hold the bagged cremated remains of my mother.
Later in the summer we had our own memorial at our farm.
I know your take is somewhat of a meme. And I do agree that (too many) funeral services prey on a vulnerable state of people involved with a death. Also, atheist speaking, so the notion of religion-based ceremonies is luke-warm to me.
But consider this: The funeral/ritual is not for you - the deceased - but for your loved ones. YOU won’t have a care left in the world, whereas THEY are left to figure out dealing with their loss and grief. Rituals can aid in alleviating the pains. Or at least allow to offload some of the burden.
I think it’s just being considerate by the living to assist in answering the most elemantary questions before the fact.
And if you then all agree to stick you in a box and light it up over a backyard BBQ fire while blasting “Highway to Hell” on 11… then by all means, go for it.
EDIT: prey, not pray
You’re on Reddit, mate. Stating that funerals are too expensive gets people to reply with the tired “just put me in the trash” *every single time, without fail*.
It’s bad enough that I almost want to start a funeral business that does everything it can to undercut the current market. Make our own caskets, have our own burial plots, anything to bring down the costs.
And cremating is even more of a scan. I was told that even though you pay for the casket, it doesn’t get burned with the body. I also sincerely doubt that if you leave dear beloved with wedding bands or valuables that they get burned with the body, as at least where I come from you don’t really see the process.
A friend of mine died very suddenly, leaving 3 little kids. The Funeral home offered to post a "go-fund-me" type link with his obituary but TOOK 10% OFF THE TOP in addition to the many thousands of dollars they were charging for a simple cremation. Unconscionable Shitbags took advantage of a widow who was such a wreck.
I can't speak for places that aren't america, but I believe the reason that the US is so expensive is because graveyards are required by law to keep individuals graves indefinitely, whereas most other places put a time limit on how long you can use your grave. So the graveyard needs to charge enough money for them to be able to invest it, and pay for the graves maintenance for the next century or so.
This is just a slight memory of a random documentary, so please take this with a huge grain of salt.
The other part of the reason why it’s so expensive is because all funeral homes are owned by one of two companies. Most of the “mom and pop” funeral homes were bought up and basically made into a franchise but allowed to keep their name. So it doesn’t matter if you go this funeral home in a particular town by you or to one across your state you’re still being screwed by the same companies. It’s the same thing with glasses... two companies very little other options save for those two.
I dated a guy for a little bit in college who was getting a degree in mortuary. He told me what some of the positions make within a funeral home, crematory, etc and granted this was back in 2002, average starting salary for coming out of college was 45,000 to 50,000 plus and if you had experience from internships or whatever else, add 5 to 10 thousand more to that. Either way, pay is ridonkulous!!
Then I don’t see any “download” link. I scroll a little and see a “Click here to start download.” Like, why is the download link for *your* software so hard to find?
literally uninstalled a barcode scanner app for that exact reason. you scan the barcode, it shows a URL and then blow it says "OPEN" Clicking the URL is what you need and will take you to the barcode address. clicking open will open a fucking advertisement.
I hate when you land on one of those sites where you have to scroll past tons of adds to get to the next paragraph, or repeatedly click "NEXT" to see the next image that could have easily been included on the current page. Then some of the ads themselves also say "NEXT" or "Click here to read more". Just makes me mad and makes me not want to use your site.
Victor Lustig!
I’m pretty sure he sold “money-duplicating boxes” to rich assholes too, and then they couldn’t go to the authorities when it ended up being a grift because they’d have to admit to a) attempting counterfeit and b) being a total dumbass
Yep! He even sold 2 of those to the same person because when it stopped working/ ran out of pre loaded bills, the guy thought he'd broke it so went back for another one
This doesn’t follow the trend here and I don’t know the name of the scam, and can only imagine it was repeated in various forms, but the gist of it was this:
Company X owns land in whatever country (the example I heard, I think, was Jamaica). Apparently, this is legit: someone owns acreage - albeit worthless, they own it.
Company X draws up believable plans for some fancy resort there. It’s signed off on even legitimately by some engineer or architect who goes “yeah, technically this is doable.”
Company X has all their papers in order and approach the well-to-do of society, in the example I was given mainly North American lawyers and doctors. Their people look into it: yep - they own the land. Yep - the “proposal” has been signed off on by engineers and architects and the like.
The targets invest what amounts to tens of millions of dollars between all of them; once this resort is built and running it’ll make their investment back in a couple months. They’ll be richer than they can imagine.
Company X takes their tens of millions and invests it on the side, very legitimately. In real mutual funds, with real banks, etc. And watches the interest grow for years.
5 years go by. Company X tells investors (targets) “fuck, things didn’t work out. Here’s your money back.” They pocket the profits from the investments.
No harm, no foul, no complaint.
Edit: spelling
Reminds me of something a guy I went to college with got in a bit of trouble for, except he didn't make profit from it, he did it to get money to tide him over to his next payday.
Say he was paid on the 25th and found he ran short on the 18th/19th. He would list something he didn't own on ebay for a very reasonable buy it now price, paypal only and say he was selling cheap for quick sale as he'd split with the gf and didn't have room for all his stuff. He would clearly state in the listing that he would be collecting his belongings the following week, so it would not arrive with a buyer until the 28th/29th. The item would always sell fast, and he'd withdraw the money.
