America is, by most accounts, a great country. Big dreams, bigger portions, and a rock-solid set of beliefs. Which is a wonderful attitude right up until you leave the country for the first time, or talk to someone who has. Then you discover that a significant number of things you assumed were just the universal cost of being alive are, in fact, upon closer inspection, completely made up.
Netizens recently asked Americans to call out the things that get presented as normal but are, stripped of context and examined in daylight, textbook scams. This is the kind of reading that will make you want to immediately audit every recurring charge on your bank statement. You have been warned. The tipping system alone is going to take a minute.
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#21
Meal delivery services. I’m fairly well off financially but refuse to use them. It’s insane how many people do. People will actually pay like $30 for a 10pc McNugget meal that gets to you like 20-30mins after it was made so it’s cold.
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#22
Pet rent.
A lot of apartments now charge "pet rent" and it's ridiculous. $20/ month per pet sounds cute, but when you have two well behaved cats, that's $480/ year in pet rent.
I live there three years, so that's $1440 in pet rent, non refundable, on top of the $400 per pet deposits I paid.
It's absolutely ludacris. If anyone should pay additional rent it's kids. They're destructive [very].
A lot of apartments now charge "pet rent" and it's ridiculous. $20/ month per pet sounds cute, but when you have two well behaved cats, that's $480/ year in pet rent.
I live there three years, so that's $1440 in pet rent, non refundable, on top of the $400 per pet deposits I paid.
It's absolutely ludacris. If anyone should pay additional rent it's kids. They're destructive [very].
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#23
Real estate agents taking around 6% of a home sale for what can be just a few days of work feels excessive.
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#24
Having a job. You bring in thousands of dollars of value a day after expenses, and then they pay you like $100 lol
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#25
Lastly, "Gun show loopholes. You can pay $10 to get in, and a lot of sales happen with basically just a handshake. Someone I know was able to buy a rifle at 10 years old after a quick conversation and no real oversight. How is that allowed?
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#26
Data limits. There is nothing that requires anyone to have data limits. It's just an arbitrary system designed to get more money out of you.
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#27
Credit card transaction fees are a 1-3% tax on the entire economy, and it costs like $10 to execute a million of those transactions for those companies. I'm a software engineer. I know what kind of effort goes into this on an ongoing basis, and it blows my mind away the kind of margins that these guys get away with
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#28
Being charged extra for using a debit or credit card is ridiculous — it's already your money, or you're already paying interest to use it.
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#29
Convenience stores. Nothing convenient about paying $9 for peanuts.
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#30
Wireless companies charge 'upgrade fees' even when you're re-signing with them and committing to pay them more every month.
Anonymous
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#31
Laundry cards. They’re tied to a specific laundromat, the amounts that you’re forced to deposit are intentionally misaligned with the price of the machines. You will never get the full amount back without hassle
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#32
Restaurants make us pay hefty amounts for food which has become so sub par. We're forcibly charged for those renovations we never asked for. Why are chips/fries not included.
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#33
Paying 150 dollars to put a different color sticker on my car every year
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#34
Any interest-bearing loan whatsoever, but especially mortgages and car loans.
Probably easier to just say the entire economic system we operate under though.
Probably easier to just say the entire economic system we operate under though.
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