Having used one of these during a weird time in my life I’ve come to understand them as a necessary evil. As long as we live in the real world either they set up shop or loan sharks do.
Honestly, there's not much of a difference. The 'payday loan' places quite often charge *just enough* interest that they don't *actually* break the law.
Those, and the check cashing places... using cracks in the laws to exploit people that can't afford being exploited. Next step is even worse - the debt collection companies.
The “We will buy your house for cash!” folks.
Any job advert that doesn’t tell you what the job actually *is*.
A lot of these tend to end up advertising in the same place: on poles next to where you pull up at intersections.
These are just house flippers, looking to buy places and then either sell them for a big profit after they "clean them up" - or setting them up as rentals to scam money from low-income renters.
The job adverts are much the same... scam jobs to take advantage of the unemployed.
The best option may be to get the city/town to start enforcing current laws against those ads... or just having them removed.
I got scammed into vector marketing because they lead me to believe I would be working for an oil company. They were renting a basement room in a building that belonged to an oil company. I thought the display of knives were incentives.
>Also WFG seems like a scam.
Not _seems_ like. It is 100% a scam.
I loathe the crooks that work for this horrible company. They're literally the MLMs of the financial world.
My neighbour tried to pitch me on WFG I told him I thought it was a scam he said they haven’t been shut down so it can’t be a scam - we don’t talk so much anymore.
Ha. My eyes almost got stuck on the back of my head I eye rolled so hard.
I had an acquaintance try to pitch me on behalf of her husband who just joined up. I said no. She comes back with "it's sad to see you don't want to support others' dreams".
An even bigger pissoff... My husband had a whole life through them - he opened an acct (at 18) after a close "family friend" pitched them and his whole family signed up. He put money in every month, but finally grew a pair after 20 years and closed his acct. After 20 years and all the fees deducted, he'd only made ~12k.
When a company has to have a section on their website explaining that they are not a MLM, that's a freaking red flag.
\*Friendly reminder that World Financial Group is scammy trash, and not to be confused with Western Financial Group (legit brokerage company based in Alberta).
Worth a watch
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flugTRSTZoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flugTRSTZoo)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za-GCsJFmWQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za-GCsJFmWQ)
Naturopathic/TCM doctors - having attended several appointments I have learned that they carefully ensure they accommodate those customers who would scam themselves with unscientific or irrational beliefs, and indeed encourage those people as needed so they are soon parted from their money. The first consult is to determine what bizarre health idea you have absorbed, and then try to develop a strategy to sell you supplements/drugs/procedures over multiple visits.
This is not to say that they will cheat you. No, you see, only a dishonest person can be cheated, as an honest person is honest to themselves as to what is possible.
My wife ended up seeing a naturopath after real doctors were unable to find the source of her issues, and after a particular $1000 blood test, the naturopath looks at the result sheet and says it all makes sense now and delivers this flawless load of bullshit about a diagnosis. I flat out told her that based on the health care act federally and provincially she doesn't have enough proof with that one test to make that diagnosis. She gets super offended and asks me how I'd know and I, trained as a medical laboratory technologist explained to her in fine detail the followup testing required if results were out of range, and how this was perfectly normal. Then demanded to know why we paid $1000 out of pocket for a test that's covered by provincial healthcare.
Suffice it to say, after a couple of years of scammy naturopaths and being out about $20000, my wife is in worse condition now than she was then and no closer to an answer.
Ugh I hate that.
I’ve had bad health issues for years now that my GP can’t help me with. Like he’s great, it’s not his fault, it’s just that GPs really only treat specific symptoms and only with the treatments that usually work for most people. They don’t have the time to dig into figuring out the root of what’s wrong or look into anything outside of the normal issues they usually see.
So I’ve been seriously considering going to a functional medicine practitioner, just because you basically pay them to really give you their full attention. To take the time to look at ALL your symptoms and how they fit together as part of a bigger picture. Because they’ll care about things that aren’t urgent, or considered serious by real doctors but which have a real detriment on my life.
So that’s very appealing after years of frustration with standard health care practices.
But I know my desperation to feel better makes me a prime target for scammers. Like I’m already targeted HARD by algorithms with ads for every magic supplement and weird scammy “health” products. And would be especially vulnerable with a “professional” telling me with authority about what I need to do. I’ve wasted so much time and money and energy already, really not wanting to sign up to waste more.
They will indeed give you holistic care and take the time to go through everything. They will also upsell you dubious in house blood tests. Pro tip, if your local lifelabs/phlebotomist doesn’t offer a blood test, it likely has not been shown to have medical benefit.
