If you do or have lived in the US, you've probably noticed some things that are (unfortunately) totally normal here are actually...fully bonkers if you think about them for more than a second. Like, "How is this even real? This is a SCAM," levels of bonkers. Well, redditor u/catlady427 decided to bring this up and ask, "What's the biggest scam in America?" Naturally, people had a lot to say. Here are 19 of the very best answers:
1.Bank fees
2.News as entertainment
3.The price of college textbooks
4.Student loans
5.Multi-level marketing
NBC
"Whatever MLM scheme my sister-in-law was peddling at Thanksgiving."
"They sell furniture and electronics type stuff to people with bad credit who can't really afford it and let them pay a small amount weekly. If people end up paying on time and pay stuff off, they will pay two or three times more than the item is worth. If they make a payment late, the item is repossessed and resold to someone else, and the first person loses all the money they paid."
"I used to be the sales manager at my local Rent-A-Center years ago. It’s a huge scam, and I feel dirty even having worked there. The worse thing I ever had to do was repossess a fridge from a single mother. She cried as she removed the items and kept saying, 'I have no where to put these. They are going to go bad.' Another one was when I had to repossess a bunk bed from two kids. They asked their dad where they were going to sleep. It’s been years, and I still think about it from time to time. Don’t rent from rent-to-own stores. Don’t give them business."
"FICO is fucking rigged. My scores dropped last week. The property management company reports my rent payments to the bureaus. The building owner changed to a different management company, who set me up as a new account. I've been here for a long time, and that account gave my report some age. Now I have a closed account hit, and a new account hit. Nothing about my credit use or risk changed, but since two other people transacted business, my score takes a hit."
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