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23 Things Which Are In Fact Big Scams, Yet Most People Don’t Realize It, As Shared By Members Of This Online Group
Life, as you perhaps know, is an unfair thing, but not everyone really agrees with this. Many people believe that accepting individual problems and inconveniences, taking them for granted, is a kind of social contract, enshrined in years of human silence.
Indeed, there are a huge number of strange things in our life that we just get used to and take them for granted. However, if you look at the situation from a different angle, certain facts, traditions, things or services will turn out to be simply ridiculous or even absurd. Or, let's call a spade a spade - a total scam.
There is a thread on Reddit whose authors collect opinions about the biggest scam in life that no one wants to admit. To date, the thread has already gained more than 52.1K upvotes and gathered around 36.8K comments. Some of the comments look pretty ridiculous too, but many of them just have a kernel of truth.
Bored Panda created a special curated list of the most popular comments for you, so feel free to scroll to the very end. You will definitely agree with something, object clearly to something, and by the way, we will be glad to read comments of both kinds - after all, truth, as you know, is born in disputes.
More info: Reddit
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Tipping Culture
Tipping culture. It’s how businesses scammed the general public into paying additional costs so they could avoid paying their staff a living wage.
The Entire Wedding Industry
The entire wedding industry.
To be clear, not marriage but weddings specifically.
I’m happily married to my wife and we were content to do something special just the two of us, maybe spend a couple of grand and treat ourselves a little bit to something amazing.
Cue the families getting involved and before you know it we’re spending closer to twenty grand on one day and feeding a bunch of people I’ve not heard of before or since the wedding.
The Promise Of A Golden Retirement
We work the majority of our lives, during our fittest years of health, for the promise of a golden retirement, when we will probably too old and ill to enjoy it properly.
Salaries
A lot of us have been convinced that we are selling our labour to companies at the correct price, in reality we're selling it too cheaply.
Fight Against Climate Change
That climate change is up to each individual to go green. It was a campaign by BP that pushed the solution as each individual going green instead of the dozen massive corporations that account for the lions share of greenhouse gases.
Going green is good, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to oil companies, industrial farming, and cargo ships.
Edit: lots of "yet you participate in society, curious" type comments from the usual contrarians. Your hot air is adding to the problem.
The Entire Fashion Industry
That the Fashion Industry is anything other than planned obsolescence, designed simply to get people to spend money for no reason.
Global Companies Declaring Care Of Their Customers
That large global companies actually care about you.
Taxes And Everything Connected With Them
The lobby around requiring **[MOST]** Americans to file their taxes with the IRS; while the IRS already has all the relevant information.
Edit: Yes we know there's benefits for you tiny percentage of self-employed individuals and business owners.
The Prices Of Anything Baby Related
The prices of anything baby related. Toys, food, clothes, etc. Was in a store on Saturday to get a cot mattress and cover. I cried.
Airlines Ticket Policy
The fact that airlines have X amount of seats per flight, but almost always sell X+10 seats and then refund you about 80% of your ticket cost. Do that to the 10 people and suddenly you have about 2 tickets worth of profits seemingly out of nowhere, and everyone still has a flight. Just an unbelievably immoral way to gain a few bucks, but everyone just goes with it since the airplanes aren't exactly a train that comes every 10 minutes.
Insurance And Everything About It
Insurance!!!! My great grandfather was a doctor, and there were stories of him treating people, often for free. He and his wife helped an entire family with scarlet fever in exchange for a jar of blackberry jam