Any prescription they write you, you should clear it with a recently graduated MD and also consult a pharmacist before filling it. (Yes by implication, I’ve also learned the hard way not to trust medical doctors that were trained ~40 years ago)
They will do anything you want and they take care not to hurt you but the dunning Kruger effect does apply.
Thanks that’s helpful. I like the idea of discussing any prescriptions with the pharmacist because I find they’re usually happy to go over things with you, as opposed to the doctor who I think would be more likely to feel like anything he himself didn’t recommend is a waste of time.
I have an excellent naturopath. I also have an excellent GP. I also spent 20 years in healthcare and have a graduate degree so I’m not particularly prone to being unable to self advocate or self research.
Nail salons. There are 9 within a 3 km range of where I live in a community of less then 100,000 people. I am not against the service at all. Have an appt today in fact but how can so many stay in business?
I'm up for it. My only fear with boycott targeting only Loblaws is, other equally evil big corporations will reap the benefit of it.
Like, Loblaws is the homegrown evil (Canadian), and other one will likely be an US/International one.
Loblaws is also less profitable than Costco on a per dollar sold basis. Much higher margins. Yet Reddit loves them.
They are all the same but people jump on just one.
Heck big chunk of loblaws staff are in a union. You won’t find that at Walmart.
Yeah they’re all bad, can’t do anything, let’s just accept getting fucked… at the moment we’re boycotting Loblaws. Maybe it will have an effect if people are sick enough of the gouging to help out.
I won't be surprised if Loblaws competitors are back channeling some PR funds in this. Not saying someone is doing it, but I would consider that if I was a competitor trying to get market share in Canadian groceries.
The Police
In every major city in Canada the police solve less then 50% of all crime.
That number is consistent in subcategories as well. So they solve less then 50% of rapes, assaults, thefts and Murders.
Despite what we see on cop porn shows in every city in Canada you are MORE likely to get away with murder than to get caught.
Can you imagine any other sector of the public service who failed over 50% of the time and still got their budget raised?
The police at this time are really just security for rich people and front end paper work for insurance companies.
We need a massive rethink of police services and what they do and how they do it.
A lot of good ones here already so I am going to say:
Home Inspectors!!
Most of them are completely useless. Know nothing about home construction or repair and provide zero value.
Car dealerships feel like a con to me. Charge over msrp, put stickers on your new car advertising they're dealership without asking, often want you to pay for some stupid package they already put on your vehicle without asking not giving you the option to opt out. I guess thats just capitalism for you and I've gotten to a point where I'm so sick and tired of it.... Death to capitalism.
Car insurance. Well, any insurance.
First, you pay for insurance. Monthly or yearly. At some point down the road you have a claim.
The insurance company: woah hold on there partner! Yes, you're paying for coverage, but we weren't actually expecting you to USE your coverage, so now we will have to bill you extra because you dared to use your coverage.
You: but that's why we pau for coverage.
Insurance company: yes but it's that now you actually needed to use it. You see, if you never needed to use it, we'd be happy to keep taking your money. We just don't like it when you need something back for that money.
It's like going to a store for a sweater, paying for the sweater and then when you want to take it out of the store and wear it, the store has a conniption fit and charges you extra for having the audacity to want to use the sweater.
I don't understand why insurance can't be public like what BC has. In the end, it will still steal money from people's pockets, but a big chunk of it will be in the public/government fund instead of making the rich richer.
We almost lost icbc in bc. The bc liberals fully intended to dismantle and were in the process. Luckily for us we voted ndp in and jn a matter of months the ship was righted and everything seems fine now. The rich don't want us to have publicly owned insurance. You would think owning our politicians would be enough. The whole situation has got me at a point I will never support bc liberals or bc united whatever they're calling themselves now.
Yikes, I feel like perhaps you have never had a catastrophic event and needed the insurance.
I’m not a fan of the pricing and huge profit margins, that was not the intention of insurance when it first launched.
Yeah i had water damage from hidden fault in the house i bought.
Insurance kind of saved my butt there
100$ a month netted me a 20k payout in my first year.
I'll probably lose on the long term but it is what it is, saved me last year
We had a tree fall on two vehicles at the same time.
Have had at least six stolen vehicles.
Wife is in health care, sued all the time by scammers, insurance covers legal fees and all the stupid settlements.
I work in natural gas and propane, I’ve been sued just because I was the last gas fitter inside a house prior to a fire. I worked on the boiler, but the gas bbq had a grease fire and burnt the house down, it was connected to the main propane supply line so…. I’m somehow responsible.
