There will always be thieves who think they're smarter than everyone else and try to rob us of our money. Thanks to the internet and social media, they can even do it remotely while the whole world is locked down, going through a pandemic.
And while we try to calm ourselves down by saying that sooner or later they will get caught and punished, as one Reddit post shows, some won't. Because we're not even chasing them!
Сreated by user u/F1yff, it asked people the question: "What is a legal scam that is still happening in 2022?" and has received plenty of real-life examples that are still thriving. Here are some of them.
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Churches not paying taxes. It's completely unacceptable and really disgusting. I cannot imagine tithing to a church with a pastor who has big houses and a private jet and luxury cars.
Televangelists like Joel Osteen.
Charging for parking in Hospitals and Clinics.
Agree if it's a private parking firm scalping people for huge amounts of cash. Don't necessarily agree if that money is being fed back into the health trust or hospital itself (though of course that shouldn't have to happen at all, nor should the vast amount of charitable monies that hospitals rely on)
American restaurants forcing the burden of employee wages onto their customers.
How about the employer pays the employee? Crazy concept, but it works!!! And if that employee makes the customer extra pleased with the provided service, that tip goed to that employee! (And not the employer...) I still can't believe how weird that US system is. It almost feels like it is extortion of the employers. Or should I drop the "feels like" in the previous sentence?
Private prisons. You're telling me that they charge the government for the beds and the taxpayers still gotta foot the bill if those beds are empty so the company running it "doesn't lose money"? F*ck you.
Let's add prison phone charges. If we're really trying to rehabilitate people so they emerge as helpful members of society, why are inmates charged up to $5.70 for a 15 minute phone call? This is the state that pays prisoners $0.13 per hour to work.
Charging people money to withdraw money or because they have small (positive) balances in their bank accounts.
This!! Recently I have noticed a lot of bank ATMs are being replaced by non-bank ATMs which charge a fee to withdraw money. Getting to the point where I have trouble finding a local ATM that I can withdraw money from without paying money.
That's interesting, almost all atms in Australia are fee free, even if it is for a bank other than yours.
Load More Replies...How about overdraft fees? Accidentally went over by $5? Here's a $40 overdraft fee plus an interest rate of like 500%
I've noticed recently that a lot of atms near me have started charging £1.95 to withdraw your own money. I also noticed that it's only in one of the poorer areas of the town. The poor always pay more.
This is wrong, as if banks aren't already make you want to throw up, rich. Greed at its worst. It cost me $12.35 to put on a stop payment over phone banking. WTH? It's not like a person had to even push a button to do that. Up here we mostly don't use cash anymore. We had debit cards long before the US, so we were already quite used to them before covid. But, I do feel a bit better about my bank's consideration for seniors. Now that I am one my bank gives me a monthly $4 rebate. Hmmm🤔 What could I buy with that? I know! I'll get an extra 1/2 gallon of milk this month!
One of my fave things about Ireland: none of their ATMs charge you.
banks charging fees up, down, east, west, north, south, to the moon and back, if your nose is too long, if your nose is too short etc, etc, etc
This is because Banks pay you interest to store your money there so they can loan out that money at higher rates to others. When you don't have enough, you actually cost them money, so they charge fees. If you have lots of money, they make money off of you. That is why it is the way it is.
Not sure if you are ignorant, arrogant, or just privileged. Many people don't work "bankers' hours" and cannot go to the bank to withdraw cash when it is open. On top of that, you don't always choose where you work. Those of us in occupations where we live one place, and frequently have to work other places don't have the PRIVILEGE of withdrawing money in places and times it is free. Try to consider the lives of others instead of offering up such smug "advice."
Load More Replies...This!!! I've never understood why I have to pay to withdraw money...what?!?!
Particularly the "service fee" for low balances. Like, you can see that I'm broke and you're gonna take a piece of what little I have? When the torches and pitchforks show up at your house, don't act surprised, O banking overlords.
I've worked for 2 banks. Trust me, they have more ways of taking your money than you can possibly imagine. Inactive account fees are a favorite because they'll completely deplete the account (say $5 a month) until there's nothing left and quite often get away with it because being inactive is a sign no one is monitoring the account.
