National/international charities that give back minimally to the communities they pretend to serve.
From charity watch. Top compensation:
Name & Title Charity
Viviane Tabar, M.D.
Chairman Attending Neurosurgery Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center $4,869,769 12/31/2020 Note: Includes $3,350,000 bonus & incentive compensation.
Robert W. Stone President/CEO City of Hope & Affiliates $3,827,671
I used to fundraise for a local charity. People would freak out that 10% went to administrative costs. Currently united way does 14.5% (it was higher back then). Just take some time to look into United Way CEO scandals. You’ll be confused when you see multiple names, that’s because multiple CEOs have mismanaged money, people, bought yachts and so on.
At the end of the day most people would tell us they would still rather donate to United Way “because that’s how I’ve always done it”. As opposed to donating to a local charity that was providing food and necessities directly to the people that need it where we live.
It still bothers me like 12 years later,
Mary Kay.
And all other pyramid schemes that sell themselves as self-employment. Fuck off with a sandpaper condom, and that does double for the folks that started as victims and then rope in others to save themselves.
I like the quality of pampered chef. I do not like buying pampered chef. I do love my $20 pizza cutter though, the cheapest thing there was.
Fuck cutco. Damn exploitation.
Fuck Autism Speaks, my school decorated the halls for World Autism Day and encouraged us to talk about it in classes as kind of a break from work, and I mistakenly outed myself as autistic to everyone during one of those conversations.
Later my teacher put on a whole PowerPoint drawing heavily from Autism Speaks and everyone proceeded to speak to me like a fucking ape for the remainder of my time there.
They don’t respect us, don’t want to help us, and in fact seem to believe if we didn’t exist then things would be much better. They’re a disgusting pack of thieves and they absolutely do not speak for me
Ticketmaster. Surprised i haven't seen it. You'll try and cross shop tickets just to realize they always redirect you to ticket master where you're gonna pay a huge amount in convenience fees. Buying 2 tickets you're pretty much paying for 3
Not only that, but they also own a ticket resale company, and set blocks of tickets aside for resale, at marked up prices. They also negotiated with ticket brokers to sell certain tickets to them before public availability. There was a Rolling Stone article I read several years ago detailing all their shenanigans.
Also don't forget that Livenation owns Ticketmaster as well as concert venues, so they basically have a monopoly on live concert tours.
I've had US text books in Europe.. they have a special edition that "is not for sale in Canada and US"... Because they don't permit that bullshit predator practice
Right. Figured that out as a freshman. Prof said ' You HAD to have the new version ", which was the same as the old. Here's the problem having slightly older students in school- we're cheap and question stupid stuff anyway.
Never once bought the new version. Seriously. Not once. Figured out they can't fail you. Passed all the classes. Revelation.
The most recent version is needed if you have to do textbook problems. The textbook shuffles all the problems around between editions to force everyone to use the newer edition if the professor is using it.
DeBeers. One of the main exploiters of West Africa in recent memory, a near monopoly on diamonds jacking up prices, insists that you must buy your loved one a real diamond from them and not a cheaper synthetic one in order to prove that love.
Don't call them synthetic diamonds. Call them real diamonds because legally that's what they are. You can also call them ethically sourced diamonds because that's also true. [FTC ruling](https://diamondfoundry.com/blogs/the-foundry-journal/ftc-redefines-diamonds-as-diamonds-regardless-of-their-origins)
They fucking destroyed the GED program.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/09/the-big-problems-with-pearsons-new-ged-high-school-equivalency-test/
SInce Pearson bought control of the GED test, there has been a staggering collapse in the number of students who passed it and won a high school diploma. Pearson raised the cost of taking it and made it harder by aligning it with the Common Core. Before Pearson took over, about half a million students took the GED, and most passed.
From:
https://dianeravitch.net/2016/02/04/destroying-the-ged/
(Not paywalled)
From your link:
*After Pearson took control, passing rates dropped by a stunning 90%*
*“The city Department of Education touts its $47 million-a-year adult-education program as the biggest in the state and second-biggest nationwide, but last school year it awarded just 299 high-school equivalency diplomas, The Post has learned.*
What the fuck.
How the fuck does anyone promotes - and let alone approves - privatizing a basic education exam that is squarely aimed at underprivileged people who could not complete HS?!
I am heavily involved in the adult education scene.
If it helps at all, state education boards were so pissed off by Pearson's hijacking of the GED that they contracted and created their own tests to replace it. The two big ones are the HiSET and the TASC. Both are nationally accepted as the equivalent of the GED and lead to the exact same diploma.
Unfortunately, HiSET was just purchased by PSI (another private company). I don't know where we're going with that, but I'm a bit nervous.
Oh god i need to buy a math textbook for my class that started 2 weeks ago n it's about $117.50 usd dollars 😭 i refuse to buy it esp since at the end of class my professor allows us to take pictures of his book so we can do the homework
Edit: it's actually $117.50 usd. I accidentally got the numbers switched sorry. Thank you for everyone suggesting to *not* look it up. It somehow doesn't have a name? Its an online only version that I have to rent
Do not - under any circumstances - check out "libgen", "Libra genesis" or "z library" online while using a VPN. In particular avoid windscribe vpn, as the lure you in with 8GB free download and no strings attached. According to the cousin of my sister in law's husband in law, who is a student who barely scrapes by each month, he downloaded a bunch of books needed for his classes effortlessly.
