"I Wish I Were Kidding": 55 Industry Secrets That Left People Feeling Scammed

As a teacher I'm convinced most educational technology companies are scams. Can we please go back to pencil and paper ffs.

I work in corporate finance. Wealth managers are the biggest scam because they basically charge you insane fees just to do way worse than a boring index fund. Don't pay some guy in a suit to guess the market when you can literally just buy index funds yourself for free.

Not a scam per se but most people will go to physical therapy “mills” where your PT is seeing 3-4 people an hour and you get no individual time or attention. They get handed a list of exercises to do in a corner with limited supervision and then wonder why they didn’t get better. Quality clinics exist but are tougher to find and the average person wouldn’t know that you don’t have to just go wherever your doctor sends you.

That gallon of laundry detergent that you just paid $82 for is the same exact detergent that sells for $8 in a cardboard carton. I make the stuff and know exactly what goes into it.

Not related directly to my industry, but very close to it: academic journal articles. Most viewers need to pay for access to view the articles and most authors need to pay to submit articles.

They are normally reviewed by experts for free and print journals are slowly dying out. So where is the money going?

Optimistically, things are shifting slowly to be better with more open access and wider availability. And most authors will gladly give you the article for free if you ask them directly. However, the system is still broken.

Charcoal toothpaste. It’s abrasive and strips enamel. Teeth *may* appear whiter short term but it promotes sensitivity and decay long term.

As a state design engineer its the "there isnt enough money for raises or new hires". Yet we have more work than we can handle so we consult out projects to private consultants who get paid double and do terrible quality work. Since their work is so poor we pay them again to redo it. They end up making triple on most jobs. And yet there is still that stereotype that "state workers are lazy".

10+ years in restaurant. Majority of food came packaged from big vendors like Sysco. Heat up, put on a plate, serve.

“Organic” Dry Cleaning.

This type of dry cleaning uses a chemical called Solvon K4. It is ostensibly made from corn so it can be called organic. That does not mean the chemical is better for you or the environment. It’s known in the industry for having an incredibly powerful smell that can literally cause dry cleaning technicians to pass out if they get too much of a whiff.

Normal, modern hydrocarbon dry cleaning chemicals definitely work better and are probably just as good if not better for you.

I work for a grocery chain, and we keep advertising “simply low prices” when grocery prices have never been higher, and they continue to climb. I don’t give a darn if I get in trouble for telling customers about it, I’ll tell them flat out how full of bull it is.

Standardized pricing by Private equity firms in the HVAC/Plumbing industry.

For example, Plumbing company A, Plumbing company B and Plumbing company C are all owned and managed by the same parent company.

Jon doe call’s plumbing company A because he has a leaky faucet that needs to be fixed, they come out, take a look and give him a ridiculous price quote that he can barely afford, he decline’s.

Jon doe call’s Plumbing company B to come out and look at the same leaky faucet unaware that both plumbing company A and Plumbing Company B are owned by the same parent company, they give him a price quote in the same ballpark as Plumbing company A.

At some point, Jon doe caves, pays and gets ripped off or he decides to DIY it.

Im an Electrician, i mostly work on new commercial construction projects, national chain restaurants, gas stations, banks ect. PE is pretty much non existent in this space but on the resi/service side of things i know PE has gained a solid foothold, it just hasn’t progressed as badly as it has in the HVAC/Plumbing industry.

For the love of god, if you’re in the trades, get licensed/certified.

Title Insurance. Most insurance pays out over 80 percent of all the money they bring in. Life insurance is 96 percent.


Title insurance is like 3 to 5 percent. And they will fight you like hell. Had a client buy a house and someone came forward and sued them based on saying they had ownership.


"We cant get involved because of ongoing litigation",,, like,,  um,,, isnt that what the insurance is for!

The Plastics and Oil industry where they put the number of what types of plastic inside a triangle very similar to the recycle symbol and people just think it can be recycled when the fact is that only #1 and #2 can be recycled in most places. Anything else put in the recyclables is just contaminating it so it ends up in the landfill anyway. The only other type that can be recycled in very limited places is #5. It is their way of obfuscating just how much plastic waste they're actually producing.

I work in the court system in the US, talking to police or taking a polygraph test or submitting to physical exams and blood tests without a warrant to prove your innocence is ALWAYS a mistake. Almost all of the cases I've seen go to trial and come back with a guilty verdict are because the defendant talked to police without a lawyer or submitted to tests without a warrant. I'm not an attorney and cannot give legal advice, but PLEASE exercise your right to silence.

I was an adjuster for 36 years and it’s mostly on the job training. The industry admits to 25% of claims being settled incorrectly, I suspect it’s closer to 50%.

I used to work in "big" philanthropy.

So many problems to choose from.

I guess the overarching one is that, the same people who ruin economies through bad business practices that enrich themselves and their partners, are the same ones throwing scraps of money at those same problems via high end charities ... and these individuals and charities claim credit for the tiny bits of success they are able to see through the pittance provided - which happens to serve as a tax vehicle and job sector for themselves. They celebrate themselves constantly.

Very, very few exceptions.

The price increases due to supply chain and tarrifs mostly never materialize for large companies. All of the price increases on the consumer's end are basically straight profits.

Hi, chef here. "farm to table" restaurants. Pure marketing. ALL restaurants are farm to table. Where the heck do you think the food comes from? Chef's butts?

Same goes for "locally sourced". That "local source" could be the nice mom and pop farm down the road. Could also be the industrial farm 20mi away. Still "local". Even the restaurants that bother to list the "source" on the menus... Yeah... Half the time they just Google a local farm that produces that product and slap it on the menu.

Most private schools don't meaningfully provide a different education than public schools.

Private school is pretty much spending thousands to make sure your kid doesn't have to go to school around too many black or brown kids. It's like a subscription service to segregation.

Dentistry:
Note sure if qualifies as scam but dental bleaching Is very harmful for your teeths.
Lower enamel resistance to acid (opposite what fluoride does), accelerates dental pulp aging, increases dental hipersensitivity.