Banks charge money if: you cash checks if you don’t bank with them; you bounce a check; you don’t have/maintain a balance above $500 or $1000; have automatic deposit etc..
In the UK we have free banking and I even get paid (£5 per month) just for having my salary paid in.
I haven't carried cash in my wallet for a good three or four years now. Debit card is how I pay for everything.
this just happened to me this week i had 30 dollars in a credit union i set up this account when i was taking care of my sister she had lung cancer well i didn't want to touch that it was all i had left that belonged to her i got a letter this week they took 25 dollars of the money and closed my account when i called and told the women i wanted my money back and i would close the account myself i was told i wasn't getting it back and then they claimed that i now owed them money i told them they got my 25 dollars and i wasn't giving them a penny i didn't owe them anything all the money did was sit there for three years i never over drew i never touched it
To play devil's advocate, these machines need maintenance constantly by an outside party. It's also a service...you can go to any branch during business hours and take money out whenever you like. It's hard if you work weird hours but you have the option. Using an ATM -while it seems like something necessary- isn't. It's still an additional service to help you in off hours. Now... duriing covid most banks were waiving those fees because you weren't allowed inside the offices. Any bank that didn't is shitty. It would also help if banks have more staffing. I literally work for a bank and I hate it as much as the customers do when there aren't enough people on to help the line of customers. It's so frustrating. We literally have 11 people taking 2K phone calls a day and everyone is stressed and overworked. Customers are always angry. And some banks, instead of having an extra person behind the teller lines...they'll have that random greeter person just standing there. Ugh.
This is one of the reasons you hear so much negativity about cryptocurrencies; banks have had a lovely scam going on for years, finding every which way to charge you for handling your money, which they use to make themselves even richer, and, these days, barely paying you a penny for the privilege. They know the jig is up and constantly generate negative news stories.
My banks accredits the charges back to me, I've been finding lately.
Whoa! I never heard of banks charging fees for having a small balance! That's insane! Also the charging to withdraw money, I just didn't know about the other point.
Oh come on, to ensure funds are guaranteed it required multiple banks, businesses, and people to process. Why do we have a 2-5 business day transaction window for credit cards? Because the funds are being processed by lots of folks. If we didn’t pay them, we would only be able to use cash locally. Is Bored Panda filled with 12 year olds who don’t pay for things?
I refuse to use the link machines here in Scotland as they're the only ones who charge - but they seem to be getting rarer, not seen one in ages. Folk started writing directions to free cash machines on the ones that required a fee which I just thought was brilliant
This!! My old bank was charging me a fee for electronically moving my money from checking to saving account or anywhere else (like retirement fund). I left them for a bank who charges absolutely NOTHING for those things. They're still desperately trying to take me back, but I just laugh in their faces.
Keep reading if you are in USA if not ignore. Are you sure you were not hit by Reg D charges? https://www.cpmfed.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/What-is-Reg-D_2.pdf - This regulation rule is suspended during pandemic.
Load More Replies...Stop being so middle-class-ignorant in your opinions. "Convenience" is the same thing as poor tax. The whole point is that people whose lives are not yours do not work the right hours, or have transportation to the right places where they can get access to their cash. THEIR cash, that they have worked their arses off to earn, but are charged to access it because their lives don't fit into any "convenient" time or location to access their own money.
Load More Replies... Insider trading within Congress.
But if WE do it, we end up in prison.
Having to file your own taxes then being fined if you don’t do it right.
"News” which isn’t useful or objectively true, and therefore not news, but propaganda.
Ronald Reagan's legacy, he abolished the "Fairness Doctrine". Contrasting viewpoints on controversial subjects were no longer required by law, so, networks were given free rein to embellish the stories reported.
Civil forfeiture. You're going to tell me that a cop thinks that my property might be used for illegal activity, and that cop is going to steal it from me and pad their departments bottom line? What the actual f.
Software as a service.
Once I buy a piece of software that works, it doesn't cost the company more money to make it if I use it for longer. It makes no sense to pay a monthly fee for the permission to use Adobe Photoshop, it's ridiculous.
People say "oh, but you get updates" -- if I want to get the new version of Photoshop, I can pay for a new license.
Any update that fixes bugs should come free, because actually I'm not paying for a buggy product am I?