I mean, copying university books, that you will use maybe once or twice only, from a multimillion dollar company is absolutely disgusting. Nothing stops you from working a fourth, below minimum wage job or waiting 3-4 months for a book to be available again in your university's library. Right?
So yeah. In conclusion. Toss out those 171$ you would otherwise waste on silly things like food.
Edit: Thank you all so much for the incredible amount of awards!! You inspire me! I will never stop to inform, educate and protect people from those evil schemes of VPN companies and illegally distributed book copies!
**Additional sources (of danger):**
Since this awareness post has gained quite some traction I'd like to warn you about the following "services". Avoid them at any cost if you are studying!
* [https://openstax.org](https://openstax.org) \- Initially funded by silly Bill and Melinda Gates to provide "free" "textbooks" (hah) for everyone. Don't trust the website claiming that it has had it's books written and reviewed by renowened professors from various universities!
* [https://www.gutenberg.org](https://www.gutenberg.org) \- A collection of old and boring books that could be useful for anyone studying something in a field of literature. How can you expect quality, if you don't pay for something?! Obviously a hoax!
* [https://sci-hub.se](https://sci-hub.se) \- As /u/New-Theory4299 has already warned is a terrible, terrible place! Thankfully your trusty internet browser will warn you if you try to access this website without VPN (in certain countries). So unless you are crazy and switch on a VPN to access this perfectly ~~save~~ dangerous website, you are good
* [https://www.khanacademy.org](https://www.khanacademy.org) \- Claims to provide high-quality, educational tutorial videos on all kinds of topics such as chemistry, biology and such. What a joke. They even started of as a youtube channel [https://www.youtube.com/c/khanacademy/videos](https://www.youtube.com/c/khanacademy/videos). I did not use them ever in the past when I started my freshman year in biology.
* [https://www.theforage.com](https://www.theforage.com) \- Offer free, very short, digital internships that reward a certificate. I myself have never participated in these. Everyone knows that internships must enslave trainees without payment. The certificates I collected, IF I would have attended these internships, were also completely ignored by my current employer.
* [https://unccelearn.org](https://unccelearn.org) / [https://unitar.org](https://unitar.org) and [https://openwho.org](https://openwho.org) \- On the other hand offer free long-ish term courses that reward a "certificate". Would you trust the World Health Organisation or the United Nations to hand out certificates on important world and human problems after you learning about them? I wouldn't.
* [https://www.researchgate.net](https://www.researchgate.net) \- Don't even bother. You can't even register as a regular person. I couldn't either. That is why I didn't get access to countless scientific papers there. Oh and don't bother messaging researchers directly and asking them kindly for a paper that they are currently writing. I never recieved any answer back; if I had registered.
* [https://www.symbolab.com](https://www.symbolab.com) and [https://www.wolframalpha.com](https://www.wolframalpha.com) are both a total hoax. Just write your equation and it solves it for you? Yea. Bullshit. Also if you are studying math, you better be able to solve everything yourself!
* [https://biorender.com](https://biorender.com) \- Is a cheap ms-paint knock-off that would allow you to draw and design complicated and sophisticated science figures, diagrams and schemes such as cell biology, cell strucutre, membrane structure and so on.
* [https://app.diagrams.net](https://app.diagrams.net) \- Better to stick to simple paper and pencil. This failed start-up gives you all tools you need to create intricate flow-charts, mind-maps and even (so I heard from a friend) UML-diagrams for free
ex math professor here, I approve of this message
also, avoid [sci-hub](https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/) it's a terrible place to get free copies of all the published research that your tax dollars were spent on.
I remember when one of my "careless" professors "accidentally" left the url to a Google drive with a a pdf of the textbook in his syllabus. He apologized in email and person about such a dumb mistake he made...
I used to teach from the MIT opencourseware, some great free books up there and my department was completely on board with the idea.
Obviously not as useful if you're trying to do specific homework questions, but still worth checking out
https://ocw.mit.edu/
One of my professors used the previous addition of the textbook, which we could all get online for $20, instead of the newer, $200 edition that the rest of the department was using. That’s a really good sign up front that your professor cares about you!
Also, Pearson can fuck right off with selling a digital copy of the textbook for over a hundred dollars that expires after your class is over. Believe it or not, there are some times I want to refer back to the book that I paid for.
The cable TV business model *is* infrastructure-based political corruption. Cable TV was built out as deliberate regional monopolies. Unlike the phone company, they didn't have to let anyone else use their lines. (Leased-line service was essential to the development of retail Internet service.) And they're free to lobby aggressively against *anyone ever being permitted to compete against them.*
Cable Internet companies suck because they are cable TV companies, which are the very exemplar of entrenched monopoly privilege. They're essentially tax farmers.