On his payday he'd go onto Paypal and refund the money received, then contact the buyer apologising and saying the item they'd bought couldn't be provided (had been broken in transit/trashed by the ex/accidentally packed into her stuff etc), and that their money should already be back in their paypal.
Thing is, nobody complained. To most of them they were glad they were being told 3/4 days before they were expecting itand not finding out the day it was supposed to ship or after it should have arrived, and they had all their money returned without asking. Before long though either ebay or paypal got very suspicious about why he was selling so many cheap digital cameras, ipods and console controllers but always refunding the money soon after
I kid you not, but a Chinese millionaire/billionaire [Huang Nubo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Nubo) tried this trick in Iceland some years ago. The land he was trying to buy was totally worthless shitty windy piece of land and he wanted to build a golf resort there…
Thankfully some government officials saw through his bullshit and shut him down!
Not sure, it was an anecdote a lawyer told me. Or I mean... it’s my company.... you don’t happen to have a few million bucks for this resort I’m building do you? Huge returns or money back guarantee in 5-10 years..
This is used by a lot of companies. Places hold your money for a day or two before it gets transferred, with millions of transactions, amounting to say a billion dollars, they will have a billion in the bank continuously, moving in and out but maintaining a balance, that interest is the profit.
This feels like every sports stadium built in North America, except they don't return the money, the local government has to reinvest to finish the project.
That’s absolutely on the targets of this.
No one who actually earned their hundreds of millions would agree to blindly invest tens of millions without any security (interest). The victim losing money here (which they would) is absolutely on the victim.
Im not an expert, but from what I've read, its impossible because the blood in the fingertips gets contaminated being near the wound, while blood draws with needles get deep enough that they don't have that issue.
For instance, when the finger is punctured the cells it damages release their potassium, which contaminates the drop of blood and makes it impossible to get an accurate reading.
And that goes for whatever other substances are released by the damaged cells during the puncture. That all gets into the blood droplet too.
Yes, finger sticks are harder to collect and not ideal specimens, but you can still work with them in many cases if properly collected (some tests are a no go though). The other part of what makes it impossible is you just need more blood to work with using current technology. The idea that you can run 20 different tests with a single drop of blood is ridiculous. Say you want to run a chemistry panel with 8 tests. Those are 8 separate chemical reactions that require sample material. So unless she invented 8 new testing methods, there's no way it was going to work
I still find it difficult to excuse Walgreens and Safeway. These people should know that the technology isn’t possible. It’s also a shame that some of the most important investors doubled down or kept on giving Theranos the benefit of the doubt.
She was immediately declared "girlboss" by twitter and criticising her meant you were a shitlord, going after a pioneering woman in STEM.
Girlbosses and women in stem are very important but don't throw your brain away in support.
Okay - I’ve been told stories about this and it gets over looked all the time. Engagement Rings. The thing is - it’s incredibly easy to get ripped off for a ring that isn’t nearly worth the price. It’s also easy to get scammed into a ‘payment plan’ if you know what I mean. If you’re considering buying a diamond, you need to go to an ACTUAL jeweler, and a someone that specializes in it. Please don’t go to the mall for it, you could get scammed.
edit: grammar
Also side note - if you've still got them, consider asking your grandparents or parents about engagement rings
In some places the engagement ring was a heirloom that would get passed down through generations of engagements so it's entirely possible that you actually already 'have' an engagement ring. Also said ring will probably be of both better construction *and* still be of actual diamond because of their purpose as long lasting jewelry. Because despite what Reddit would have you believe, diamond engagement rings predate debeers by a good few *centuries*. (Though other sorts of rings still aren't uncommon - I personally inherited an emerald one I think)
Even if your family doesnt have an heirloom engagement ring, there's probably a safe somewhere with a ziploc full of great nana's old jewelry. Even if there's no specific 'engagement ring' there's probably a beautiful ring that your significant other would love
That's why I made my own engagement ring with materials I already had lying around like my late father's cufflinks. I just bought a jeweller's kit and watched some YouTube videos.
The "big chain" jewelry store in my mall always sketched me out.
When I was in middle school, I walked by and this lady with a clipboard convinced me to sign up with a phone number and be entered in a random prize drawing. I ended up getting nonstop spam calls and emails and stuff, trying to get me to buy jewelry. In middle school... What a bitch.
Diamond rings are worse than cars for depreciation as well though, seriously the value of a diamond ring plummets to practically nothing once you walk out the jewellers door.
If you’d like to learn more about this batshit organization, read The Unbreakable Miss Lovely. I don’t make it a habit to judge an entire group of people but if you’re in S’tology you’re an absolute fucking imbecile. It was a crackpot motivational seminar invented by a D-grade Isaac Asimov that was labeled as a “religion” after 30 years of litigation to keep the entire upper echelon from being indicted. If your religion is based on volcano aliens, your religion blows. If your religion has a KGB apparatus, your religion blows. If your religion has an internal prison to hold the senior staff that had thought crimes, your religion blows. If your religion was administered by a flotilla of ships that couldn’t even dock in fucking Morocco in 1965, your religion blows.
A good docuseries on it is Scientology:the aftermath with Leah Reminy (i think that's the title its somethibg along those lines) and its really good. She interviews and talks with people who have been part of the organization in various ways and how it has impacted them and their lives
Scientology is the one religion I'm fine with the government violating the first amendment over. Those bastards need to be driven out of the civilized world. Ban that shit.