Video games, as sh*tty as the industry is, are doing this right. You pay once, up front. Then you get patches and security updates for free. Of course there are still problems, but at least buying a video game isn't as much of a scam as subscribing to Adobe's Creative Cloud plans. Total ripoffs.
There are fantastic free open source alternatives for most popular Adobe softwares. I use Darktable and GIMP instead of Lightroom and Photoshop and I edit my videos on OpenShot instead of Premiere. They work great and costs 0$ but I donate a little to support those developers and designers. And if you need to recover your data from a corrupted hard drive or something check icarefree, another free software which works way better than those expensive recovery services. Long live open source!
Sadly overplayed, but health insurance. Just yesterday there was a post about a guy who had medically necessary surgery and the insurance didn’t want to pay the hospital.
Minor tax in UK ensures all medical care is free at point of use ...and yes there are waiting lists...but no one is turned away. No one is penalised for being out of work or not having private insurance. Minor prescription charges in some parts of UK (free in my area Wales) only extra private charges are for opticians and dentistry for adults. You can still get plans for those too...but any medical care required from say an optician finding something requiring treatment is referred back to NHS for treatment with no charge.
"Printing" fee for digital tickets.
Any fees for digital tickets. Booking fee, printing fee, whatever.
MLMs (multi-level marketing companies). 'I'm my own CEO.' No, you aren't. You literally have a company telling you what you can and can't do.
And most people end up in debt because of MLMs. They're just legal pyramid schemes.
Cable company making you "rent" a router for 10$ a month.
I hate the fact i pay subscription to all the channels. Out of 200 i watch like 20 tops. Vut there's no profit if i only subscribe to 20 favourite ones
Insane rent prices for houses even squatters wouldn’t stay at.
That's why The Netherlands has a system where every defect in your rented house means that you pay less rent. At a certain number of defects the house is declared uninhabitable. Landlords hate the system because it means that people can pay less than half of their rent without risking being evicted. The only thing landlords can do to prevent it from happening is keeping the houses up to standard.
Super-high interest, predatory rent-to-own furniture rental/loan things — where you end up paying, like, $3,000 in the end for a $500 laptop.
Ticket master. WTF is a handling fee when I am the one handling my own phone?
Companies with bots who buy up blocks of tickets, usually really good ones, and if you wanted a seat in that section you have to pay a fortune to some scam company to get it. Legalized scalping.
Charging patients in hospitals for TV service. Their bills are high enough, but you want to add $8/day to not have to sit in silence for 23 hours a day?
WHAAAAT, where does this happen? I didn't even know this was a thing!
Medication Costs
my dog had hookworm and so my doctor recommended i get treated as well just to be safe - pharmacy called me warning that it would cost me $2,995... asked my doctor if there was an alternative; was able to get an equally effective treatment for $45
Oh my gosh in Australia that treatment would cost $4.50 from a pharmacy.
The troubled teen industry. It doesn't work. It traumatizes children. It's legal kidnapping.
I hope more attention comes to it and something happens. They're a business and the goal is to make money, not help troubled teenagers. Ffs, half the time the kids aren't even troubled!
E.T.A.: The "Troubled teen industry" refers to for-profit organizations aimed at steering rebellious and at-risk youth onto a better path through reform camps. But their methods are "tough love", negative/positive punishments and physical labor.
Because it's a business meant to make money, a lot of corner-cutting happens. They hire young and untrained staff for less pay rather than therapists and certified nurses & teachers. It's also not regulated at all so they can effectively do whatever they want with little recourse.
They use "scared straight" tactics and beat kids into obedience. They claim the best way to send a kid there is by surprise "so they don't try and run beforehand" - AKA burst into their room at 2AM and drag them into a van with very few belongings.
Look up "Elan School" for a notorious one.
Paris Hilton was kidnapped at 2AM and sent to Provo Canyon when she was 16. Look at how well that worked.
Go through this thread for some horror stories.
Why insurance goes up after an incident.
The fact that you give regular monthly installments is the intent that they will save you the hassle in case of a problem.
My homeowners insurance dropped me after I filed my first claim in 16 years. It was a minor claim as well.
Modern art collecting as a easy route to evade taxes. Wealthy person buys painting of black line for $20k, have art appraiser friend appraise for $1.2mm, donate painting to museum or non-profit, write off over a million in losses, zero taxes, celebrate black line like it’s an amazing and deeply moving piece.