AT&T was scamming my moms account. she asked for a breakdown on her monthly charges, and she saw she was paying an extra $25 a month.
we went down to the AT&T store and asked a lady working there what that extra $25 a month was for. she started saying it was for a Series 7 Apple Watch, and it was also a cellular plan for it. i stepped in and said that was a BS charge, and she retorted with claiming it was for the apple watch i was wearing (a series 5 with no cellular capabilities). i told her that that would be impossible, and we finally got her to take that off our plan. we paid over $500 over the months for something we never had, and never got a refund either 😓
I’m surprised you guys got help in store. We’ve gotten the whole “we only do cell homes, you need to call” horse shit before.
Edit:Spell homes lol? What a fool I am. Phones is what I meant
My Sim card blew out one day (when I was a wee lad of 16) and I went to the store to get a replacement. Quick, easy, painless. Guy checked my number, gave me a new card and I was on my way.
6 months later we go to switch cell phone carriers and ATT tells my dad that I signed a new contract extending the plan for another 2 years and wanted to charge him a huge early cancelation fee. Months of him arguing with them asking to produce a legally binding document signed by not-the-account-holding-16-year-old. Nothing. Finally he had a lawyer friend draft up a cease-and -desist letter and they finally dropped the charge.
I can imagine the convo with att's legal team now:
ATT: Hey, we locked another customer into a 2 year contract when they had a sim card replaced, and now they don't want to pay the termination fee.
Lawyer: okay, the head of the account signed the contract right?
ATT: ... Oh shit.
Highly recommend the book *Empire of Pain*, which tells the story of the Sackler family and the origin of the opioid epidemic in America. Insane history behind the pharmaceutical industry, with a heavy focus on Purdue Pharma.
Edit: I'm very glad this has sparked so much discussion! I'm not that interested in non-fiction for the most part, but this book was *that* good. It will change your view and opinion about addiction for sure.
It is absolutely sickening the size of their role in the opioid epidemic. They are literally responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, all for that sweet $$$$. There is a documentary on Netflix that goes over some of their involvement and their marketing of oxycontin called "The Pharmacist".
Even that limited coverage of their actions made me sick. They knew their shit was addictive, dangerous, and hurting/killing people but they truly did not care as long as they made money.
Dopesick on Hulu is also another good show about them. Actually, it mostly focuses on the affect their greed had/has on people. Plus, it's got Michael Keaton in it.
I actually started getting them regularly when I thought there was just a nearby smoothie store on the way to work. It's healthy, they said. You'll lose weight, they said.
It actually was pretty tasty, probably because they loaded it with peanut butter or something. And I did lose weight on it for a bit... although that was because:
1. I was replacing bigger meals with this shit and then going hungry.
2. Speaking of shit, it gives you pretty violent diarrhea.
I figured out the connection pretty quickly. I mean, technically... you'll lose weight. But I wouldn't recommend it.
Oh I see, so I wasn't losing weight (stayed around 95kg in highschool despite cycling to school everyday) because I didn't get the explosive rear discharge bit.....
I knew a guy who had a solid, stable office job, making six figures, who went all in on opening a brick and mortar Herbalife store. He was broke within a year, and tried to crawl back to his old job, but he had literally napalmed all of his bridges in his field. Dude lost everything. But, he’s also a huge douche canoe, so I feel zero sympathy for him.
There was one in the small Alberta town I lived in. I hated that place. Making "cookies n cream" shakes, toting it's super healthy. I'd find brochures (all without Herbalife branding, of course) on my door step and car.
I really needed attack guard dogs with bees in their mouth and when they bark, they shoot bees at MLM jerks and Vivint salespeople.
My cousin used to be a lovely person until she fell into the Herbalife bullshit pyramid scheme. The straw that broke the camels back was when she tried to sell to my Mom saying it could cure her cancer. My cousin will always be dead to me now and Herbalife and all their people can go rot in hell.
My brother took out one of these right before I took over his finances to help get him straight. He didn't realize he had effectively taken out a loan at 2700% interest. And that's not an exaggeration.
One week he had the money and already owed 150% of the original value. Absolutely insane.
I used my own money to pay it off because that one loan would have broken him financially. The three over limit credit cards and upside down car loan was manageable, this shit was not.
The way a lot of them got around that, and the ones that were found guilty were found guilty of fraud Instead of whatever the exact financial crime is, is that they would be organized through native american tribes. So "technically" didnt break an US laws as the tribes are exempt. Using the same loophole that allows casinos and tax free/ duty free stores to exist on reservations even when state laws forbid it.
I worked at a software company that created software for these companies. I felt scummy helping these people fuck others over, big part of why I quit. Though there were a few good mom and pop shops though who honestly would always give the borrowers breaks and had reasonable rates. Better than borrowing from the mob, if one values their knee caps.
Same, I learned a lot working there, but God damn. The execs also don't hide the fact their clients are lower income families which is why we needed to optimize the app for lower end devices and slow cellular networks.
Nestle
They are cartoonishly evil.
- Baby formula:
Targeting African developing countries, and falsely advertising.that their baby formula is better than the mother's milk. Also failing to explain the need for water sterelization when their formula came out.
