106 Dirty Business Tactics That You May Not Know Exist

Worked in a family owned pharmacy for a few years. Find yourself a family owned pharmacy if you a) don't want to go through your insurance b) don't have insurance or c) you'd like to support the working class and not walmart or CVS. People would call us and ask for a cash price for their medication. We would be hundreds of dollars cheaper than walmart on almost every prescription. I remember quoting someone a 90 day medication at $20 and they said walmart was going to charge $250. The reason I said the things about not going through insurance is because insurance companies tell the pharmacy how much to charge you and tell the pharmacy how much the medications cost. Shit, add insurance companies to this list. Family owned pharmacies are losing so much money because of the way insurance companies work.

Making you pay more for printing your own damn tickets at home.
StubHub, ticketmaster etc.

The "closing down" sale in the shop that never closes down. It's just in closing down sale mode continuously.
I'm amazed shops are allowed to get away with this.

In France it's hard to fire or lay off people, so when big companies need to clean house a bit, they move the office to a new location quite distant from the current one. In the process they reduce the office size from 50,000 seats to 30,000 because they've estimated that amount of people will resign rather than endure a 4 hours commute... But officially "totally you still have your job if you want, we are not laying you off, but I need you in the office everyday... Or you could resign if you don't like the new location..."

"We have many more clients interested in this limited offer."

It's not dirty as it's legal but there is a reason that stores ask you to donate some amount to a charity or fund. They can use your donation to help them get a tax write off.

Add to that labelling things like "0% cholesterol!" or "Free from saturated fats!" on foods that would never normally contain or be expected to contain those things. Bonus points if it's something really unhealthy like boiled sweets.

Offering insurance on anything that does not have the potential to be financially debilitating. "Want to insure your DVD rental?" Fuck off.

When my grandmother was in the hospital, her landscaper and handyman both contacted me to tell me she hadn't paid them and they'd been trying to to reach her and on and on. I'd already paid both bills from her account and when I questioned them, they remembered real quick.

Real estate gurus who sell their courses online in downloadable digital format and say that we must buy now since they "only have a few courses remaining and when they're gone, they're gone!". How the f*ck do they run out of digital, downloadable courses? Do their computers run out of binary 1's and 0's after so many downloads? Sounds stupid but people fall for this ploy regularly.

Some companies on Amazon will offer to refund your purchase of their item on paypal if you give them a good review. That way it still looks like a varified purchase through Amazon.

Stop pre-ordering unfinished games that stay in beta indefinitely

When my friends and I rented our first house in college, the landlord told us that he had three different groups of people walking through the house the next couple of days, essentially getting us to sign the lease as quickly as we could. We were excited, so we didn't think much about it.
Fast forward to two years later. A group of college guys were walking through the rental with the landlord. I pulled one aside and chatted with him a bit about the downsides of the property that I felt I couldn't say in front of the landlord. It came up in conversation that there were 'three other groups walking through in the next couple of days'. There weren't (the landlord was obligated to tell us about people walking through).
The bastard tried to take advantage of them the same way that he did with us two years prior.

My grandfather used to keep doves in his balcony and then sell them on Sunday market. Later the same doves would fly back to him.

Receipts with "disappearing ink". You know, the ones that scribe with heat, and then completely fade away in a couple of months.
Any receipt of significant value gets scanned as soon as i bring it home. (This includes warranties and other long-term documentation. )

I worked in the Oil and Gas industry for a brand marketing internship in college. This company owned a franchised brand and an in-house brand. They would target "New Americans" which were mostly pakistanis or people who smoke limited english and sell them on the idea of owning their own business. Franchising for the company was much cheaper than investing in building their in-house brand. A benefit in the in house brand however was since they had more control over the costs via vertical integration they were able to undercut competitors on gasoline prices.
So the brand marketers would target new Americans and have them invest their own money in opening up a gas station. If the gas station did well this would be a "market test" for the viability of the in house brand. The in house brand would then find a spot typically across the street from the franchise and build their own station. If the franchise didn't do what the in-house brand wanted they would begin undercutting the station on gasoline prices until they were run out of business due to not being able to shoulder the burden of cost like the in-house brand could.
Once the station was gone, prices would rise again and the in-house brand would benefit from not splitting traffic like before.
I figured this out about half way through my internship and essentially just checked out, I was paid well but it was the worst I've ever felt as an employee.

Saturation competition. A way for bigger, richer Corps to kill smaller local businesses.
Open so many Starbucks (or whatever store) in the area that noone can make money, since there's just way too few customers to go around.
Soak up the loses for a few years with your deep pockets until all the local stores have gone out of business.
Shut down excess stores once you're the only player in town.

A car dealership (this list exists for them) is advertising an old truck for $2,500. I go there to check it out and hear a looooong story about...
How perfect it is, how much the previous owner hated to trade it in after so many years of faithful service, how he's loved it and taken such great care of it, how well it has always run for the owner and the dealership (they've only had to change the oil filter on it and it still runs perfectly!) and how it's just taking up space in their parking lot and they need to get rid of it.
Great! We take it for a test drive, no problems. Great! We'll have it!
So we sit down to make the purchase...It's over $5,000, doubled in price! On top of the $2,500 car, there's...
$850 in tax, tag and title fees
(Actual state tax + state fees are around $300)
$650 in maintenance and repairs
"I thought it didn't need any work...you only had to change the oil filter?"
"Yeah....well, uh.......we have to wash it, too!"
$600 shipping/delivery charge
"This was a trade in! It literally landed on your doorstep! "
$500 dealership fee
"It's just been sitting in the parking lot. Since this is separate from the maintenance fee, I assume this is just paying you and the sales people directly, but you're only making this transaction harder for me."

At the end, I paid $2,500 because they know the rest of the charges are more lies than the truck can haul.

Giving someone a promotion just to get them back on a probationary period so they can be fired without cause or repercussion.
Happened to my wife recently. They were able to twist some information to make her look bad enough to can, and with no risk of legal recourse because she was on probation with her new position. Wife said they did the exact same thing to someone within the past year; guy won employee or the year, was promoted and promptly fired.

Pet stores will lie to convince you that their pets come from responsible breeders. They never do, a responsible breeder will always want to screen potential buyers themselves. They would NEVER trust a petstore to find a suitable home for their puppies.
Also their prices are usually more expensive than a purebred dog from a reputable breeder who does health tests to insure the genetic health and physical health of the dog (even if its invisible to a naked eye). A vet check is NOT a health check, theyre more advanced, including xrays of parents, having the parents seen by board certified opthamologists etc.