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Original poster

Biggest scam you didn’t know was a scam

442 replies

Sillysausage2 · 16/03/2025 02:24

Lighthearted 😂
I saw an Instagram post earlier about the biggest thing you don’t realise is a scam and we all accept as normal.
We all have stories about how our parents raised 7 kids etc in a 3 bed if they were lucky, my grandparents had 9 in a 2 bed 😂
the aim for everyone now is buying or building massive houses, 3 en suites at least, we spend the weekends in Ikea, home bargain etc buying shit we don’t need and cleaning the houses with the 4 bathrooms!
I swear I’ve spent more Time cleaning the legs of chairs than is reasonable and I seem to wash the walls of my bathroom far more than people ever mentioned.
I don’t remember my mother ever cleaning the panelling on the walls.
is it all a scam? Are we busy fools?
sometimes I got to centre Parcs like places and think how simple my life would be if we al only had one suitcase each

OP posts:
meisafairy · 16/03/2025 17:24

Vanity sizing is a scam to make you feel good and spend more.

Twiglets1 · 16/03/2025 17:24

TheignT · 16/03/2025 13:04

We bought this house 30 years ago, 4 bed bathroom, ensuite, downstairs loo. The couple selling were pensioners and she said she was sick of cleaning 3 toilets for 2 people.

My kids are now grown up, we are pensioners, I know how she felt.

She shouldn’t have been cleaning 3 toilets THEY should have been sharing the cleaning especially seeing as both pensioners. Thats the real scam.

MikeRafone · 16/03/2025 17:24

AgnesX · 16/03/2025 11:28

Which countries are they?

Show quote history

Qater, Saudi, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Monaco, Oman, Bahrain, Maldives, Georgia, Singapore, Dominica, Somalia, Kuwait

MikeRafone · 16/03/2025 17:27

D4isyCh4in · 16/03/2025 16:55

Car payment plans are definitely a scam - you pay obscene amounts of money for the new car for three years and then you have to give it back. What the hell is this? What am I paying for?!
God I spotted this one a mile back. I will tell you why folk do this
A) because we all want new cars to show off in, and we can't fix them ourselves B) because its easier than trawling through the autotrader looking for a car
C) we are conditioned to have a new car every 3 years
My friend can't afford to heat her flat, yet she has a brand new Merc that she pays £250 a month for!!!

its been engineered to keep the new car sales going and prop the car industry up

rachelhere · 16/03/2025 17:28

Car servicing. Totally pointless. Have had 4 cars in 30 years of driving and they sail through mot for years usually. If something is wrong, you just get it fixed. Servicing neither identifies nor fixes anything that's wrong anyway. Must've saved tens of thousands, just never bothered.

AgnesX · 16/03/2025 17:28

MikeRafone · 16/03/2025 17:24

Qater, Saudi, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Monaco, Oman, Bahrain, Maldives, Georgia, Singapore, Dominica, Somalia, Kuwait

Show quote history

Someone got there ahead of you. Somalia is not a good example btw.

TankFlyBossW4lk · 16/03/2025 17:28

NHS England!......Not really, I was only trying to be topical

MikeRafone · 16/03/2025 17:28

Wintersgirl · 16/03/2025 17:09

Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream. it's not magic, it's just greasy and not worth £48

There is a person on TikTok who goes through all the expensive cream ingredients and then shows you the same list of ingredients in a 4.99 tub of cream

Discsareshit · 16/03/2025 17:29

quantumbutterfly · 16/03/2025 13:04

I keep seeing my mum's face in the mirror!

Show quote history

Now middle aged with thinning hair, I see my bold uncles in the mirror!

seanconneryseyebrow · 16/03/2025 17:29

rachelhere

oooh do u really think so? Doesn’t it devalue the car if you haven’t kept up to date when you sell on though?

I have a three yr old car and the service price is huge and I just don’t want to pay it right now. Maybe I shouldn’t bother?

Discsareshit · 16/03/2025 17:30

MyCatNamedCookingFat · 16/03/2025 12:51

Christmas is a huge scam.

Christmas is a wonderful cultural festival to break up the grey winter.
The consumerism around may be a scam.