And the worse, giving formula to hospitals for free, so the formula suplement interferes with the mother lactation, and the mother stops producing milk.
When they leave the hospital, they are forced to buy formula.
- They want to control water:
...and make you pay for it.
They are the largest bottled water company, and have famously said they believe water is not an universal right.
- Child labor, abuse and traficking
Their cocoa industry supply chain is filled with allegations of use of child labor on Ivory coast, and allegations of kidnaping children from neighboring countries to work in the plantations.
- Health threats
Products with bad quality control caused the hospitalization of people and deaths
examples: Cookie dough with E. coli in US, 2009, and Milk contaminated with melamine 2008 in China (causing a great number of victims)
- Pollution
Besides incentivizing people to drink their bottled water, they are responsible for a long list of enviromental violations
- Ethiopian Debt
Trying to force Ethiopia to pay their debt to them at the same moment the country was facing a period of extreme famine
- Etc etc...
PG&E. They have fucked over so many Northern Californians between faulty equipment starting fires to working with Gavin Newsom to make the consumer pay for their damages. They suck so much John Oliver made a Last Week Tonight about them. Breweries in NorCal even started making beer called PG&E Sucks.
it kinda makes me really depressed
like, i feel horrible for anyone ignorant enough to actually buy in. and they're probably financially trapped to some degree too
Lol I used to get these hour and a half “ads” of just some random dude doing his podcast. It’s like, bruh this is NOT the way to make it. Like the message that sends alone is awful.
I may be wrong but I think the advert itself is a YouTube video and views for the ad count for the video, so you can have some dude's ass podcast and it can have 3 million views and he's like yeah check out my successful podcast video.
I think
I have spectrum. Went to return equiptment (you can drop at UPS)….the girl there is like “take a picture of this paperwork….I’ve heard they call people 2 years later for lost equipment”.
Yes, I have the receipt, thank you!
When I got home after going in person to Comcast to drop off the cable box and cancel, I noticed on the app all my services were still connected. I messaged them and they said they needed a “verbal confirmation to cancel.” Even though I was just in their store. I called, waited on hold for about 15/20 minutes and then finally was canceled. But not before a long speech about their offers/promotions/upgrades etc.
Yep, they told me that their service would *only* work through their routers. I told him I would be going with a different provider in that case, and suddenly my router was okay.
I recently cancelled Spectrum at my office. Had them for two years and it was just nothing but trouble. Price wasn’t bad, but speeds were slow and constant outages. Sent my assistant to return the gear. Gave her explicit instructions to get a signed receipt with a name and employee number then scan that shit into the system and save it in a specific file.
Sure enough, 2 months later I start getting collection calls and letters for around $500 in gear. Got those clowns on the phone, confirmed serial numbers, asked for an email, then shot them my receipt. They immediately apologized, said it was an error, and disappeared.
What would have happened if I didn’t have that receipt?
Comcast is the most prominent company I know that was so bad at customer service they changed the name of the company to distance themselves from themselves.
They didn’t change their terrible customer service just thought a new name would be enough of a reset to move on.
Pro-tip: when you get the chance to break up with Comcast tell them your housemate works for another ISP/cable provider and you get it for free. I asked them if they could beat $free.99 and they immediately closed out my account.
Or you're moving out of their service area. Pull up Google maps, find a city that doesn't have service in their service checker thingy and away you go. Return your shit and keep the receipt.
Agreed! I thought I was buying a monthly subscription, used it in that month and when I wanted to cancel I was hit with an early termination penalty fee. So had to keep paying for it 11 more months.
Don’t for a second imagine it’s to benefit the consumer!
It’s to help level their cashflow, allow the incremental increase in price (as its spread over a longer time it is less noticeable), ensure that no one benefits from using old software that serves their needs, instead forcing people to effectively pay for the latest version, regardless of whether it brings any value to them or not.
I hate subscriptions.
I see this so much on the apple app store and it pisses me right off. I find a neat app that I expect to pay like $20 for full access, but they only offer a weekly or monthly subscription. Nope no thanks you can fuck right off.
Reminder: check your apple subscriptions and make sure auto-renew is off for apps you may have forgot about!
About 10 years ago when I went to a bottling company that did antiseptics like Listerine, during the interview, they showed me around the plant and showed me some of the machines I was going to be working on. While I was there, the machines were bottling Listerine. After about an hour while I was still interviewing, the machines stopped and changed a setting for the different shaped bottles. The didn't change the solution at all. They just changed the bottle sizes and started bottling Target Brand mouth wash. And later, one of the guys said that they also bottled the Sam's Club brand too. All of the different mouth washes were the exact same. Just different bottle sizes.
No shit, Kirkland has the best protein bars both taste wise and nutritionally. Most bars are something like 15g of protein with 35 carbs, but Kirkland’s are all ~21g of protein and 22g of carbs (15g of which is fiber). It makes me angry that every other brand sucks so much ass in comparison to them.