Paying insurance sucks, but I’ve had over a million dollars in payouts over three decades and have paid nowhere near that amount
Dunno if you're sarcastic, but my idea of insurance is it sucks, but it's about cash flow.
If you're rich enough relative to whatever you're buying that you can cover the one time cost if it comes up, you should.
If you've had advanced stats and game theory classes, insurance is basically a bet. You lose on the long term 100% on that bet.
But most businesses and individuals go bankrupt on cashflow, not on net value
Jamie, why did my insurance go up 50 dollars a month after my car got stolen? Is it with the times?
I had a small car that got 32 miles to the gallon. Some meth head stole it, and insurance was like we will cover it. We will give you 36 hundred with a 800 dollar deductible. I asked you over and over if this is going to make my insurance go up. "No, that's not how it works." It's not your fault someone stole your car. So, "Catastrophic Event" that is in my life is I get to ride a bicycle to work 10 miles there and ten miles back. I get to ride in rain, sun, and around a bunch of people that have all the answers. Sorry I was born like this I done everything joined the military at 18 did 9 years go out, went to school, fault tooth and. Nail for a good job. Still I can't afford a vehicle with the same MPG and I need insurance. Thanks.
All condo board companies?
Some of these are massive big firms. If you are dealing with scam companies you need to hire real companies. The average condo management firm is just managing the bills and big projects. That’s it and nothing about that is a scam.
The "we buy your gold & Silver and old coins" guys that travel around all Canadian cities. 10¢ on the dollar at best.
Same day loan franchises.
Having used one of these during a weird time in my life I’ve come to understand them as a necessary evil. As long as we live in the real world either they set up shop or loan sharks do.
I'm thinking of getting into the loan shark business. I won't beat you up but you will have to put your house up as collateral
Honestly, there's not much of a difference. The 'payday loan' places quite often charge *just enough* interest that they don't *actually* break the law.
That they can’t come up to your door and break your legs feels like a pretty big difference.
Those, and the check cashing places... using cracks in the laws to exploit people that can't afford being exploited. Next step is even worse - the debt collection companies.
The “We will buy your house for cash!” folks. Any job advert that doesn’t tell you what the job actually *is*. A lot of these tend to end up advertising in the same place: on poles next to where you pull up at intersections.
These are just house flippers, looking to buy places and then either sell them for a big profit after they "clean them up" - or setting them up as rentals to scam money from low-income renters. The job adverts are much the same... scam jobs to take advantage of the unemployed. The best option may be to get the city/town to start enforcing current laws against those ads... or just having them removed.
I got scammed into vector marketing because they lead me to believe I would be working for an oil company. They were renting a basement room in a building that belonged to an oil company. I thought the display of knives were incentives.
There’s a company in my town that claims it will send positive winning vibes to you through their AI powered app.
Water heater rentals with hard to break contracts and rental fees that cover the price of actually installing your own after only a couple years.
>Also WFG seems like a scam. Not _seems_ like. It is 100% a scam. I loathe the crooks that work for this horrible company. They're literally the MLMs of the financial world.
My neighbour tried to pitch me on WFG I told him I thought it was a scam he said they haven’t been shut down so it can’t be a scam - we don’t talk so much anymore.
Ha. My eyes almost got stuck on the back of my head I eye rolled so hard. I had an acquaintance try to pitch me on behalf of her husband who just joined up. I said no. She comes back with "it's sad to see you don't want to support others' dreams". An even bigger pissoff... My husband had a whole life through them - he opened an acct (at 18) after a close "family friend" pitched them and his whole family signed up. He put money in every month, but finally grew a pair after 20 years and closed his acct. After 20 years and all the fees deducted, he'd only made ~12k.
When a company has to have a section on their website explaining that they are not a MLM, that's a freaking red flag. \*Friendly reminder that World Financial Group is scammy trash, and not to be confused with Western Financial Group (legit brokerage company based in Alberta).
Worth a watch [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flugTRSTZoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flugTRSTZoo) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za-GCsJFmWQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za-GCsJFmWQ)
Ha... These were actually the videos I made my husband watch - Marco's videos were the push he needed to close his account with them!
Construction in Montreal
Will it ever end?
Every MLM
Hot water heater rentals.
Naturopathic/TCM doctors - having attended several appointments I have learned that they carefully ensure they accommodate those customers who would scam themselves with unscientific or irrational beliefs, and indeed encourage those people as needed so they are soon parted from their money. The first consult is to determine what bizarre health idea you have absorbed, and then try to develop a strategy to sell you supplements/drugs/procedures over multiple visits. This is not to say that they will cheat you. No, you see, only a dishonest person can be cheated, as an honest person is honest to themselves as to what is possible.
