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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
MikeRafone · 16/03/2025 10:56

Center parks is a 15 minute city & people like it

authorities are suggesting making cities 15 minute cities for ease of getting around, just use cars for long trips

people are totally disturbed about their freedom being eroded and kept prisoner at home

twiddlingthumbs69 · 16/03/2025 10:57

All skincare apart from a basic moisturiser and tret.

Idratherbepaddleboarding · 16/03/2025 10:58

Work. Work your arse off to get a pay rise? Oh great we’ll take half of it in tax! Oh and be grateful for the 2 days off a week we give you to spend catching up on the housework you didn’t get chance to do during the week because you were too knackered by the time you got home. Oh and you’ll also need to pay to transport yourself to work and make sure you have suitable clothing. Don’t have ti to get all your work done during the working day? Just do it in the evening, and then we’ll give you more as you’re obviously on top of things!

I’m feeling very resentful this Sunday of all the things I need to do today before I get back to my crappy job tomorrow 😡 and wishing I was my Labrador who is fast asleep in a patch of sun!

MikeRafone · 16/03/2025 11:00

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Same way everything gets funded in countries that don’t charge tax

SwanFlight · 16/03/2025 11:01

The headache for me is moving items so I can dust, wipe and vacuum. Ideally I'd have an empty bedroom but for a bed, and a side table. A walk in wardrobe where I could shut the door. More stuff like that. Middle age has even got me thinking about glass display cabinets! You can do as much or as little cleaning as you like really. When we first moved we didn't really bother cleaning the kitchen floor but for sweeping. We have separate kitchen shoes. But over time, I have gotten into the habit of washing the floor every other day. We do keep dirt at bay by swapping shoes still.

Kennobi · 16/03/2025 11:02

Capitalism. At best, a Ponzi scheme. We're actually literally printing money these days.

Land ownership. This is nonsense. You're only alive for 100 years, tops. The land you say you possess has existed and will exist for millennia. It's physically impossible for you to own it.

RosesAndHellebores · 16/03/2025 11:04

That 50% of the population needs a university degree.

Purplecatshopaholic · 16/03/2025 11:05

Depends what you buy into. I’ve never cleaned a chair leg in my life and the sky hasn’t fallen in..

IHaveAlwaysLivedintheCastle · 16/03/2025 11:08

KrisAkabusi · 16/03/2025 08:09

I can honestly say I have never cleaned a chair leg in my life, or considered that any could get dirty enough to require it. Someone has definitely scammed you into unnecessary cleaning!

swear I’ve spent more Time cleaning the legs of chairs than is reasonable

I've never cleaned the legs of chairs. I've had cleaners most of the last 30 years and I'm certain they've never cleaned them either.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 16/03/2025 11:09

CheesePlantBoxes · 16/03/2025 08:36

Long mortgages.

I assumed you got a 35 year mortgage and kept it for 25 years. It was only after a few years we had a light bulb moment that we could pay more and reduce the term and pay less interest.

I know not everyone can afford to, hut it had literally never occurred to me as a thing that could happen so it felt 🤯

But yes to decluttering. I've finally lost the last stone that's been hanging around for a decade and now i need to declutter A) the suff that's too big B) the stuff that fits again but looks very dated (not all of it! Some is still very me 🙊)

But "going shopping" as a fun activity is a fools errand to me. Fine if you're on a mission to find XYZ hut I've long said goodbye to just going into town for the day to spend money because I'm now hard-core into decluttering, saving and planning for a retirement full of travel!

I first read about shopping as a ‘leisure’ activity ages ago in an American magazine*. Still news to me that you can go shopping for fun!

*Across the pond it’s ‘leezhure’ of course.

DancingFerret · 16/03/2025 11:10

Anything relentlessly advertised, while not necessarily a scam, needs to be viewed objectively.

My most recent experience of this is Pure Cremation, which is aggressively marketed via TV advertising and mailshots as a low cost alternative to a traditional funeral.

We had a family discussion last year with a very elderly relative, a lifelong avoider of funerals; he was insistent his body should simply be cremated and his ashes scattered with those of his late wife, whose ashes he had kept safe for four years. Morbid, but practical, and when the time came last month I was tasked with arranging his cremation.

It was his niece who was at his side in hospital when he died, and somehow the topic of his funeral came up at the time and she mentioned he wanted a pure cremation (this is relevant).

I rang various undertakers for quotes and eventually appointed an independent company in Bristol, where he lived. Having completed the paperwork and returned it, I received a call from them a couple of days later. They'd gone to collect him from the hospital and been told it was Pure Cremation who'd been appointed. Confusion reigned for a couple of hours.

It turned out his niece, having heard only of Pure Cremation (the company) through their advertising, didn't realise pure cremation (the process) is offered by many undertakers.

Pure Cremation's quote was in excess of £1600, I paid £975 for exactly the same service.

DYOR often offers significant savings.

(Edited for "fat fingers".)

WingBingo · 16/03/2025 11:10

Kitchen shoes. It’s a scam.