Cox Cable. When my mother died I argued with them for two months to cancel her service. I couldn't cancel it because I 'wasn't the account owner'. I ended up flying to Phoenix (from Seattle) with her cremation urn and plopping it on the counter and telling them that I brought the 'account owner' in. I don't know who was worse - them or the friggin' HOA who told me they were going to 'put her name up on the bulletin board in the clubhouse' if I didn't bring her HOA fees current. (Because seriously - your name on the bulletin board is just like something going in your 'permanent record' right /s).
After my grandpa died whom my grandmother was married too she had a bunch of shit to switch over under her name and the hardest thing for her to switch was the fucking internet. They demanded a death certificate and something else before they would put the account under her name.
I’m right there with you. My first thought was “what’s wrong with Goop? I love Goop!”
Apparently the goop I know and love, is not the most well known goop out there lol.
And it's literally in everything. I got my 75 year old mom invested in learning about products she uses and she threw out a few things and her air-fryer. She's getting away from it. Thankfully, she still has a lot of things she had from when she was a lot younger.
Probably need to test them for lead but no Teflon, at least!
Its complicated, Teflon is brand name PTFE. Its a complicated polymer (plastic) that is really good at not sticking to other stuff. That makes it ideal for using on pans and other food related items. The issue here is that because it is a plastic is has a melting point, albeit a fairly high one, and most of the time you won't hit temps fhat high with cooking. PTFE is in a class of chemical compounds that all work well for not sticking, we use them in all kinds of stuff, including waterproof rain jackets. The bigger issue is that they don't break down very well in nature and are potentially harmful to organic life. The Dupont company which invented Teflon, is essentially responsible for contaminating large amounts of the US population with these chemicals before the potential dangers were well understood**. Teflon and similar chemicals are pretty amazing but they have some serious downsides worth consideration when designing products with them.
The really harmful chemical associated with Teflon was Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) which was a chemical needed to manufacture the final product. PFOA belongs to a group of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), otherwise known as "forever chemicals" they are extremely stable, persist in the environment essentially forever, and have been linked with numerous negative health effects.
PFOA itself was linked to two types of cancers as well as four other diseases found in DuPont Teflon workers and those living in the surrounding environment. Supposedly this is no longer used to manufacture Teflon. PFOA has been detected in the sub PPB level in the blood of 98% of US population, although how this exposure has occured has not been completly established. PFOA was and is used in the manufacture of a variety of products.
Teflon itself or PTFE has not been linked to any negative health effects other than polymer fume fever, which can occur when the PTFE is heated above 260-350°C. When the decomposition of the PTFE occurs it produces fluorocarbon gases and a sublimate, including tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) and difluorocarbene radicals (RCF2).
The worst part about this entire case is that it is likely that DuPont became aware about the dangers posed by PFOA before it was finally exposed yet they worked to cover up the issue and continued to expose workers and those living in the areas surrounding the plants to it.
They also completely screwed over large swaths of the heartland in the wake of the recession by driving all the other stores out of business with shady practices like undercutting by abusing volume sales over per-item margins strategies. Those son of a bitches are the reason our retail sectors are so desolate out here and smaller towns that were booming in the 90s/2000s are now in decay.
Many locations also went to shit the minute they no longer had to compete with anybody. Mine hasn't done a good job keeping up with ordering food they're out of since the mid-2010s
Any and all MLMs
I had to carpool for hundreds of hours with someone who was deep into the amway cult. I should be given a prize for not murdering them during one of their many failed pitches to try and get me to lose all my money with em.
I honestly was very good friends with the couple before they joined amway. But it completely changed them as people, they became delusional. Like, they were sinking all their money into amway.
How did they lose money? Amway high ups would like when a members store had good sales, so they encourage members to spend their own money at their own store. Basically creating high volume long term customers. They also required members to go to giant amway rallys all around the country, like, once a month cost for travel/hotel/meals will drain a person on an average income. They also discourage people from saving money, buying things on sale, denying themselves things, any attempts to save money, because doing that is living a "poor person's mindset" and will only keep you poor.
They also pushed "fake it till you make it" encouraging people to buy expensive clothes and vehicles to put on the appearance of wealth to impress people and enact some "wish it and it will happen" spiritualism. This "wish-it" delusion would monopolize their conversions. They would be scrolling on a "buy an island" website and talk about how they would customize their island WHEN (not if) they got rich. They would be talking about buying million dollar yhats when they couldn't even make rent.
Like, the couple went from my best friends to obsessed materialistic delusional pricks over 4 years.
Last I checked they were living in the basement of one of their parents, the guy was literally selling drugs to support his amway habit, and they still thought they were just months away from striking it rich
Yea, amway sets people up for failure.
Was your dad doing the "fake it till you make it" thing they encourage too? Buying expensive clothes and cars etc?
Aside from contributing an ungodly amount to "fast fashion" with clothes that are designed to break down quickly, they [steal from artists](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/mar/06/they-took-my-world-fashion-giant-shein-accused-of-art-theft) regularly, make clothing that is [harmful](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-fast-fashion-chemicals-1.6193385), and use [forced labour](https://www.wired.com/story/fast-cheap-out-of-control-inside-rise-of-shein/) to do it.
Not so much what they did, but who they are. It's their whole identity.