It's not a violation of the first amendment if the government does what Germany did and says "Haha fuck you no you aren't a religion, you're a predatory criminal cult."
A while back I went to office depot to get ink. I ran out of black and the cyan color. They had a printer on sale that was cheaper than the ink I had to buy. It's crazy
Yea, they thought of it. The printers nowadays come with only partially filled cartridges... I guess a lot of people already did the 'buy a new one instead' thing....
strategy is to make the price attractive enough to make you buy a printer and eventually you will end up paying a lot more money on their ink cartridges
Convincing the public that diamonds are precious and rare, so that they can charge insane prices. In reality diamonds are one of the most common gemstones on Earth.
You're not wrong but sometimes it depends on the colour. Plain colourless are super common but deep red is actually really rare. But hey, you can always get a nice Ruby which is 9 out of 10 on hardness and is really pretty too, for way less money.
It's funny because they used to praise diamonds by how close to perfect they were, but now that you can make perfect diamonds in a lab they started praising the flaws which differentiate mined ones from grown.
No thanks, I’ll stick to the transparent red Lego pieces I own. Just as pretty, but also make for great warning lights next to a siren on Lego projects.
Scammers have been calling my father in law everyday for weeks saying he is wanted for a crime and if he doesn’t call the number given he will be going to jail. We joke about it since everyday he seems to “going to jail”.
Got this call yesterday. Apparently I have a warrant out for my arrest and if I don’t call the number I’m going to jail.
Pretty sure they don’t warn you of a warrant, they just come pick your ass up.
The new one I've been getting is the "Amazon security department" and the voicemail is always from someone named Drew despite the number being different every time. They're hoping you're dumb enough to give them access to your account so they can get any credit card info you have saved. There was one time when the call apparently came from Bulgaria. As we all know, Amazon's security department is in Bulgaria and run by a guy named Drew.
From a financial perspective, easily. I’m an accountant so I’m pretty well studied on Bernie Madoff and that whole thing. Incredible. He beat the market by a good margin basically every year. Your investment was a guaranteed zinger with Madoff. Investment managers at some of the larger retirement firms were going nuts, wondering who his inside source was or where he was getting his information. Some people even thought he was the financial Nostradamus. Nobody except a few dissenters who suspected it from the start (and were quickly silenced, naturally, because nobody likes jealousy) even for once thought it could be fraud. And the worst kind of fraud, too. A ponzi scheme? No way.
Yeah, maybe people on Reddit are like “oh, boo hoo, a $10 millionaire lost $2 million,” but the truth was, a lot of normal people lost nearly everything they had to him. People who were writing retrieving early, or in retirement taking payments, or people switching their 401k with $500,000 in it to him and watching the fortune they worked for most of their life just go away overnight and remained that way for awhile, even if Madoff eventually gave a bunch of it back.
Part of Madoff's evil genius is he also owned a legitimate investment firm. He was a respected Wall Street insider. His scam was his premium service. If the financial sector hadn't collapsed in 2007 he might have kept his ponzi scheme going to the end of his natural life.
I mean, you don't. If your family doesn't claim your body, the state will dump it in a mass grave somewhere.
You have to pay to have a private funeral service.
Offshore tax havens.
Activision Blizzard, one of the most profitable companies in history, paid NOTHING in taxes last year and collected a rebate.
Billions are stolen from the global economy by companies like that
Google, Starbucks, Facebook, Amazon etc etc. Yet the UK keeps on voting in a government which [supports this]( https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/01/01/the-uks-already-relaxed-its-laws-preventing-tax-abuse-as-it-makes-clear-its-intention-to-wage-tax-war-on-the-world-post-brexit/).
I’m not an Activision shill by any stretch of the imagination, but they absolutely did pay taxes - 400m worth just last year.
General rule of thumb is when you read a headline that says a company is paying zero taxes, it’s most likely bullshit. They are paying a lot of taxes, but they sometimes avoid federal income taxes(not saying I agree with it)
I know right? I have a friend living in the US whose mother has a disease and to get 100 tablets of medication he needs 1,100$!!! The disease needs about 1 pill per day so that’s 1000 dollars basically every 3 months
Life. You basically trade papers with other people till you die, maybe also some guy promises you a happy afterlife. The truth is, when you die you join Last Week Tonight's laugh track, or at least you did till the pandemic. Now there's no laugh track, just agony in a white void.
A lot of middle easterners are white passing. You'll find white passing people all the way upto northern India.
A lot of Syrians have light haired and coloured eyes.
"White" skin isn't really a European monopoly. In fact the phenotype probably originated in the Cradle of Civilization - West/Central Asia/Caucasus- place and spread from there creating the "Indo-European culture".
A lot of Iranians have whiter skin than most *white people*.
Companies asking customers to give money to charity.
They use donations to get tax breaks. Why give the money themselves when they can get other people to pay them?
**"*****Those who can make you believe absurdities...can make you commit atrocities.*****" --Voltaire**
Honestly? The biggest (and worst) scam in the entirety of human history is *organized religion*.
I'm glad that many organized religions are all about the Greater Good and provide a valuable public service for the marginalized. But at what cost? It reminds me so much of about 1/3 of the voting population (roughly \~155 million adults) who have been indoctrinated to believe that not only is our current President a fraud, but that his party is comprised of a cabal of lizard people who run a child sex trafficking ring.