ParrotParty · 16/03/2025 11:12

Catza · 16/03/2025 07:50

Most things which are sold as capitalist heaven are scam. Especially when it comes to raising children. "Kids are expensive" - no, they are not. Childcare is expensive, kids can cost very little money. Babies don't need an automatic bottom wiper with built in Bluetooth heart monitor slash bottle warmer. Teenagers don't need the latest iPhone and driving lessons as soon as they start secondary school. Life is definitely better with just one suitcase of stuff (I am currently away for 8 weeks with a little carry-on. Something I do every year). 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?!
Multiple streaming service subscriptions just to send you into choice paralysis...
Storage solutions (clue - if you need shit to store shit, you have too much shit). Storage units, for that matter. If you pay for one, when was the last time you went there? Do you even remember what's in it?
Mobile phone cameras. We worry so much about documenting every experience we forget to actually experience it...
I can go on.

Children are expensive to an extent.
Healthy food, clubs, holidays with clubs and school, music lessons, swimming lessons, bikes, holidays with family, trips and activities, money to go out with friends etc. Whilst they're young or if you really restrict what they experience it can be cheap, but to give them a childhood with experiences and opportunities isn't cheap.

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

Echobelly · 16/03/2025 11:14

Free market capitalism... yeah, it seemed to be working for people like me and my family for the last few decades, but it isn't anymore, and now it's eating our future and our kids' future. The middle class as an economic and political force are being radically disempowered with each generation.

I used to feel like someone like me being 'anti capitalist' was like turkeys voting for Christmas, but honestly it is only serving the billionaires now and we're seeing where this ends up with what's happening in America right now. The richest men are going to destroy a strong economy and hundreds of millions of people's lives because they just want it all and people still believe something's going to 'trickle down' to them and it's therefore right to let the richest get richer.

Sorry, not very light hearted!

MagdaLenor · 16/03/2025 11:14

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

You did, I'm just wondering why, but whatever.

LushLemonTart · 16/03/2025 11:15

Hillcrest2022 · 16/03/2025 08:55

Concert tickets, particularly in large arenas where the performer is so far away and tiny on stage you end up just watching them om the big screens. Even the cheap' seats run into hundreds of pounds!

We were going to see a famous singer this year. With travel accommodation and 200 a ticket was going to be at least £700. We went to see a tribute instead for 25 a ticket. They were amazing. Our seats at real one would have been so far back could be anyone albeit for the screens.

When I saw Michael jackson he was very far away but I don't regret that. The atmosphere was amazing.

MagdaLenor · 16/03/2025 11:15

WingBingo · 16/03/2025 11:10

Kitchen shoes. It’s a scam.

What on earth are kitchen shoes?!

MikeRafone · 16/03/2025 11:17

most stuff on temp and TikTok shop - stuff you don't need and will last 5 minutes

bit like the betterware catalogue, full of items you don't need

PlusOneThousand · 16/03/2025 11:21

Weddings, good God. I am currently planning mine and the wedding planner (needed because it’s abroad in a country one of us is from) keeps trying to upsell me on things like renting designer chairs and sending long impassioned texts about how other couples are hunting for said chairs and she is stressed. Absolutely not.

AgnesX · 16/03/2025 11:28

MikeRafone · 16/03/2025 11:00

Same way everything gets funded in countries that don’t charge tax

Which countries are they?

Treesandsheepeverywhere · 16/03/2025 11:31

Fairyliz · 16/03/2025 06:58

I don’t think it’s the size of the house, more all of the stuff we have in them. Realistically how long would it take to clean an empty room?
Take handbags as an example. As a young woman I had a smart leather one for work, a canvas one for casual and a little clutch for going out. I used them until they wore out then replaced them.
Now I must have about 20 bags taking up space, collecting dust etc so cleaning takes much longer.
Perhaps I need to get off MN and start decluttering.

I saw a lady with a worn leather handbag. The good quality type that's retained its shape and the perfect size, not too small, not too big.
First thing I thought was how her life must be so well organised.
Didn't fall for the trends and to be fair, she seemed old monied.

I had one handbag growing up then started the greed😅, but have since downsized to 3.

I think it's what you get sucked into OP.

FrozenFeathers · 16/03/2025 11:33

Cleaning is a scam. It's annoying, boring, unrewarding, relentless and when you're done it all just gets dirty again.

Mightymoog · 16/03/2025 11:33

MikeRafone · 16/03/2025 10:56

Center parks is a 15 minute city & people like it

authorities are suggesting making cities 15 minute cities for ease of getting around, just use cars for long trips

people are totally disturbed about their freedom being eroded and kept prisoner at home

center parcs the holiday park?
I'm confused. Are you saying people would be happy with 15 minute cities because some people like center parcs?

24namechange · 16/03/2025 11:33

Weddings are ultimate scam. We did the whole works 10 years ago for ours and I CRINGE looking back! I could only stomach about 10 minutes of the wedding DVD that we paid a fortune for. I have declined most of the invites we’ve gotten in recent years. I will send a card and cash gift but cannot bring myself to sit through one and watch people I know/love getting fleeced.