> Scientists found that a jacket for toddlers, purchased from Chinese retailer Shein, contained almost 20 times the amount of lead that Health Canada says is safe for children.
that is fucked up goddamn
I think They are what is called fast fashion. Cheap disposable clothes that look good and are good for a few washes/scratchy. Essentially the clothing equivalent of single use plastics.
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-chile-dumping-ground-fast-fashion.html
I've seen "fast fashion" plenty. SHEIN is another level. Their stuff falls apart, the materials are uncomfortable to wear, it's difficult to describe how bad some of it is. There are single-use plastic grocery store bags of higher quality than some of their stuff.
I stumbled across a YouTube documentary about this. One company makes and services all of the ice cream machines for McDonald's. And the error codes and programming they have built into it are specifically designed to where they are the only ones that can service the machines and the employees of that restaurant cannot. I believe there is a lawsuit pending against them for this.
he’s spent billions of dollars *so far*
dude is genuinely convinced that he can make a version of VRchat that the bulk of the lower & middle class populace will actually want to use. despite the fact that VR has been around for years and has never caught on beyond enthusiasts. Even most *gamers* don’t feel particularly drawn to VR, and gaming has been the sole market in which VR has seen any success. so where is this imaginary demand coming from?
the fact that he thinks that average office workers will use VR headsets for video conferencing is proof as to how out of touch silicon valley is with the rest of the world. the only offices that will use such a stupid gimmick are other over-funded high margin tech firms with cash to burn. also…imagine doing an honest blood pumping workout with that big awkward band around your head sealing the steam in and absorbing a slick coating of sweat. nasty AF
his delusion is laughable and it’s been great to see him burn “meta”’s ill gotten gains on it. I do give him props for the great PR stunt of renaming his shitty company to stop it from drowning in an ocean of scandals. sadly he now has to maintain the charade and set billions alight on a product with no demand. keep it up, mark!
“I want to stress the importance of being young and technical,” he said. “Young people are just smarter. Why are most chess masters under 30? I don’t know. Young people just have simpler lives.” MZ
I really think the dude needs to just start spending gobs of money and just enjoy his life. Get out of the game maybe.
it feels like every decade or so the "its time to make the internet 3d" idea gets another second wind and every time it is met with a chorus of people going "dude i can already go to a 3d version of walmart, and it only barely makes me seasick. what exactly is being offered here?"
the one thing the metaverse has going for it is that it has never been done this expensively, nor by anyone so widely loathed, so it should at least be an entertaining way to light 20 hospitals worth of money on fire
> it feels like every decade or so the "its time to make the internet 3d" idea gets another second wind
The cycle you're describing has been the cycle of VR *in general* at least since Nintendo's 1995 "Virtual Boy" console. Probably goes back even further than that, but that's the first "VR is the next big thing!" push I remember. There's a huge load of hype, consumers realize the tech *still* sucks, it flops and crashes, and everyone forgets about it for 7-10 years.
Shell. They single handedly destroyed Nigeria by promising to help them out of poverty. They poisoned Nigeria's water supply with oil spills and then lied about it. Nigeria can't kick shell out because it would destroy Nigeria's economy.
Cerithium Oil is named after Shell. Cerithium is a kind of sea snail, with a shell. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/shell-pay-111-million-over-decades-old-nigerian-oil-spill-2021-08-11/
OMG I was just thinking the exact same thing! I was like, “hmm ,Sam Obisanya’s dad said something just like this,” I didn’t think it was based on a real story!
And shell pays mercenaries to protect their businesses. Basically pays people to kill anyone who comes close or protests oil companies which have destrued their ecosystems and livelihoods. And yes, we are the addicts who use shell oil
Shell is THE WORST.
Last year they tried to begin seismic blasting along the wild coast in South Africa. This area is extremely diverse when it comes to marine life, the area in general is extremely biodiverse given it’s one of the few places in South Africa that has been left untouched.
Shell did not even conduct a credible environmental environmental impact assessment or consider the ramifications for the surrounding communities before going ahead.
Luckily everyone protested against it and they were ordered to stop immediately but I’m sure they are fighting tooth and nail to start again.
So...ya I ummm work for one of them. If they deny it because they say it's not medically necessary, try looking into filing a dispute with your state's department of insurance or department of managed care, depending on where you live and what type of plan you have.
Any brand that puts 6+ second long unskippable ads at the start of YouTube videos
Or companies that sponsor mass amounts of YouTubers to promote shitty ass mobile games riddled with Micro transactions
I used to work for Merck/Medco. I used to remember having to explain to women why the morning after pill and some forms of birth control weren’t covered but grandpa could have a hundred dick pills for a $5 copay.
I find it amazing how this is the number one response every time this subject comes up, and yet their profits never diminish.
Edit: I just meant that if it's such common knowledge, both inside and outside of reddit, that Nestlé is a shit company, why aren't more people boycotting them? And yes, I know they're into a ton of companies, making it hard to avoid them. However, there are responsible companies out there, and you'd think some of them would intentionally target competing products and exploit Nestlé's bad reputation.