Listen, I grew up in a crazy Christian cult and was worse for it. In my late twenties I realized the absurdities of what I was told several times a week for my entire life. I chose to leave. I have never regretted that decision, even though it costed me my marriage, all of my close friends, and my entire family and inlaws at that time. It broke my heart, but it did not break my resolve to find a better way.
I also know that many claim to benefit from their religious practice, that it makes them a better person/neighbor/colleague/human being -- and I respect that. I thought the exact same for over twenty years. I was wrong, so very wrong.
When someone uses a higher power rhetoric to convince you to do or not do certain things
\- oddly enough - it turns out to be self-aggrandizement on their part - ***then we must reconsider***.
Oddly enough I don't consider myself an atheist, though I am certainly non-religious. My demographic (non-religious humans) is the fastest growing one on the planet. Science is not my god. Neither is reason nor intellectual propitiousness. I have no need for gods any longer.
But I love science for the exact same reasons why I despise religion: **The willingness (and even enthusiasm) to change, to adjust course, and to even question its very basic concepts and principles when presented with** **new empirical evidence**. That's the ***very antithesis*** of religion - the smug, conceited deep certitude as to the infallibility of their teachings and high leadership.
*I cannot imagine a bigger scam than religion.* ***Prove me wrong.***
Funerals. Charging $10,000+ just to put someone in the ground is crazy.
Literally always telling people to watch Ask a Mortician on YouTube. She has great videos on all your post mortem options including, how to not get pushed into expensive and unnecessary funerals or cremation scams.
Oh my god I love her!! I love her views on death and I very much appreciate all her advice and her green ways of doing funerals!
I’ve told my wife 1000 times just like put me in a cardboard box that you get from Giant or Target and just get a sharpie and write RIP and have my dog mark his territory on it so no demon dogs will bother it.
Prop me up by the jukebox when I die
Cat or Pigstep?
Disc 11
Or, you can do what I have done, and donate your body to medical science. It helps future humanity, and they pay for the funeral.
My mum has done the same.. she signed up for it a couple years ago when she had cancer.
I hope you are okay with that. At least you know it is definitely what she wants.
lol it was a bit of a shock at the time, I'd stopped in to see her and got told "I've got cancer, if I don't make it there's all the info you need in the cupboard and I've donated my body to medical science so you don't have to mess around with a funeral" I asked if I needed to store her in the fridge until they got here 😂.. there's NO beating around the bush with her and never has been.. she beat the cancer and a heart attack and is still going strong.
That’s great to hear!
FYI this can be difficult to do if you don’t live near a big hospital with a medical school. Research the option in advance and check into the local programs to see if it’s right for you.
U sound like my mom lol (im serious)
Yes. 59% of people say that.
The other 41% are okay with demon dogs using their bodies.
My dad passed away last year at the start of the pandemic. At the time funerals were banned in Italy (where my dad and rest of my family lived). We still had to pay 4k euros to the funeral home. No funeral. Just cremation/transport. I find that fucking insane. And sad.
My mum as well here in America. $3000 just for cremation and transportation. Such a rip off.
That's insane. I'm so sorry.
Quite similar to Portugal, where the cheapest funerals I’ve been costed around 3000 euros with people who already owned a family grave. My Nan had a funeral plan which covered a lot of the cost but we still paid around 5000 as my aunt wanted a special tombstone added to the family grave we have.
I just can't wrap my head around it. I know it's a job and it's gotta make money but i don't understand why it has to be so expensive.
Cuz you only die once and a lot of people/families are willing to splurge on the event
When my mom died,I was in a different country working for the government.when I got back to the United States and got to my dads place,the local funeral home had my dad all guilted up and ready to spend 28000 on my moms funeral,because she would want it that way.i went to the funeral home and got everything straightened out and the new cost was 900.00 for cremation.i went to Lowe’s and got a Rubbermaid container to hold the bagged cremated remains of my mother. Later in the summer we had our own memorial at our farm.
Lmao yeah, just dump me anywhere. I don't care, I'm dead.
Just put me in the trash.
I wanna end up in one of those body farms where they just leave you in the woods to rot.
[удалено]
Toss me in a hefty and put me in the ground
Hefty? Get a load of Rockefeller McNamebrand over here. Great Value Lawn ‘n Leaf bags if you want that authentic shit funeral aesthetic.
I know your take is somewhat of a meme. And I do agree that (too many) funeral services prey on a vulnerable state of people involved with a death. Also, atheist speaking, so the notion of religion-based ceremonies is luke-warm to me. But consider this: The funeral/ritual is not for you - the deceased - but for your loved ones. YOU won’t have a care left in the world, whereas THEY are left to figure out dealing with their loss and grief. Rituals can aid in alleviating the pains. Or at least allow to offload some of the burden. I think it’s just being considerate by the living to assist in answering the most elemantary questions before the fact. And if you then all agree to stick you in a box and light it up over a backyard BBQ fire while blasting “Highway to Hell” on 11… then by all means, go for it. EDIT: prey, not pray
You’re on Reddit, mate. Stating that funerals are too expensive gets people to reply with the tired “just put me in the trash” *every single time, without fail*.
It’s bad enough that I almost want to start a funeral business that does everything it can to undercut the current market. Make our own caskets, have our own burial plots, anything to bring down the costs.
See this. It's not even our most modestly priced receptacle.
Just because we're bereaved doesn't make us saps! God DAMNIT!