Everyoneishangry · 16/03/2025 17:31

Private school

  1. Everyone is tutored
  2. Selective on entry.
  3. Serve notice on children who can’t keep up.
  4. Never mind VAT, they can adjust the fees however they like annually anyway.
It’s basically social exclusion/a very expensive private members club for kids
seanconneryseyebrow · 16/03/2025 17:34

Dentists! Absolutely robbing bastards. They did an undercover thing once and sent some bloke to ten different dentists who all said he needed loads of expensive work (he didn’t). Happened to me too. Was told I needed all sorts. Was gonna be in imminent pain without all this expensive work needing to be done. Same happened with my son. Years later - no pain.

I basically only go if I’m in pain.

rachelhere · 16/03/2025 17:34

seanconneryseyebrow maybe it devalues the car, a bit, but by how much really? If people are in the market for a second or third hand car are they going to be that bothered about full service history? Full MOT history sure but servicing has never been a factor for me buying a car!

Discsareshit · 16/03/2025 17:38

Hwi · 16/03/2025 13:27

The scam of adult education - Open University and other unis preying on the vulnerable older people by advertising all over bus shelters, promising 'a new career in your 50s' if you do a degree. I think this should be banned and actually, not only banned, but looked into for mis-advertising, mis-selling, fraud, etc. Vulnerable people in difficulties are lead to believe that the world of employment will embrace them at 50 if they did a degree. These universities are no better than scammers like Tony Robbins selling courses or lectures of 'How to become a millionaire' by running a business from your bedroom.

I had a uni mate, a fellow student, I was a 20, doing masters, she was 39, doing a PhD (European politics or something similar at the LSE) because some idiot lecturer told her 'she will get a great job in Brussels with that, plus a great life style'. She emerged with her PhD in this idiotic subject at 43, with no work experience apart from baby sitting and dog walking (she had a modest British Council grant to indulge in this folly). Obviously nobody wanted to have anything to do with her, there were plenty of 25-year olds with the same PhDs, plus languages (she had none) and she is now working for a charity, saying daily that it was all a lie, that she wasted her best years on a hollow idea, did not have a relationship/children and she regrets it all massively. Her mum, a down-to-earth seamstress was telling her it was a scam, it was idiotic to embark on a mature student's journey, that she was wasting her life opportunities, but she did not believe her at the time. Now she says she wished she did.

The Open University is wonderful!

No, they shouldn't pretend certain degrees will lead to a new career, but the same goes for all unis and all age groups. It's actually less of a problem at the OU because people don't need to give up their jobs to do it so can still earn money. The education they provide has benefits over and above finding a job.

I still have my old ACAS leaflets from the 90s promising that a degree in ANY subject was enough for a graduate career. It's a pity I can't sue them now!

Discsareshit · 16/03/2025 17:39

RosesAndHellebores · 16/03/2025 13:43

That the NHS is free. It’s the biggest scam going. It is free at the point of delivery and we all pay for it. When something is “free@ it makes complaints more difficult than they should be. For decades now almost an entire population has put up with sub-optimal standards due to misplaced gratitude. Why should the public be grateful for a service for which they have paid?

the same applies to universal free lunches for children in reception and stage one. It was dreadful when my dc were little and we paid directly. I imagine it’s still dreadful but it’s free so complaints must be difficult.

I'm not sure it being free is the reason for not many complaints. There's also the reverence for doctors. I'm sure you'll find that in pay at the point of use systems, there are still not many complaints against doctors, who are often very powerful.

Nonrienderien · 16/03/2025 17:41

seanconneryseyebrow · 16/03/2025 17:34

Dentists! Absolutely robbing bastards. They did an undercover thing once and sent some bloke to ten different dentists who all said he needed loads of expensive work (he didn’t). Happened to me too. Was told I needed all sorts. Was gonna be in imminent pain without all this expensive work needing to be done. Same happened with my son. Years later - no pain.

I basically only go if I’m in pain.

Absolute rubbish. Dentists are as much about preventative treatment as they are for curative especially for children or there wouldn't be a push for 6 monthly checkups.

Discsareshit · 16/03/2025 17:42

Ryeman · 16/03/2025 14:06

Small-time scam: fabric softener. Not needed, doesn’t do anything.

Big-time scam: paying to exercise. Yonks ago before we had such sedentary lives we did physical jobs to earn a crust. Now many of us sit at a desk all day and pay someone to facilitate us keeping fit and strong.