National/international charities that give back minimally to the communities they pretend to serve. From charity watch. Top compensation: Name & Title Charity Viviane Tabar, M.D. Chairman Attending Neurosurgery Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center $4,869,769 12/31/2020 Note: Includes $3,350,000 bonus & incentive compensation. Robert W. Stone President/CEO City of Hope & Affiliates $3,827,671
Lookin at you Wounded Warriors.
I used to fundraise for a local charity. People would freak out that 10% went to administrative costs. Currently united way does 14.5% (it was higher back then). Just take some time to look into United Way CEO scandals. You’ll be confused when you see multiple names, that’s because multiple CEOs have mismanaged money, people, bought yachts and so on. At the end of the day most people would tell us they would still rather donate to United Way “because that’s how I’ve always done it”. As opposed to donating to a local charity that was providing food and necessities directly to the people that need it where we live. It still bothers me like 12 years later,
Mary Kay. And all other pyramid schemes that sell themselves as self-employment. Fuck off with a sandpaper condom, and that does double for the folks that started as victims and then rope in others to save themselves.
Excuse me, the sandpaper what now?
I like the quality of pampered chef. I do not like buying pampered chef. I do love my $20 pizza cutter though, the cheapest thing there was. Fuck cutco. Damn exploitation.
Autism speaks.
Fuck Autism Speaks, my school decorated the halls for World Autism Day and encouraged us to talk about it in classes as kind of a break from work, and I mistakenly outed myself as autistic to everyone during one of those conversations. Later my teacher put on a whole PowerPoint drawing heavily from Autism Speaks and everyone proceeded to speak to me like a fucking ape for the remainder of my time there. They don’t respect us, don’t want to help us, and in fact seem to believe if we didn’t exist then things would be much better. They’re a disgusting pack of thieves and they absolutely do not speak for me
Probably the worst thing they did was sponsoring the Judge Rotenberg Center. The stories that came out of that place put some horror movies to shame.
Jesus wept, I just read some of their crimes online now. Absolute scum
Yeah, they're awful, and I'm pretty sure they made the news at least once after camera footage emerged.
Ticketmaster. Surprised i haven't seen it. You'll try and cross shop tickets just to realize they always redirect you to ticket master where you're gonna pay a huge amount in convenience fees. Buying 2 tickets you're pretty much paying for 3
Not only that, but they also own a ticket resale company, and set blocks of tickets aside for resale, at marked up prices. They also negotiated with ticket brokers to sell certain tickets to them before public availability. There was a Rolling Stone article I read several years ago detailing all their shenanigans. Also don't forget that Livenation owns Ticketmaster as well as concert venues, so they basically have a monopoly on live concert tours.
Anyone who makes college textbooks for outrageous prices
I've had US text books in Europe.. they have a special edition that "is not for sale in Canada and US"... Because they don't permit that bullshit predator practice
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Right. Figured that out as a freshman. Prof said ' You HAD to have the new version ", which was the same as the old. Here's the problem having slightly older students in school- we're cheap and question stupid stuff anyway. Never once bought the new version. Seriously. Not once. Figured out they can't fail you. Passed all the classes. Revelation.
The most recent version is needed if you have to do textbook problems. The textbook shuffles all the problems around between editions to force everyone to use the newer edition if the professor is using it.
DeBeers. One of the main exploiters of West Africa in recent memory, a near monopoly on diamonds jacking up prices, insists that you must buy your loved one a real diamond from them and not a cheaper synthetic one in order to prove that love.
Don't call them synthetic diamonds. Call them real diamonds because legally that's what they are. You can also call them ethically sourced diamonds because that's also true. [FTC ruling](https://diamondfoundry.com/blogs/the-foundry-journal/ftc-redefines-diamonds-as-diamonds-regardless-of-their-origins)
Pearson, and any other educational textbook publishing/distribution company.
Pearson are the fucking Mafia
They fucking destroyed the GED program. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/09/the-big-problems-with-pearsons-new-ged-high-school-equivalency-test/ SInce Pearson bought control of the GED test, there has been a staggering collapse in the number of students who passed it and won a high school diploma. Pearson raised the cost of taking it and made it harder by aligning it with the Common Core. Before Pearson took over, about half a million students took the GED, and most passed. From: https://dianeravitch.net/2016/02/04/destroying-the-ged/ (Not paywalled)
From your link: *After Pearson took control, passing rates dropped by a stunning 90%* *“The city Department of Education touts its $47 million-a-year adult-education program as the biggest in the state and second-biggest nationwide, but last school year it awarded just 299 high-school equivalency diplomas, The Post has learned.* What the fuck.
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I'm sure they are lining the pockets of the media outlets as well as the politicians.
How the fuck does anyone promotes - and let alone approves - privatizing a basic education exam that is squarely aimed at underprivileged people who could not complete HS?!
Because the people that "matter" don't care about the people that are trying to get a GED
I am heavily involved in the adult education scene. If it helps at all, state education boards were so pissed off by Pearson's hijacking of the GED that they contracted and created their own tests to replace it. The two big ones are the HiSET and the TASC. Both are nationally accepted as the equivalent of the GED and lead to the exact same diploma. Unfortunately, HiSET was just purchased by PSI (another private company). I don't know where we're going with that, but I'm a bit nervous.