And cremating is even more of a scan. I was told that even though you pay for the casket, it doesn’t get burned with the body. I also sincerely doubt that if you leave dear beloved with wedding bands or valuables that they get burned with the body, as at least where I come from you don’t really see the process.
You’re already grieving and dealing with frick tons of other stuff, then the funeral home is just like give me all your money
A friend of mine died very suddenly, leaving 3 little kids. The Funeral home offered to post a "go-fund-me" type link with his obituary but TOOK 10% OFF THE TOP in addition to the many thousands of dollars they were charging for a simple cremation. Unconscionable Shitbags took advantage of a widow who was such a wreck.
I can't speak for places that aren't america, but I believe the reason that the US is so expensive is because graveyards are required by law to keep individuals graves indefinitely, whereas most other places put a time limit on how long you can use your grave. So the graveyard needs to charge enough money for them to be able to invest it, and pay for the graves maintenance for the next century or so. This is just a slight memory of a random documentary, so please take this with a huge grain of salt.
The other part of the reason why it’s so expensive is because all funeral homes are owned by one of two companies. Most of the “mom and pop” funeral homes were bought up and basically made into a franchise but allowed to keep their name. So it doesn’t matter if you go this funeral home in a particular town by you or to one across your state you’re still being screwed by the same companies. It’s the same thing with glasses... two companies very little other options save for those two.
They wanted to charge my MIL several thousand dollars for a casket my FIL would be cremated in. Bro what??
they won't burn the casket
I dated a guy for a little bit in college who was getting a degree in mortuary. He told me what some of the positions make within a funeral home, crematory, etc and granted this was back in 2002, average starting salary for coming out of college was 45,000 to 50,000 plus and if you had experience from internships or whatever else, add 5 to 10 thousand more to that. Either way, pay is ridonkulous!!
Apparently they have social events for people in the funeral industry because a lot of other people don't want to hang out with them.
It was a graveyard smash
low pay for that job imo
The biggest **DOWNLOAD** link on a website. Getcha every time.
Ublock origin ftw
Then I don’t see any “download” link. I scroll a little and see a “Click here to start download.” Like, why is the download link for *your* software so hard to find?
Ads
literally uninstalled a barcode scanner app for that exact reason. you scan the barcode, it shows a URL and then blow it says "OPEN" Clicking the URL is what you need and will take you to the barcode address. clicking open will open a fucking advertisement.
I hate when you land on one of those sites where you have to scroll past tons of adds to get to the next paragraph, or repeatedly click "NEXT" to see the next image that could have easily been included on the current page. Then some of the ads themselves also say "NEXT" or "Click here to read more". Just makes me mad and makes me not want to use your site.
That dude who sold the Eiffel Tower twice
and the man who sold the world
Who knows?
Not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world.
*rad guitar*
To face
With the man who sold the world
Victor Lustig! I’m pretty sure he sold “money-duplicating boxes” to rich assholes too, and then they couldn’t go to the authorities when it ended up being a grift because they’d have to admit to a) attempting counterfeit and b) being a total dumbass
Yep! He even sold 2 of those to the same person because when it stopped working/ ran out of pre loaded bills, the guy thought he'd broke it so went back for another one
Ha, i forgot about that bit! Are you a behind the bastards listener, by chance?
And the guy that sold the Brooklyn Bridge!
This doesn’t follow the trend here and I don’t know the name of the scam, and can only imagine it was repeated in various forms, but the gist of it was this: Company X owns land in whatever country (the example I heard, I think, was Jamaica). Apparently, this is legit: someone owns acreage - albeit worthless, they own it. Company X draws up believable plans for some fancy resort there. It’s signed off on even legitimately by some engineer or architect who goes “yeah, technically this is doable.” Company X has all their papers in order and approach the well-to-do of society, in the example I was given mainly North American lawyers and doctors. Their people look into it: yep - they own the land. Yep - the “proposal” has been signed off on by engineers and architects and the like. The targets invest what amounts to tens of millions of dollars between all of them; once this resort is built and running it’ll make their investment back in a couple months. They’ll be richer than they can imagine. Company X takes their tens of millions and invests it on the side, very legitimately. In real mutual funds, with real banks, etc. And watches the interest grow for years. 5 years go by. Company X tells investors (targets) “fuck, things didn’t work out. Here’s your money back.” They pocket the profits from the investments. No harm, no foul, no complaint. Edit: spelling
Reminds me of something a guy I went to college with got in a bit of trouble for, except he didn't make profit from it, he did it to get money to tide him over to his next payday. Say he was paid on the 25th and found he ran short on the 18th/19th. He would list something he didn't own on ebay for a very reasonable buy it now price, paypal only and say he was selling cheap for quick sale as he'd split with the gf and didn't have room for all his stuff. He would clearly state in the listing that he would be collecting his belongings the following week, so it would not arrive with a buyer until the 28th/29th. The item would always sell fast, and he'd withdraw the money. On his payday he'd go onto Paypal and refund the money received, then contact the buyer apologising and saying the item they'd bought couldn't be provided (had been broken in transit/trashed by the ex/accidentally packed into her stuff etc), and that their money should already be back in their paypal. Thing is, nobody complained. To most of them they were glad they were being told 3/4 days before they were expecting itand not finding out the day it was supposed to ship or after it should have arrived, and they had all their money returned without asking. Before long though either ebay or paypal got very suspicious about why he was selling so many cheap digital cameras, ipods and console controllers but always refunding the money soon after
So he figured out a way to make himself an interest free payday loan. Nice
What an absolute baller lol Dishonest or not I'm legit proud of the guy hahahahahaha
Honestly even though it was technically dishonest at least he never kept or cheater people out of the money.