Okay well maybe this wouldn’t be done if the tax rate wasn’t insane. Killing your self working half the year for people who hate you and other people who hate your home country, sometimes a mix of both. It’s a fûcking scam, so we scam back. Plus I like my painting of a black line, and it’s worth the value people will pay for it. Sorry you can’t spend my money for me.
That news in America is entertainment. Can get away with saying pretty much anything and still call it “news”.
The news in Australia is pretty bad too. There’s even advertisements presented within informational programs that appear as if a factual piece. Shouldn’t be allowed. I don’t even read/watch it now and rely on more objective sources from overseas. There may be some in Australia but I’ve yet to find them.
College textbooks. "We updated a figure in chapter 8 and changed the page numbers for three Third Edition. It costs $180."
All of them should be continously updated and electronic (ie. pdf files).
if debt collectors can trick a grieving person into uttering words that imply you take responsibility for your dead relatives' debts, that can be treated as a binding oral contract and allow them to collect from you
Usa tax paying system.
Paraphrasing: We know how much you owe, but we want you to calculate it and you have to get it correct under pain of prison or paying too much. Oh and the whole process is more complicated than it needs to be because of private interests.
that cookies still exists on websites. sometimes i don’t have an option but just to give them goddamn cookies! cancel cookies!
Also, anyone who sticks your name on a mailing list and doesn't include an 'unsubscribe' link in any mails back. That's actually illegal, right?
Extended warranties, so many promises made, but when time comes for a claim, almost all are denied.
Well the prices for them are getting ridiculous. If you get all labour and parts paid, or a replacement product, then that was good. But a quick bit of maths tells you that you will have paid for a new product usually within 4 to 5 years, and a proportion of that will already have a manufacturers warranty on it. The sensible thing to do is to put the money you would spend on an extended warranty into a bank account each month, and use the money to pay for a repair or buy a new one when it eventually packs up.
Paying convenience charges when booking tickets online.
I agree. I'd think it'd be cheaper because I'm doing it myself online.
If you’re a personal business owner, you may receive what looks to be a bill in your mail from the US Domain Authority. At first glance, you’re under the impression that you need to pay 289 dollars to renew your website domain name… HOWEVER. There is very fine print stating that you are not legally required to pay the listed amount. It’s actually an ad requesting you pay that amount in order to have your website listed on the US Domain Authority site. I can’t imagine how many people have been tricked by this. READ YOUR MAIL CAREFULLY.
My kid's school charges a $3 "internet fee" if you want to refill their cafeteria cards via the website. If you do it in person there's no fee.
If they feel they have to charge a fee shouldn't it be the other way around since if you use their website you aren't taking up anyone's time?
Funeral homes. Or to specify for the dunces among us, unethical funeral homes chasing profit at the expense of bereaved people...
The amount of Leeching done to grieving people just boils my blood.
Weddings and funerals are cash cows since they're emotional purchases, not necessities.
University fees. I have to not only pay for my classes and admin fees, I have to pay for two separate student Union fees, a technology fee, an online processing fee, and a "recreation and athletic" fee, despite the Fieldhouse being entirely closed due to covid.
I'm working on my MA. I'm 52. I have every intention of paying the absolute minimum on my loans and if I die without paying it off, too bad.
Taxes on taxes
Charging huge fees for parking permits without spending any of that money on the maintenance of those parking spots.
Working for the current minimum wage. I just want it to have kept up with inflation. That is probably around 22.5/hr iirc. The hardest jobs I’ve ever had was my lowest paying job.
Healthcare in the USA. When you work at a hospital and see the f*ckery that happens you get even more mad.
Student debt in its current state. I know physicians who can’t pay those loans off because the interest is just too high. They’ve been paying for 10 years and still have their original principal loan amount.
Those are just three things that make me the most mad right now.
I live in Canada and we would have to make around $24 per hour, 40 hours per week, to just live with no extras. That would barely cover rent, transportation, insurance and food/basic necessities. The minimum wage is $15.00. Even if you did make $24 per hour you're just one emergency away from disaster.
