It doesn’t take a Nigerian prince to separate a fool and his money.
While the notorious fake investment email from African royalty still manages to fleece dupes to the tune of about $700,000 a year, there are much more subtle shakedowns that we just accept on a daily basis.
On that note, this Reddit post went massively viral overnight, racking up more than 46,000 comments in the process:
Here are some of the most popular responses:
Cable TV
The dreaded cable guy.
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“The whole idea of paying was to create a revenue stream separate from that of marketing. There are a few out there (HBO, I think) but generally we pay to access the content and still have to spend 20% of the time sitting through commercials.”
Bottled water
FYI… tap water’s free.
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“Like Dasani. Especially in places like an amusement park that marks up the price a shocking amount. Also the average markup of bottled water is 4000%, which is f***ing outrageous, bc water is literally free most places.”
Hospitals
Don’t. Get. Sick.
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“I recently got an ER bill with itemized prices for the tests I had (a couple hundred bucks total) and then $2600 for ’emergency room.’ Like, all the actual medical things I had done had already been listed. They just tacked this on. It’s like going to a restaurant and getting a bill that says hamburger $8, coffee $2, salad $4, diner $65. “
Ticketmaster
Remember concerts?
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“Basically scammers adding huge mark ups but making it impossible to use anyone else.”
College tuition
Fight on?
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“Why aren’t they held to a competitive pricing model as opposed to having to take out a mortgage to go to school? Everyone wants to talk about government paying for college education, but there is no conversation on why is it that expensive anyway? Especially when some unis have endowments in the billions that just the interest on those funds could literally pay the tuition for everyone that goes through the door.“
Funerals
Dying is expensive.
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“The funeral industry has insane pricing. Some of the funeral homes and vendors are even predatory, getting grieving families to pay upwards of tens of thousands of dollars, because ‘that’s what the deceased would have wanted.’”
Ink cartridges
Wait… how much?
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“Printer companies make barely any profit off of actual printers, they’re just vessels to make you buy unreasonably priced cartridges.”
Diamond rings
One person’s best friend, another’s nightmare.
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“Basically the entire wedding industry. Starting a new life together? Why not plunge yourselves into thousands of dollars of debt?”
Share some of your own in the comments below.