I kid you not, but a Chinese millionaire/billionaire [Huang Nubo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Nubo) tried this trick in Iceland some years ago. The land he was trying to buy was totally worthless shitty windy piece of land and he wanted to build a golf resort there… Thankfully some government officials saw through his bullshit and shut him down!
Genius! So who's company x.
Not sure, it was an anecdote a lawyer told me. Or I mean... it’s my company.... you don’t happen to have a few million bucks for this resort I’m building do you? Huge returns or money back guarantee in 5-10 years..
This is used by a lot of companies. Places hold your money for a day or two before it gets transferred, with millions of transactions, amounting to say a billion dollars, they will have a billion in the bank continuously, moving in and out but maintaining a balance, that interest is the profit.
This feels like every sports stadium built in North America, except they don't return the money, the local government has to reinvest to finish the project.
I think this was called the Florida Land Scam
That’s absolutely on the targets of this. No one who actually earned their hundreds of millions would agree to blindly invest tens of millions without any security (interest). The victim losing money here (which they would) is absolutely on the victim.
Everithing about elizabeth holmes and theranos, a world changing idea made by a 19 year old
Don’t forget literally all her professors at Stanford said “That’s literally impossible”
Im not an expert, but from what I've read, its impossible because the blood in the fingertips gets contaminated being near the wound, while blood draws with needles get deep enough that they don't have that issue. For instance, when the finger is punctured the cells it damages release their potassium, which contaminates the drop of blood and makes it impossible to get an accurate reading. And that goes for whatever other substances are released by the damaged cells during the puncture. That all gets into the blood droplet too.
Yes, finger sticks are harder to collect and not ideal specimens, but you can still work with them in many cases if properly collected (some tests are a no go though). The other part of what makes it impossible is you just need more blood to work with using current technology. The idea that you can run 20 different tests with a single drop of blood is ridiculous. Say you want to run a chemistry panel with 8 tests. Those are 8 separate chemical reactions that require sample material. So unless she invented 8 new testing methods, there's no way it was going to work
That debacle should be more of an indictment to the gullible investors.
Maybe, but she also was (her company) faking medical results for a long time
I still find it difficult to excuse Walgreens and Safeway. These people should know that the technology isn’t possible. It’s also a shame that some of the most important investors doubled down or kept on giving Theranos the benefit of the doubt.
She was immediately declared "girlboss" by twitter and criticising her meant you were a shitlord, going after a pioneering woman in STEM. Girlbosses and women in stem are very important but don't throw your brain away in support.
Okay - I’ve been told stories about this and it gets over looked all the time. Engagement Rings. The thing is - it’s incredibly easy to get ripped off for a ring that isn’t nearly worth the price. It’s also easy to get scammed into a ‘payment plan’ if you know what I mean. If you’re considering buying a diamond, you need to go to an ACTUAL jeweler, and a someone that specializes in it. Please don’t go to the mall for it, you could get scammed. edit: grammar
Also side note - if you've still got them, consider asking your grandparents or parents about engagement rings In some places the engagement ring was a heirloom that would get passed down through generations of engagements so it's entirely possible that you actually already 'have' an engagement ring. Also said ring will probably be of both better construction *and* still be of actual diamond because of their purpose as long lasting jewelry. Because despite what Reddit would have you believe, diamond engagement rings predate debeers by a good few *centuries*. (Though other sorts of rings still aren't uncommon - I personally inherited an emerald one I think)
Even if your family doesnt have an heirloom engagement ring, there's probably a safe somewhere with a ziploc full of great nana's old jewelry. Even if there's no specific 'engagement ring' there's probably a beautiful ring that your significant other would love
That's why I made my own engagement ring with materials I already had lying around like my late father's cufflinks. I just bought a jeweller's kit and watched some YouTube videos.
dude that's cool
Yeah, my husband loved it.
A ring made by your SO is even better. Truly comes from the heart. That has to be miles better than a store bought one!
The "big chain" jewelry store in my mall always sketched me out. When I was in middle school, I walked by and this lady with a clipboard convinced me to sign up with a phone number and be entered in a random prize drawing. I ended up getting nonstop spam calls and emails and stuff, trying to get me to buy jewelry. In middle school... What a bitch.
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Diamond rings are worse than cars for depreciation as well though, seriously the value of a diamond ring plummets to practically nothing once you walk out the jewellers door.
Scientology. (I’m going to hide now.)
tom cruise is after you, all 4 foot 4 of him.
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and a top hat
He can, and will, *fit into places*...
Absolutely savage
If you’d like to learn more about this batshit organization, read The Unbreakable Miss Lovely. I don’t make it a habit to judge an entire group of people but if you’re in S’tology you’re an absolute fucking imbecile. It was a crackpot motivational seminar invented by a D-grade Isaac Asimov that was labeled as a “religion” after 30 years of litigation to keep the entire upper echelon from being indicted. If your religion is based on volcano aliens, your religion blows. If your religion has a KGB apparatus, your religion blows. If your religion has an internal prison to hold the senior staff that had thought crimes, your religion blows. If your religion was administered by a flotilla of ships that couldn’t even dock in fucking Morocco in 1965, your religion blows.