Insurance companies stating they'll cover 100% of the cost. But when you get the bill, it's 200% and you gotta cover the difference. Who the hell reads 100% as literally anything other than fully covered?
Plus 200% means they'd definitely pay for it all :P maybe they meant 20% The only reason I like living in the UK is because of the NHS!
Note: this post originally had 73 images. It’s been shortened to the top 45 images based on user votes.
Lots of duplicates in this list. And of the original entries, I spotted a few that were universal, but the vast majority could be shifted to a list of "things the rest of the world can't believe the US still has to put up with in 2022". So many are not part of the wider experience for a lot of people.
Pretty much everything here is a result of rampant capitalism, the idea that making a profit is the only thing that matters in any business, in any field of human endeavour, where success is defined solely in terms of your wealth. Sorry to be a stuck record on this, but it's true. It's why young people need to vote and they need to start voting for people and parties that do not ascribe to the capitalist model.
1. Philanthropy and corporate investment in the arts, esp by big pharma: basically money laundering on a moral level. 2. In the UK, credit agencies who harvest data about you but won't tell you who they got it from, and you have to pay them to check it and find out if it's wrong. 3. All private sector corporate vision/mission statements that don't say 'make money'. 4. Corporate PR teams doing 'damage limitation' by preventing wrongdoing from being reported openly in the press (I had to give up). 5. HR: literally exists to protect the company from being sued by employees.
Electronic books (eBooks). No way in h3ll should the digital version cost even 1/10th of the hardcopy (paperback!) price. It's not like they have to keep 10,000 digital copies on a hard drive, or anything. $0.99 is... generous.
Yeah! Most of the time they cost the same as the paperback. F**k that
Load More Replies...Being required to qualify for government benefits (food stamps, etc.) based on your future earnings, then being penalized if you earn more than you thought you would. In 2014, I applied for Obamacare because I thought I was required to, and based my application on very low expected earnings. In November of that year, I received a surprise mail from a past employer telling me I had until the end of the year to decide how I wanted my pension. The monthly disbursements wouldn't have helped me so I took the lump sum which put me over my earnings projection for Obamacare, and I had to repay the government the $7,000+ for insurance premiums they'd paid on my behalf based on my low projected income. It's been eight years and that still pisses me off every time I think about it.
Those who get Medicaid, or any assistance will have their estate pilfered by the government. So if you had medicaid because you lost your job, cannot afford to buy health insurance, will have that amount deducted from their estate. This means if you work your whole life but had medicaid for a short time, the gov will take that money.
Load More Replies...How about online advertisers who use our internet connection as they run their ads and cull our data? They need to stop or pay us the profits.
Show me where it is free. Any "it". Either you pay out of pocket, or you pay in taxes. And, I'm sorry-not-sorry, there are far worse things in the world happening, without anyone making long BP posts about it. See: climate change. See: child abuse. See: sweatshops in any given place on the planet. .... No, I don't like these things, but I'm realistic to know that until you ban the concepts of "property and profit", and somehow get everyone to be docile and polite enough to go along? Here we are. Just like our ancestors, when someone figured out holding onto the dead deer meant they had the "power" and could get something in exchange. (Or the fruit. Whatever.) It's Friday, I want to see kittens & Puppies! B/c omicron is devastating the world, but hey, let's b***h about capitalism....?!?!?! We have a bigger concern at the moment. Or I do. Signed, one furious/exhausted MD. MASK AND VAX I BEG YOU! Please.
I'm charged three local taxes for the maintenance of roads. Through my property taxes, a levy that passed two years ago and an additional property tax assessment for repaving my street. I'm moving soon to the town I grew up in that is lower in crime, has better services and will cost me half as much in taxes.
(U.S.) Social Security PAYMENTS are mandatory (for most of us). Social Security BENEFITS do *not* _have_ to be paid.
What gets me is the cost of digital video games. It's the same as a physical. They explain the high cost of games because of production and distribution but now they are claiming it's so it will not "lessen the value of their IP."
Honestly, I'm so sick of hearing about a lot of these issues. Many of them are only problems in the US, and they have been told and shown time and time again how to solve these issues, but they just don't. It's time for us to stop asking, stop listening. The rest of the world has just become enablers.