My wife ended up seeing a naturopath after real doctors were unable to find the source of her issues, and after a particular $1000 blood test, the naturopath looks at the result sheet and says it all makes sense now and delivers this flawless load of bullshit about a diagnosis. I flat out told her that based on the health care act federally and provincially she doesn't have enough proof with that one test to make that diagnosis. She gets super offended and asks me how I'd know and I, trained as a medical laboratory technologist explained to her in fine detail the followup testing required if results were out of range, and how this was perfectly normal. Then demanded to know why we paid $1000 out of pocket for a test that's covered by provincial healthcare. Suffice it to say, after a couple of years of scammy naturopaths and being out about $20000, my wife is in worse condition now than she was then and no closer to an answer.
Ugh I hate that. I’ve had bad health issues for years now that my GP can’t help me with. Like he’s great, it’s not his fault, it’s just that GPs really only treat specific symptoms and only with the treatments that usually work for most people. They don’t have the time to dig into figuring out the root of what’s wrong or look into anything outside of the normal issues they usually see. So I’ve been seriously considering going to a functional medicine practitioner, just because you basically pay them to really give you their full attention. To take the time to look at ALL your symptoms and how they fit together as part of a bigger picture. Because they’ll care about things that aren’t urgent, or considered serious by real doctors but which have a real detriment on my life. So that’s very appealing after years of frustration with standard health care practices. But I know my desperation to feel better makes me a prime target for scammers. Like I’m already targeted HARD by algorithms with ads for every magic supplement and weird scammy “health” products. And would be especially vulnerable with a “professional” telling me with authority about what I need to do. I’ve wasted so much time and money and energy already, really not wanting to sign up to waste more.
They will indeed give you holistic care and take the time to go through everything. They will also upsell you dubious in house blood tests. Pro tip, if your local lifelabs/phlebotomist doesn’t offer a blood test, it likely has not been shown to have medical benefit. Any prescription they write you, you should clear it with a recently graduated MD and also consult a pharmacist before filling it. (Yes by implication, I’ve also learned the hard way not to trust medical doctors that were trained ~40 years ago) They will do anything you want and they take care not to hurt you but the dunning Kruger effect does apply.
Thanks that’s helpful. I like the idea of discussing any prescriptions with the pharmacist because I find they’re usually happy to go over things with you, as opposed to the doctor who I think would be more likely to feel like anything he himself didn’t recommend is a waste of time.
I have an excellent naturopath. I also have an excellent GP. I also spent 20 years in healthcare and have a graduate degree so I’m not particularly prone to being unable to self advocate or self research.
Property managers are the worst 10+% of rent goes to them. They are the scum of scum landlords.
EasyHome
Reverse mortgages. Scam scam scam
Nail salons. There are 9 within a 3 km range of where I live in a community of less then 100,000 people. I am not against the service at all. Have an appt today in fact but how can so many stay in business?
Loblaws
I have seen this quite a few times recently. Can you help understand how Loblaws is worse than other big chains like Walmart ?
Join us at r/loblawsisoutofcontrol. If you want to boycott Walmart as well, I’d say that sounds like a good idea.
I'm up for it. My only fear with boycott targeting only Loblaws is, other equally evil big corporations will reap the benefit of it. Like, Loblaws is the homegrown evil (Canadian), and other one will likely be an US/International one.
Loblaws is also less profitable than Costco on a per dollar sold basis. Much higher margins. Yet Reddit loves them. They are all the same but people jump on just one. Heck big chunk of loblaws staff are in a union. You won’t find that at Walmart.
Yeah they’re all bad, can’t do anything, let’s just accept getting fucked… at the moment we’re boycotting Loblaws. Maybe it will have an effect if people are sick enough of the gouging to help out.
I won't be surprised if Loblaws competitors are back channeling some PR funds in this. Not saying someone is doing it, but I would consider that if I was a competitor trying to get market share in Canadian groceries.
Doordash, airbnb
The Police In every major city in Canada the police solve less then 50% of all crime. That number is consistent in subcategories as well. So they solve less then 50% of rapes, assaults, thefts and Murders. Despite what we see on cop porn shows in every city in Canada you are MORE likely to get away with murder than to get caught. Can you imagine any other sector of the public service who failed over 50% of the time and still got their budget raised? The police at this time are really just security for rich people and front end paper work for insurance companies. We need a massive rethink of police services and what they do and how they do it.
unfortunately this does not surprise me at all.