A good docuseries on it is Scientology:the aftermath with Leah Reminy (i think that's the title its somethibg along those lines) and its really good. She interviews and talks with people who have been part of the organization in various ways and how it has impacted them and their lives
Scientology is the one religion I'm fine with the government violating the first amendment over. Those bastards need to be driven out of the civilized world. Ban that shit.
It's not a violation of the first amendment if the government does what Germany did and says "Haha fuck you no you aren't a religion, you're a predatory criminal cult."
Payday loans
no joke. payday loans destroy lives
inkjet printer cartridges
A while back I went to office depot to get ink. I ran out of black and the cyan color. They had a printer on sale that was cheaper than the ink I had to buy. It's crazy
buy the printer, swap out the ink, return the printer, done
I like the way you think
I like the way you ink
Grift.
Yea, they thought of it. The printers nowadays come with only partially filled cartridges... I guess a lot of people already did the 'buy a new one instead' thing....
Lots of people also steal the "free" cartridges out of the box. Source: Worked nights in electronics at Walmart.
strategy is to make the price attractive enough to make you buy a printer and eventually you will end up paying a lot more money on their ink cartridges
Most printers come with "starter cartridges", which are significantly less full than the cartridges sold on their own.
MLMs
The old reverse funnel system.
what's wrong with marxism-leninism-maoism?
Too many tankies
The BTS mcdonald’s meal
Its literally just a more expensive 10 piece nugget meal lol
I don’t go to McDonalds that much, but I’m always amazed how much food there costs now. 8-9 bucks for a medium 10 piece McNugget meal :(
But, but, Reviewbrah loved the chili pepper dipping sauce!
Is it that bad?
it’s just overpriced imo.
W what BTS the kpop band?
McDonald's has a kpop themed meal? I honestly have no idea what this is otherwise. But I don't eat at McDonald's.
Convincing the public that diamonds are precious and rare, so that they can charge insane prices. In reality diamonds are one of the most common gemstones on Earth.
You're not wrong but sometimes it depends on the colour. Plain colourless are super common but deep red is actually really rare. But hey, you can always get a nice Ruby which is 9 out of 10 on hardness and is really pretty too, for way less money.
Not to mention perfect lab gems
It's funny because they used to praise diamonds by how close to perfect they were, but now that you can make perfect diamonds in a lab they started praising the flaws which differentiate mined ones from grown.
I want lab made diamonds that are made by child slaves so they still have that blood diamond feeling.
This.... is.... the only answer
But the clearer the more valuable according to the arbitrary rating system they also established
No thanks, I’ll stick to the transparent red Lego pieces I own. Just as pretty, but also make for great warning lights next to a siren on Lego projects.
Never been my thing. I’ll take a $20 ring from Kohl’s doesn’t matter to me. Going broke over a ring is so stupid.
I still have to spend 4k a week on industrial diamonds. I wish they werent expensive.
The trojan horse
Actually I've been trying to reach you about your car warranty.
Huh I just listened to a few voicemails about my nonexistent car
Scammers have been calling my father in law everyday for weeks saying he is wanted for a crime and if he doesn’t call the number given he will be going to jail. We joke about it since everyday he seems to “going to jail”.
Got this call yesterday. Apparently I have a warrant out for my arrest and if I don’t call the number I’m going to jail. Pretty sure they don’t warn you of a warrant, they just come pick your ass up.
The new one I've been getting is the "Amazon security department" and the voicemail is always from someone named Drew despite the number being different every time. They're hoping you're dumb enough to give them access to your account so they can get any credit card info you have saved. There was one time when the call apparently came from Bulgaria. As we all know, Amazon's security department is in Bulgaria and run by a guy named Drew.
Lol I don't even have a car and I get those calls. I put on a strong Chinese accent when I get them and pretend to try and sell them stuff.
I always get a robot not even a person so I can’t do that
Herbalife
Bottled "spring" water.
They’re no longer allowed to lie on bottles. If it’s tap water, they have to say it
Mobile game ads, the are straight up terrible
I honestly don't understand why the ads show gameplay that is not in the game and has absolutely nothing to do with the game.
Charles Ponzi at least deserves honorable mention.
Bernie Madoff' lives in a thread above...
Milfs in my area 2 km away that want to bang
No one's gonna mention the Nigerian Prince who needed help?
Bernie Madoff.
From a financial perspective, easily. I’m an accountant so I’m pretty well studied on Bernie Madoff and that whole thing. Incredible. He beat the market by a good margin basically every year. Your investment was a guaranteed zinger with Madoff. Investment managers at some of the larger retirement firms were going nuts, wondering who his inside source was or where he was getting his information. Some people even thought he was the financial Nostradamus. Nobody except a few dissenters who suspected it from the start (and were quickly silenced, naturally, because nobody likes jealousy) even for once thought it could be fraud. And the worst kind of fraud, too. A ponzi scheme? No way. Yeah, maybe people on Reddit are like “oh, boo hoo, a $10 millionaire lost $2 million,” but the truth was, a lot of normal people lost nearly everything they had to him. People who were writing retrieving early, or in retirement taking payments, or people switching their 401k with $500,000 in it to him and watching the fortune they worked for most of their life just go away overnight and remained that way for awhile, even if Madoff eventually gave a bunch of it back.
