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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:
FrozenFeathers · 16/03/2025 11:34

Oh, I got another one.

Female pockets are a scam. They seem largely decorative, hardly anything fits in there and you still need a damn purse if you are gone for the day. Ultimate scam!

WellsAndThistles · 16/03/2025 11:34

Those white Mercedes cars that every working class but thinks they're middle class, Mum's drive around in are a scam imo.

Just get buy second hand Fiesta and stop trying to impress people with your imaginary wealth via car finance.

Crunchymum · 16/03/2025 11:35

Funerals are surely the ultimate scam?

IHaveAlwaysLivedintheCastle · 16/03/2025 11:38

AgnesX · 16/03/2025 11:28

Which countries are they?

Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, the United Arab Emirates, Vanuatu, Brunei, Bahrain, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Monaco, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Somalia, and Western Sahara.

17 countries out of the entire world. Several not democracies and funded by vast oil wealth. Others funded by being offshore investment havens.

3rdtimeinflorida · 16/03/2025 11:39

Banks that charge a monthly fee on your account to get cash back.
My bank says “you’ve earned £15 this month” - well I haven’t have I - take off the £3 you charge me and it’s actually £12.

SwanFlight · 16/03/2025 11:41

There's the energy scam, while we have a larger population. Just think about the amount of KW that we use now compared to say the 80s/90s. We had 100w bulbs in each room. Now we have low energy devices and get scammed with standing charges.

Water scam, citizens shouldn't have to pay for water as long as we aren't wasteful or polluters.

Packaging scam, we don't want all these plastics, and all plastics can be recycled, if the infrastructure exists, and we have better guidelines and systems in place. But why let companies sell this crap in the first place.

Paint. We are daubing pollutants onto our walls in our home when a bit of lime wash would do and be healthier. Who cleans this pollution up?

Farming and agriculture scam, they pollute the waterways, and the plebs are left to clean it up.

Car scam, most people could use a small electrified vehicles for the majority of journeys, but there is no revenue to be made that way.

Toilet scam, the greenest toilet is probably shitting in a bucket of sawdust and throwing it on a compost pile. But even a task as simple as that has been made overly complicated with mandatory sewerage system rental.

Cleaning product scam, there's something like a brand in America for soda crystals, where it's repackaged into about 10 different products, one for the kitchen, one for the bathroom etc. When all you need is soda crystals. And nothing much else. There's a whole load of hazardous materials filling supermarket isles for no good reason.

Pharmaceutical scam, cheaper to load people up with blood thinners than have them live a healthier lifestyle.

Meat scam, it takes a silly amount of energy to feed and sustain an animal that you then eat. Why grow fields and fields of food for animals when we could just eat those foods or grow alternatives instead? And why subsidise meat and dairy instead of vegetables? Why can I buy a pack of sausages for the price of a pepper and an avocado?

WingBingo · 16/03/2025 11:42

MagdaLenor · 16/03/2025 11:15

What on earth are kitchen shoes?!

No idea. Someone mentioned up thread that they have then.

CraicBird · 16/03/2025 11:43

Women’s lib.

We were told in the 60s that women working like men do would bring about a fairer society where the sexes were equally valued, and split all activities.

It hasn’t, it’s resulted in a society where women typically still do the majority of caring work and carrying of the mental load, PLUS they’re now expected to work and financially contribute as much as men. Two income households have driven up the demand for cars, resulted in higher housing and mortgage costs, and has created the ludicrous childcare market which seems to serve precisely nobody (and I’m including childcare workers in that!).

(And I’m posting this predominantly tongue-in-cheek but it’s a niggling annoyance! I work and love being independent and my husband is one of those people who does more than his fair share, but I see so many women around me broken my the constant juggling they’re not expected to do in the name of equality).

justasking111 · 16/03/2025 11:46

We downsized from a large country house. Most of the furniture had to go. I had a purge of everything for weeks on end boxing up the good stuff, binned the rest. Our local hospice came in a big van to take it all away.

It's freeing. I don't miss the cleaning at all.

LongDarkTeatime · 16/03/2025 11:48

Brexit
(except I knew it was a scam, it’s just the in-laws that have taken years to realise)

JohnPrescottsPyjamas · 16/03/2025 11:49

Bottled water.

We've all been conned into thinking that we need to hydrate ourselves constantly and big business has tapped (see what I did there?) into the scam by convincing us that extortionately priced spring water or expensively filtered water is somehow healthier whilst we’re doing it.

There was an experiment several years ago on TV where they got identical adult twins, for 10 days, to either constantly drink water as we are encouraged to do, and the other one to only drink when she felt had the need to. At the end there was no difference whatsoever in skin clarity, texture or health benefits. There didn’t appear to be any need to additionally ‘flush’ out our kidneys as we are told, as it’s a perfectly normal process that our bodies just get on with regardless. The conclusion the experts came to was that unless you are exercising or sweating, there appears to be little benefit in consuming large amounts of additional water as your body just pees it away. Just drink when you’re thirsty, not set a target of how much you must consume.

godmum56 · 16/03/2025 11:50

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!

this. Is wiping chairlegs and washing walls actually a thing? Full disclosure. I do chase staircase cobwebs with a duster on a really really long pole and a cordless vac

Angrymum22 · 16/03/2025 11:52

Three-quarter length sleeves. I hate them. They save money for the clothing industry. I can’t see the point of them, if it’s cold your lower arms freeze, if it’s warm you end up shoving them up your arms.

godmum56 · 16/03/2025 11:52

3rdtimeinflorida · 16/03/2025 11:39

Banks that charge a monthly fee on your account to get cash back.
My bank says “you’ve earned £15 this month” - well I haven’t have I - take off the £3 you charge me and it’s actually £12.

my bank account is free AND I get free Disney+ and cashback

WhatterySquash · 16/03/2025 11:52

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!

