“Storage. Total Scams”: 40 Employees Share How The Industries They Work In Are Scamming People

Weddings. Say the word "wedding" out loud to a vendor and the exact same cake, flowers, and van quietly triple in price.

Eyewear. Most of the brands you've heard of, Ray-Ban, Oakley, designer frames, the big optical chains, even the vision insurance, are one company (EssilorLuxottica). That's why a frame that costs a few dollars to make sells for $300, and buying the same style from a cheap online site gets you most of that money back.

Storage. Specifically the public one. Total scams. They will offer you low rates to move in and an extra discount to use auto pay. Then once all your stuff is on site they consistently raise your monthly rate. Sometimes 3x in 8 months. It never stops.
Always read their pricing policies and go with a small local storage if possible they are more likely to keep your rate as is for longer periods of time.

I used to work for a company called Furniture Care Protection. It’s absolutely bogus. You buy all this expensive furniture and at the end they offer you a “protection plan”. They tell you it covers all rips, tears, stains, dents, dings, discoloration, pet accidents, etc., so you buy it thinking it’s a win. Fast forward a year, your child spills a drink on it. You call it in, they want photo “proof”. This is the part where they completely dissect your photo. They find a small tear that you didn’t even realize was there. You’re now denied for multiple issues. You’re furious because you only want your spill cleaned because now the process has taken 2 months and smells. Now they really deny you because in the small print it says they don’t cover multiple accidents and/or smells. So now you’re stuck with a smelly piece of furniture. They’ve denied elderly customers whose adjustable bed or recliner were broken because of tears that weren’t reported but were seen in the photos. I got into a big argument with my manager because he was wanting me to deny a soldier who was stationed somewhere and their furniture was damaged in the unavoidable move because “we don’t cover damage from moves”. It was wild and extremely stressful because I always agreed with the customers. Do not buy a protection plan from Furniture Care Protection. We were always being threatened and I was terrified someone would actually go through with their threats.

I used to sell extended warranties, and it’s a total scam. We were forced to push them because the profit margin is almost 100%. Gadgets rarely break in that window, and if they do, your credit card benefits probably cover it anyway. The store just pockets your cash. Never buy them.

Car dealerships. They make you focus on the monthly payment instead of the total price. Always negotiate the full price first, never the monthly payment.

Mattresses. The industry has spent decades convincing people that every mattress needs to be replaced every 8 years and that you need the $3,000 "premium" model. Most people would be perfectly happy with something far cheaper, and a lot of what you're paying for is marketing, brand names, and fake sales that somehow never end.

Don’t ever believe the top 10 lists in travel magazines. 9/10 are just paid ads.

Dunno about other countries, but every time you go to a pharmacy in Australia, utter the magic words "generic version if you have them, please". You'll save thousands over your life.

Former academic advisor of a public 4-year university in a STEM college: taking prerequisite classes at the 4-year university instead of a local community college. The prereq classes were huge (~100-300 students depending), interaction with the instructors was mostly with TA’s, and the cost of tuition was 3x what it was at the community college. Instructors at a CC typically have no research requirements meaning their main job responsibility is teaching, compared to 4-year instructors whose workload might only be 30% teaching - so the CC instructors actually have time and bandwidth to get in depth with answering questions and being helpful to students.

I had so many students who struggled with the big classes and took on crazy amounts of debt retaking classes at the 4-year when they could’ve taken the exact same class for way less down the road and had a better learning experience and grade at the end.

Seriously, if you’re a college student in a tough major, look into options for taking your classes at a community college instead. Most universities will have transfer agreements and accept the CC classes (if you take the right ones, so do this with assistance from an advisor).

If your plumber, HVAC technician or electrician advertises on TV, they are charging you way too much.

See if you can research if they are owned by private equity, it's likely the same PE company owns several of the larger brands in your area. They know exactly what your market can bear and won't charge you not a penny less.

Do not fall for these "rent a solar power system for your house" scams. They charge you for free software updates from the manufscturer and everything costs like 10 times what the normal price is. Over time you pay a fortune for some basic solar power stuff, you could have bought for a fraction of the cost.

It the ones that pop up first on google when you search for solar power.

Gym memberships. If cancellation requires a phone call or in-person visit, that's the whole business model.

I worked for a year for a large pawnbrokers chain. When selling your gold, they will always massively undervalue the price per gram of the gold when valuing it, playing on the sellers desperation for money to buy the item as cheaply as possible.

Now you may think fair enough, that's what business do, but at the time I worked there, 9K gold was roughly £10 a gram and the company wanted us to pay £3.50 per gram. I personally made the company £2.5M profit in a year just from using this tactic to exploit the poor and needy. The worst bit is, I'm an engineer and only worked there out of desperation during the recession when the industry where I lived died, and the people coming in to sell their valuables were no poorer than I was, so I quit because I hated the fact I was being paid to exploit people at their lowest moments.

Do NOT get any retailer credit card if you do not intend to pay your statement in full. If you do decide against your better judgement to get one. Be prepared for at least a 30% interest rate if not higher. If you cannot afford the merchandise at cost, you don't need it.

Pet insurance is pretty bad. The type of insurance is called annually renewable, which means every year and can renew but your premiums go up. By year 8+, when you really need that insurance, it could easily be 250+/mo. You really should have a proper emergency fund before getting a pet and discuss with your family what exactly is an emergency when it comes to their Healthcare.

Supplements, nearly all of them. And it's not even the 'snake oil' claims, who knows what ingredients and impurities are actually in them?

By definition, there is no evidence that supplements are beneficial for your health. It's all marketing, preying on those less intelligent folk who are skeptical of real medicine, and vague statements like 'supports heart health'.

It's absurd how big the supplement industry is considering how bogus they are.

EDIT: to be clear, I'm not talking about legitimate vitamin and mineral supplementation for those are who have some specific deficiency. If you're low in blood iron levels, you should probably take some iron (not a doctor), or just eat some meat and green leafy veggies.

And to everyone claiming supplements are actually really helpful, feel free to cite (any) evidence supporting your claims!

The senior consultants you hired probably has no prior knowledge of what they are advising you on. You're paying them to learn.

They're also probably not senior.

Do not take out loans from non-banks unless you really truly need it. Aside from credit unions.

Science journals. The public pays the research, pays for the submission to the journal (a few 1000s € per paper), pays for researcher to edit and peer review and then has to pay to read that research.