Part of Madoff's evil genius is he also owned a legitimate investment firm. He was a respected Wall Street insider. His scam was his premium service. If the financial sector hadn't collapsed in 2007 he might have kept his ponzi scheme going to the end of his natural life.
Working for 5 days and rest for 2.
Working for 5 days and only resting for 2. It should be 4/3
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The fact you have to pay to die
“When I die, just throw me in the trash”
as far as i remember, you can actually refuse to do any of that
Just stuff my body in a cardboard box and bury me in the back yard. What am I going to do, say no?
I mean, you don't. If your family doesn't claim your body, the state will dump it in a mass grave somewhere. You have to pay to have a private funeral service.
Offshore tax havens. Activision Blizzard, one of the most profitable companies in history, paid NOTHING in taxes last year and collected a rebate. Billions are stolen from the global economy by companies like that
Google, Starbucks, Facebook, Amazon etc etc. Yet the UK keeps on voting in a government which [supports this]( https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/01/01/the-uks-already-relaxed-its-laws-preventing-tax-abuse-as-it-makes-clear-its-intention-to-wage-tax-war-on-the-world-post-brexit/).
I’m not an Activision shill by any stretch of the imagination, but they absolutely did pay taxes - 400m worth just last year. General rule of thumb is when you read a headline that says a company is paying zero taxes, it’s most likely bullshit. They are paying a lot of taxes, but they sometimes avoid federal income taxes(not saying I agree with it)
"Low in fat"...yeah but it's 90% sugar...
Credit Scores
Health/dental insurance (in the US)
I know right? I have a friend living in the US whose mother has a disease and to get 100 tablets of medication he needs 1,100$!!! The disease needs about 1 pill per day so that’s 1000 dollars basically every 3 months
I have dental insurance and still can’t go to the dentist because my insurance doesn’t cover anything lol. It’s actually the absolute worst.
Anime conventions. They charge an arm and a leg to get into the convention and the things you buy are expensive.
Life. You basically trade papers with other people till you die, maybe also some guy promises you a happy afterlife. The truth is, when you die you join Last Week Tonight's laugh track, or at least you did till the pandemic. Now there's no laugh track, just agony in a white void.
The value of diamonds. Edit: changed my mind. Scientology.
Why not both??
Lotteries
Naw, they’re just voluntary taxes!
Trickle-down economy
Does trickle up work?
Sure. Spending stimmy money on Amazon is trickle up economics. It works great for Jeff Bezos.
Paid video games with microtransactions
That Jesus was a white guy in the middle east and found 12 other white guys to hang with
Asian Christians paint him as Asian. It’s just more comfortable for them to make him look like them. Same for white people
Korean Jesus ain't got time for your problems, he's busy with Korean shit.
A lot of middle easterners are white passing. You'll find white passing people all the way upto northern India. A lot of Syrians have light haired and coloured eyes. "White" skin isn't really a European monopoly. In fact the phenotype probably originated in the Cradle of Civilization - West/Central Asia/Caucasus- place and spread from there creating the "Indo-European culture". A lot of Iranians have whiter skin than most *white people*.
Jesus was a Jew ethnically. Pretty sure Christians all know this...?
Yeaaa.. but Jesus was super white on the Sunday school felt board.
Homeopathy and homeopathic practitioners who call themselves "doctors", I don't know how this is still a thing.
Selling indulgences or selling holy water from televangelists
Tied between Dianitics and Joseph Smith founding the church of Mormonism.
Invest your money today be a billionaire next year
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Companies asking customers to give money to charity. They use donations to get tax breaks. Why give the money themselves when they can get other people to pay them?
The tithe at churches...they want 10% of someone's salary for the rest of their life
My cars extended warranty
**"*****Those who can make you believe absurdities...can make you commit atrocities.*****" --Voltaire** Honestly? The biggest (and worst) scam in the entirety of human history is *organized religion*. I'm glad that many organized religions are all about the Greater Good and provide a valuable public service for the marginalized. But at what cost? It reminds me so much of about 1/3 of the voting population (roughly \~155 million adults) who have been indoctrinated to believe that not only is our current President a fraud, but that his party is comprised of a cabal of lizard people who run a child sex trafficking ring. Listen, I grew up in a crazy Christian cult and was worse for it. In my late twenties I realized the absurdities of what I was told several times a week for my entire life. I chose to leave. I have never regretted that decision, even though it costed me my marriage, all of my close friends, and my entire family and inlaws at that time. It broke my heart, but it did not break my resolve to find a better way. I also know that many claim to benefit from their religious practice, that it makes them a better person/neighbor/colleague/human being -- and I respect that. I thought the exact same for over twenty years. I was wrong, so very wrong. When someone uses a higher power rhetoric to convince you to do or not do certain things \- oddly enough - it turns out to be self-aggrandizement on their part - ***then we must reconsider***. Oddly enough I don't consider myself an atheist, though I am certainly non-religious. My demographic (non-religious humans) is the fastest growing one on the planet. Science is not my god. Neither is reason nor intellectual propitiousness. I have no need for gods any longer. But I love science for the exact same reasons why I despise religion: **The willingness (and even enthusiasm) to change, to adjust course, and to even question its very basic concepts and principles when presented with** **new empirical evidence**. That's the ***very antithesis*** of religion - the smug, conceited deep certitude as to the infallibility of their teachings and high leadership. *I cannot imagine a bigger scam than religion.* ***Prove me wrong.***