Edited

The kind of exercise provided by physical jobs is often very repetitive and therefore not necessarily beneficial though. Postmen get bad hips, for example. Housemaid's knee...

Discsareshit · 16/03/2025 17:49

Cattenberg · 16/03/2025 15:08

I’m annoyed that the magazines I read as a teenager and young woman persuaded me that my pale skin tone was somehow embarrassing and that I needed fake tan in the summer. These magazines were relentless in this message - for example, they shamed soap stars on the red carpet who didn’t have tanned legs.

These magazines also made me paranoid about body hair and encouraged me up spend my money shopping for clothes and cosmetics I didn’t really need.

The world around me was and still is worse than the magazines. You'd be called 'milkbottle legs' if you didn't have a tan. Now I live on the continent and have people exclaiming at how pale I am, even when I do have a bit of a tan!

There was a BBC programme with one of the van Tullekens showing that tanned women got more likes on online dating apps. Nothing has changed except awareness of skin cancer...

quantumbutterfly · 16/03/2025 17:50

Everyoneishangry · 16/03/2025 17:31

Private school

  1. Everyone is tutored
  2. Selective on entry.
  3. Serve notice on children who can’t keep up.
  4. Never mind VAT, they can adjust the fees however they like annually anyway.
It’s basically social exclusion/a very expensive private members club for kids

Don't knock it, it worked for the Middletons.

ZebedeeDougalFlorence · 16/03/2025 17:52

Ryeman · 16/03/2025 14:06

Small-time scam: fabric softener. Not needed, doesn’t do anything.

Big-time scam: paying to exercise. Yonks ago before we had such sedentary lives we did physical jobs to earn a crust. Now many of us sit at a desk all day and pay someone to facilitate us keeping fit and strong.

Edited

Yes!

A few years ago I told a friend of mine that I couldn't get fit because I couldn't afford a gym membership. He said what about going for a walk/run, doing some bodyweight exercises? Duh! For some reason it hadn't occurred to me that I didn't need the gym.

I do miss the luxury boutique gym trend, though. Does anyone remember that? I loved going to those lovely gyms with the spas and everything. Fantastic. They don't seem to exist anymore. It's all cheapgym, which is OK, but I loved that bit of luxury. And they weren't all that expensive either.

Pandimoanymum · 16/03/2025 17:53

Pudmyboy · 16/03/2025 16:28

Oh I loved the Betterware catalogue! It assumed no previous knowledge of any of it's products! So the blurb would run: 'kitchen bin: great for putting rubbish in!' 'scissors: great for cutting!' I miss it!

Show quote history

Me too. See also the Kleeneze catalogue. I still have a kitchen step stool that I bought about a hundred years ago from Kleeneze that I use every day. I also have a number of completely unnecessary Kleeneze items that verge on utterly pointless. Betterware and Kleeneze were full of stuff that you could get elsewhere, and if you couldn't it was because it was a useless item, but they were so enthusiastic about every single thing they sold it was quite uplifting 😂

mwyalchen · 16/03/2025 17:56

Small-time scam: fabric softener. Not needed, doesn’t do anything.

Don't use it due to eczema in hosuehold.

However have recently read the using it on skirting boards means less dusting - and I have recently found mine to be dusty. Could be something the OP dusting chair legs could look into.

Newhere5 · 16/03/2025 17:57

Chilliflakesontuna · 16/03/2025 11:14

Sourdough bread....

It tastes like .... Nothing

I'm sure someone cooked a really expensive batch on masse for a chain supermarket and realised they'd fucked up and forgot a key ingredient and thought "I've got an idea, wrap it in some really expensive packaging and conjure up some fluff about it being 'sourdough'"

Total scam

Sorry but no, you are wrong
It’s the only bread to eat , I love it

Bepo77 · 16/03/2025 17:57

mamaduckbone · 16/03/2025 10:53

All the billions of things that we are now supposed to celebrate / document / spend money on / post on social media:
Elf on the shelf, Christmas Eve boxes, buying your children things for Valentine's Day, gender reveals, baby showers, etc etc etc...

Omg yessss. And since when are we supposed to have engagement parties ON TOP of weddings? Do people really think we care that much about their relationships to get dressed up, buy cards/gifts, travel across town and celebrate their love TWICE?!