Was going to post exactly this! Cleaning chair legs is bananas, I’ve never heard of it and would never do it, unless the chair had been splatted with food or something. Stop it immediately and spend the time doing something more fun!

godmum56 · 16/03/2025 11:53

twiddlingthumbs69 · 16/03/2025 10:57

All skincare apart from a basic moisturiser and tret.

what is tret?

LifeBeginsToday · 16/03/2025 11:56

Leasehold flats. I've lived in my flat for 16 years, paying £1000 per year to the landowner, to do nothing. The lease has "run short of years" with around 80 years left so last year I paid another £15,000 including legal fees to buy extra years.

Lorrymum · 16/03/2025 11:57

JohnPrescottsPyjamas · 16/03/2025 11:49

Bottled water.

We've all been conned into thinking that we need to hydrate ourselves constantly and big business has tapped (see what I did there?) into the scam by convincing us that extortionately priced spring water or expensively filtered water is somehow healthier whilst we’re doing it.

There was an experiment several years ago on TV where they got identical adult twins, for 10 days, to either constantly drink water as we are encouraged to do, and the other one to only drink when she felt had the need to. At the end there was no difference whatsoever in skin clarity, texture or health benefits. There didn’t appear to be any need to additionally ‘flush’ out our kidneys as we are told, as it’s a perfectly normal process that our bodies just get on with regardless. The conclusion the experts came to was that unless you are exercising or sweating, there appears to be little benefit in consuming large amounts of additional water as your body just pees it away. Just drink when you’re thirsty, not set a target of how much you must consume.

Edited

Totally agree. I also don't understand the need for those ridiculous metal bottle people cart around with them. They are sold everywhere, with every possible logo on the side.
Or people who jog with a metal coffee container in hand. Why?

LillyPJ · 16/03/2025 11:57

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!

Yes! When I read that, I thought maybe I ought to clean my chair legs seeing as they've never been cleaned. Then I saw sense...

minnienono · 16/03/2025 12:01

Not a scam but we have been sold a “dream” and that reality just isn’t what we were sold. Bigger more expensive houses take more to clean, more to maintain, we need 2 incomes to service the mortgage and bills, less time so have to hire help which comes with more stress of course, kids in a zillion clubs keeping up with the Jones’ etc etc etc.

the simple life of yesteryear was hard work (my grandmother never owned even a washing machine, only a mangle) but I think people were less stressed despite money being a constant worry (think having to wait for the weekly wage packet to arrive home just to be able to afford to buy a loaf of bread to feed the dc, my mum, a simple bread and jam tea). My mum had one school shirt but my grandmother washed it daily drying on the line or in front of the coal stove then ironing it still damp with a coal heated iron to fully dry! Hard life but happy

LillyPJ · 16/03/2025 12:02

Shampoo scam - you really don't need to do it twice (rinse and repeat). Then conditioner scam - now you've stripped your hair of all the oils it needs to stay healthy, pay a bit more money and dollop this stuff on. That way, your hair will need washing again even sooner, so get some more shampoo...

WingBingo · 16/03/2025 12:04

JohnPrescottsPyjamas · 16/03/2025 11:49

Bottled water.

We've all been conned into thinking that we need to hydrate ourselves constantly and big business has tapped (see what I did there?) into the scam by convincing us that extortionately priced spring water or expensively filtered water is somehow healthier whilst we’re doing it.

There was an experiment several years ago on TV where they got identical adult twins, for 10 days, to either constantly drink water as we are encouraged to do, and the other one to only drink when she felt had the need to. At the end there was no difference whatsoever in skin clarity, texture or health benefits. There didn’t appear to be any need to additionally ‘flush’ out our kidneys as we are told, as it’s a perfectly normal process that our bodies just get on with regardless. The conclusion the experts came to was that unless you are exercising or sweating, there appears to be little benefit in consuming large amounts of additional water as your body just pees it away. Just drink when you’re thirsty, not set a target of how much you must consume.

Edited

Indeed. Bottled water is more expensive that petrol.

MagdaLenor · 16/03/2025 12:04

CraicBird · 16/03/2025 11:43

Women’s lib.

We were told in the 60s that women working like men do would bring about a fairer society where the sexes were equally valued, and split all activities.

It hasn’t, it’s resulted in a society where women typically still do the majority of caring work and carrying of the mental load, PLUS they’re now expected to work and financially contribute as much as men. Two income households have driven up the demand for cars, resulted in higher housing and mortgage costs, and has created the ludicrous childcare market which seems to serve precisely nobody (and I’m including childcare workers in that!).

(And I’m posting this predominantly tongue-in-cheek but it’s a niggling annoyance! I work and love being independent and my husband is one of those people who does more than his fair share, but I see so many women around me broken my the constant juggling they’re not expected to do in the name of equality).

"Women's Lib" was not a scam. Those of us campaigning for decades have seen a significant improvement in women's rights, socially, politically and economically, in spite of male pushback.
Much has been improved. That it hasn't, is not the fault of "Women's Lib", a term of derision I haven't heard since about 1978.
I'm going to have to leave this thread now because I am so angry about this. 😡

LillyPJ · 16/03/2025 12:05

Discsareshit · 16/03/2025 10:30

What kind of events are you expected at?

I was thinking of weddings and funerals. I don't enjoy either and don't go if I can avoid them.

Trovindia · 16/03/2025 12:07

Simonjt · 16/03/2025 07:26

Being an adult, why did grown ups sell it as a really exciting thing?!

I tell my kids that! It's not exciting! They have so much more freedom than I do!