OK let me give you a few phrases to look up. "Customer image". "Amortisation". "Cross-subsidisation". Once you've looked that up, you'll understand why it is a BAD business decision to do things to your customers that make you look like an unethical parasite.
Load More Replies...Lots of duplicates in this list. And of the original entries, I spotted a few that were universal, but the vast majority could be shifted to a list of "things the rest of the world can't believe the US still has to put up with in 2022". So many are not part of the wider experience for a lot of people.
Pretty much everything here is a result of rampant capitalism, the idea that making a profit is the only thing that matters in any business, in any field of human endeavour, where success is defined solely in terms of your wealth. Sorry to be a stuck record on this, but it's true. It's why young people need to vote and they need to start voting for people and parties that do not ascribe to the capitalist model.
1. Philanthropy and corporate investment in the arts, esp by big pharma: basically money laundering on a moral level. 2. In the UK, credit agencies who harvest data about you but won't tell you who they got it from, and you have to pay them to check it and find out if it's wrong. 3. All private sector corporate vision/mission statements that don't say 'make money'. 4. Corporate PR teams doing 'damage limitation' by preventing wrongdoing from being reported openly in the press (I had to give up). 5. HR: literally exists to protect the company from being sued by employees.
Electronic books (eBooks). No way in h3ll should the digital version cost even 1/10th of the hardcopy (paperback!) price. It's not like they have to keep 10,000 digital copies on a hard drive, or anything. $0.99 is... generous.
Yeah! Most of the time they cost the same as the paperback. F**k that
Load More Replies...Being required to qualify for government benefits (food stamps, etc.) based on your future earnings, then being penalized if you earn more than you thought you would. In 2014, I applied for Obamacare because I thought I was required to, and based my application on very low expected earnings. In November of that year, I received a surprise mail from a past employer telling me I had until the end of the year to decide how I wanted my pension. The monthly disbursements wouldn't have helped me so I took the lump sum which put me over my earnings projection for Obamacare, and I had to repay the government the $7,000+ for insurance premiums they'd paid on my behalf based on my low projected income. It's been eight years and that still pisses me off every time I think about it.
Those who get Medicaid, or any assistance will have their estate pilfered by the government. So if you had medicaid because you lost your job, cannot afford to buy health insurance, will have that amount deducted from their estate. This means if you work your whole life but had medicaid for a short time, the gov will take that money.
Load More Replies...How about online advertisers who use our internet connection as they run their ads and cull our data? They need to stop or pay us the profits.
Show me where it is free. Any "it". Either you pay out of pocket, or you pay in taxes. And, I'm sorry-not-sorry, there are far worse things in the world happening, without anyone making long BP posts about it. See: climate change. See: child abuse. See: sweatshops in any given place on the planet. .... No, I don't like these things, but I'm realistic to know that until you ban the concepts of "property and profit", and somehow get everyone to be docile and polite enough to go along? Here we are. Just like our ancestors, when someone figured out holding onto the dead deer meant they had the "power" and could get something in exchange. (Or the fruit. Whatever.) It's Friday, I want to see kittens & Puppies! B/c omicron is devastating the world, but hey, let's b***h about capitalism....?!?!?! We have a bigger concern at the moment. Or I do. Signed, one furious/exhausted MD. MASK AND VAX I BEG YOU! Please.
I'm charged three local taxes for the maintenance of roads. Through my property taxes, a levy that passed two years ago and an additional property tax assessment for repaving my street. I'm moving soon to the town I grew up in that is lower in crime, has better services and will cost me half as much in taxes.
(U.S.) Social Security PAYMENTS are mandatory (for most of us). Social Security BENEFITS do *not* _have_ to be paid.
What gets me is the cost of digital video games. It's the same as a physical. They explain the high cost of games because of production and distribution but now they are claiming it's so it will not "lessen the value of their IP."
Honestly, I'm so sick of hearing about a lot of these issues. Many of them are only problems in the US, and they have been told and shown time and time again how to solve these issues, but they just don't. It's time for us to stop asking, stop listening. The rest of the world has just become enablers.
OK let me give you a few phrases to look up. "Customer image". "Amortisation". "Cross-subsidisation". Once you've looked that up, you'll understand why it is a BAD business decision to do things to your customers that make you look like an unethical parasite.
Load More Replies...