Would you quit a job if you found out it was scamming people?

[Moralcompass9]

I'm really trying not to be too outing here so sorry if I end up drip feeding.

As in they massively overcharge customers and are not up front about prices, rely on vulnerable and naive people who will just pay the charges.
The ones who question will just get lied to.

It's how it's always been apparently, nobody who works there seems to care that much about what we do as long as they get paid.

Haven't been there long.

Of course you need to leave.

This will destroy your mental health slowly but surely.

You can be sure customers are leaving poor reviews about this company online/on social media and it will probably be known within whatever industry you are in that they are crooks and this might affect you ability to find a job with another company in that particular sector if you remain associated with them for too long.

Report them as well.

I have left a job because they didnt deliver what they promised to vulnerable people. I made sure I called the boss a despicable little shit before I left.

Yes and I did! Worked in a garage where the owner was ripping people off with services and other jobs. Final straw among many other things was when I knew he had done a basic service but he made me charge the customer for a full....not only a huge difference in price but the customer hadn't had anything checked that he claimed he had. I did mention why in my resignation letter. He had undoubtedly done this many times, I happened to find out that time because I ordered the service kit from the supplier. Looking back I can see from the parts I ended sending back that he would claim he had changed discs/pads he hadn't. Total scum bag. I wish he wasn't still in business but sadly he is.

An ex worked for a company (before we met) that was scamming the vulnerable/elderly.

The company he worked for would be the top search on google when you typed in ‘hotpoint/Dyson/British Gas customer service etc. but all it was was a premium rate phone number for the staff at the call centre to enter in the ‘customers’ query/details on the proper website for a call back. They had to keep them on the phone for 15 minutes and if they did they got a £10 bonus.

He boasted to me how much he made during that time and the penny never dropped that by working there he was also scamming these poor people! He thought it was just a dodgy company and I thought he had dodgy morals.

Do you sell iphones?

Yes I would if I was in a position to do so. If I couldn’t afford it then I would be looking for a new job ASAP

I would never work for scammers of vulnerable people. My god, that is worse than tobacco, oil companies, pharma, climate polluters - at least those companies are who they say they are.

A person who need to have a truly skewed moral compass to take a job knowing that they are making money by deceiving people. Where do you draw the line after that?

@Moralcompass9

The customers are paying for a service (which they do get) the prices are just massively bumped up and the charges aren't up front

With all due respect, is that not the same with most businesses, and partly how companies make profits ?

@ChiefWiggumsBoy

I have a family. I don’t have the luxury of quitting a job that betrays my morals, no matter how much I’d like to unfortunately.

Most people have a family, or at least financial commitments. You could apply for other jobs, the same as other people do.

Quit and then post the company's name so we can avoid them too?

If you don't quit, you're complicit.
If you're really not okay with it, you'll stop working for them but if you have excuses good reasons not to quit, then maybe others - including those in charge - have their own excuses good reasons for doing what they do.

Yes, I would. I left one job because they didn't treat their customers very nicely. I got another job & left - I have a family too 🙄. They weren't scamming customers, but they would do things like when people phoned up to say 'please don't send anymore offers/mailers' as my wife Gran/Mum/Wife has died' or returned the gift offer brochures etc with 'deceased' on them, no one dealt with them, so the poor families would keep getting the offers sent out to them.

It might not sound much, unless you've been bereaved.

But @Moralcompass9 maybe if you explained in more detail we could help you decide if they are scamming people or not?! I know you don't want to 'out' yourself or them, but it would be a shame to leave a job you otherwise like if they're not actually scamming people.

I didn't get offered a job with BT because I felt uncomfortable upselling to vulnerable poor people. Retrained as a nurse suited my personality more 😂😂

Yes I have done and would do so again. Having a clear conscience and sticking to my morals and values is far more important to me than any job, but I appreciate that I say that from a place of relative privilege and that others circumstances may be different.

My previous job was like on the sense that we sold broken product and the owner knew.it. They got rid of me first before I could find another job and leave, bit hey, can't complain eventually I found another job for double the money.

It sounds as if you work for the Government!

I'm going to play devil's advocate here but I recognise that this can go too far and there's not enough info in your op to know whether that is the case. From what you have written it's not certain that there's anything actually unethical going on.

We live in a capitalist society not a socialist utopia. That means that the value of any item or service is the amount that a willing buyer will pay to a willing seller. There is no intrinsic harm in the price of any item or service being significantly higher than the actual cost of production- indeed if a company doesn't have the capacity to supply unlimited numbers then there is nothing whatsoever wrong with prices being raised to exclude those who can't afford it in order to match the volume of supply ro the volume of demand. We have a free market and if another business wants to set up shop and supply a cheaper deal thet can do so, and then prices stabilise as people shop for the best value for money.

There is nothing unethical about having business practices where different customers pay different amounts according to how well they negotiate and how much the supplier wants them as a customer, so not publishing a transparent price list is totally fine - a lot of places may publish a headline price but every customer gets a different negotiated discount and so the headline prices are somewhat meaningless. Flexible pricing isn't wrong and allows for fine-tuning the supply and demand balance. If the price offered is too high, potential customers walk away and the next customer is offered a better price.

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with companies charging more to people who don't try to haggle them down or shop around and challenge them to price match the competition. Some people want an easier life and would rather just pay the price stated than have to bother with researching whether a better deal is possible. If they are free to walk away and choose not to then they aren't being harmed.

Where it becomes harmful is if the thing being sold is something people have to have and there isn't any choice of suppliers. If that's the case then there's usually a government regulator to oversee peicing. If that's not the case then there's not a problem.

Is it a vet?

We live in a capitalist society not a socialist utopia. That means that the value of any item or service is the amount that a willing buyer will pay to a willing seller. There is no intrinsic harm in the price of any item or service being significantly higher than the actual cost of production.

I agree with this as the product we sell at work barely costs the company anything because about 95% of the costs were incurred at the R&D stage.

However I once took a job in a call centre where you phoned people in debt and got then to talk about their debts while offering them a payment plan. The thing was the charges were ridiculously high and weren't even mentioned in the phone call. A person on the plan would just end up with more debt. I decided it wasn't for me.

There's a difference between scamming (a type of fraud) and capitalism (which is being commercial).

I'd whistleblow and/or quit for scamming, but not for capitalism. You're the only one on this thread who knows which one it really is, @Moralcompass9. When in doubt, do what lets you sleep at night.

Leave and blow the whistle!

Isn't everything a scam really?
Designer furniture, wine, private dentistry, utilities, luxury food...

I reckon Op works for Zenith Windows

My daughter worked in tele sales, for a very short time. Her job was to ring up more vunerable people ie pensioners in her case, and scare them into thinking they needed some sort of security, probably over the top expensive systems. There is nothing wrong with selling an expensive product, but imo you don't ring an old person up, then go into detail about the scary ways they could be burgled, or worse. I was very proud of her walking from that job immediately.

I would certainly want to quit, but in all honesty I wouldn't if it was the only way to pay my bills. I'd be looking for another job as fast as possible.