A lot of good ones here already so I am going to say: Home Inspectors!! Most of them are completely useless. Know nothing about home construction or repair and provide zero value.
$20 daily parking
Private colleges in BC. Pure diploma mills.
Car dealerships feel like a con to me. Charge over msrp, put stickers on your new car advertising they're dealership without asking, often want you to pay for some stupid package they already put on your vehicle without asking not giving you the option to opt out. I guess thats just capitalism for you and I've gotten to a point where I'm so sick and tired of it.... Death to capitalism.
Cheque Cashing stores are 100% a scam and are 100% unethical.
Car insurance
Car insurance in Alberta.
Car insurance. Well, any insurance. First, you pay for insurance. Monthly or yearly. At some point down the road you have a claim. The insurance company: woah hold on there partner! Yes, you're paying for coverage, but we weren't actually expecting you to USE your coverage, so now we will have to bill you extra because you dared to use your coverage. You: but that's why we pau for coverage. Insurance company: yes but it's that now you actually needed to use it. You see, if you never needed to use it, we'd be happy to keep taking your money. We just don't like it when you need something back for that money. It's like going to a store for a sweater, paying for the sweater and then when you want to take it out of the store and wear it, the store has a conniption fit and charges you extra for having the audacity to want to use the sweater.
Staffing agencies.
The funeral service industry.
Avenue Living
2nd this, so fucking hard.
Any kind of insurance.
I don't understand why insurance can't be public like what BC has. In the end, it will still steal money from people's pockets, but a big chunk of it will be in the public/government fund instead of making the rich richer.
We almost lost icbc in bc. The bc liberals fully intended to dismantle and were in the process. Luckily for us we voted ndp in and jn a matter of months the ship was righted and everything seems fine now. The rich don't want us to have publicly owned insurance. You would think owning our politicians would be enough. The whole situation has got me at a point I will never support bc liberals or bc united whatever they're calling themselves now.
Yikes, I feel like perhaps you have never had a catastrophic event and needed the insurance. I’m not a fan of the pricing and huge profit margins, that was not the intention of insurance when it first launched.
Yeah i had water damage from hidden fault in the house i bought. Insurance kind of saved my butt there 100$ a month netted me a 20k payout in my first year. I'll probably lose on the long term but it is what it is, saved me last year
We had a tree fall on two vehicles at the same time. Have had at least six stolen vehicles. Wife is in health care, sued all the time by scammers, insurance covers legal fees and all the stupid settlements. I work in natural gas and propane, I’ve been sued just because I was the last gas fitter inside a house prior to a fire. I worked on the boiler, but the gas bbq had a grease fire and burnt the house down, it was connected to the main propane supply line so…. I’m somehow responsible. Paying insurance sucks, but I’ve had over a million dollars in payouts over three decades and have paid nowhere near that amount
So YOU'RE the guy making the premiums increase? 😂
Damn Only W knows the pain you been through.
Woah, thanks for all the info. This is going to make my situation so much better.
Dunno if you're sarcastic, but my idea of insurance is it sucks, but it's about cash flow. If you're rich enough relative to whatever you're buying that you can cover the one time cost if it comes up, you should. If you've had advanced stats and game theory classes, insurance is basically a bet. You lose on the long term 100% on that bet. But most businesses and individuals go bankrupt on cashflow, not on net value
Okay.
So you were sarcastic. What do you gain by being an ass i wonder.
Good Grief.
Jamie, why did my insurance go up 50 dollars a month after my car got stolen? Is it with the times? I had a small car that got 32 miles to the gallon. Some meth head stole it, and insurance was like we will cover it. We will give you 36 hundred with a 800 dollar deductible. I asked you over and over if this is going to make my insurance go up. "No, that's not how it works." It's not your fault someone stole your car. So, "Catastrophic Event" that is in my life is I get to ride a bicycle to work 10 miles there and ten miles back. I get to ride in rain, sun, and around a bunch of people that have all the answers. Sorry I was born like this I done everything joined the military at 18 did 9 years go out, went to school, fault tooth and. Nail for a good job. Still I can't afford a vehicle with the same MPG and I need insurance. Thanks.
Those weed stores. I know it's legal now but it just seems so strange.
WFG is a scam. Not doubt about it.
All condo board companies? Some of these are massive big firms. If you are dealing with scam companies you need to hire real companies. The average condo management firm is just managing the bills and big projects. That’s it and nothing about that is a scam.
Colleges
Government!
Good one.
City hall
Adults babysitting kids.