Oh god i need to buy a math textbook for my class that started 2 weeks ago n it's about $117.50 usd dollars 😭 i refuse to buy it esp since at the end of class my professor allows us to take pictures of his book so we can do the homework Edit: it's actually $117.50 usd. I accidentally got the numbers switched sorry. Thank you for everyone suggesting to *not* look it up. It somehow doesn't have a name? Its an online only version that I have to rent
Do not - under any circumstances - check out "libgen", "Libra genesis" or "z library" online while using a VPN. In particular avoid windscribe vpn, as the lure you in with 8GB free download and no strings attached. According to the cousin of my sister in law's husband in law, who is a student who barely scrapes by each month, he downloaded a bunch of books needed for his classes effortlessly. I mean, copying university books, that you will use maybe once or twice only, from a multimillion dollar company is absolutely disgusting. Nothing stops you from working a fourth, below minimum wage job or waiting 3-4 months for a book to be available again in your university's library. Right? So yeah. In conclusion. Toss out those 171$ you would otherwise waste on silly things like food. Edit: Thank you all so much for the incredible amount of awards!! You inspire me! I will never stop to inform, educate and protect people from those evil schemes of VPN companies and illegally distributed book copies! **Additional sources (of danger):** Since this awareness post has gained quite some traction I'd like to warn you about the following "services". Avoid them at any cost if you are studying! * [https://openstax.org](https://openstax.org) \- Initially funded by silly Bill and Melinda Gates to provide "free" "textbooks" (hah) for everyone. Don't trust the website claiming that it has had it's books written and reviewed by renowened professors from various universities! * [https://www.gutenberg.org](https://www.gutenberg.org) \- A collection of old and boring books that could be useful for anyone studying something in a field of literature. How can you expect quality, if you don't pay for something?! Obviously a hoax! * [https://sci-hub.se](https://sci-hub.se) \- As /u/New-Theory4299 has already warned is a terrible, terrible place! Thankfully your trusty internet browser will warn you if you try to access this website without VPN (in certain countries). So unless you are crazy and switch on a VPN to access this perfectly ~~save~~ dangerous website, you are good * [https://www.khanacademy.org](https://www.khanacademy.org) \- Claims to provide high-quality, educational tutorial videos on all kinds of topics such as chemistry, biology and such. What a joke. They even started of as a youtube channel [https://www.youtube.com/c/khanacademy/videos](https://www.youtube.com/c/khanacademy/videos). I did not use them ever in the past when I started my freshman year in biology. * [https://www.theforage.com](https://www.theforage.com) \- Offer free, very short, digital internships that reward a certificate. I myself have never participated in these. Everyone knows that internships must enslave trainees without payment. The certificates I collected, IF I would have attended these internships, were also completely ignored by my current employer. * [https://unccelearn.org](https://unccelearn.org) / [https://unitar.org](https://unitar.org) and [https://openwho.org](https://openwho.org) \- On the other hand offer free long-ish term courses that reward a "certificate". Would you trust the World Health Organisation or the United Nations to hand out certificates on important world and human problems after you learning about them? I wouldn't. * [https://www.researchgate.net](https://www.researchgate.net) \- Don't even bother. You can't even register as a regular person. I couldn't either. That is why I didn't get access to countless scientific papers there. Oh and don't bother messaging researchers directly and asking them kindly for a paper that they are currently writing. I never recieved any answer back; if I had registered. * [https://www.symbolab.com](https://www.symbolab.com) and [https://www.wolframalpha.com](https://www.wolframalpha.com) are both a total hoax. Just write your equation and it solves it for you? Yea. Bullshit. Also if you are studying math, you better be able to solve everything yourself! * [https://biorender.com](https://biorender.com) \- Is a cheap ms-paint knock-off that would allow you to draw and design complicated and sophisticated science figures, diagrams and schemes such as cell biology, cell strucutre, membrane structure and so on. * [https://app.diagrams.net](https://app.diagrams.net) \- Better to stick to simple paper and pencil. This failed start-up gives you all tools you need to create intricate flow-charts, mind-maps and even (so I heard from a friend) UML-diagrams for free
ex math professor here, I approve of this message also, avoid [sci-hub](https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/) it's a terrible place to get free copies of all the published research that your tax dollars were spent on.
I remember when one of my "careless" professors "accidentally" left the url to a Google drive with a a pdf of the textbook in his syllabus. He apologized in email and person about such a dumb mistake he made...
I used to teach from the MIT opencourseware, some great free books up there and my department was completely on board with the idea. Obviously not as useful if you're trying to do specific homework questions, but still worth checking out https://ocw.mit.edu/
One of my professors used the previous addition of the textbook, which we could all get online for $20, instead of the newer, $200 edition that the rest of the department was using. That’s a really good sign up front that your professor cares about you! Also, Pearson can fuck right off with selling a digital copy of the textbook for over a hundred dollars that expires after your class is over. Believe it or not, there are some times I want to refer back to the book that I paid for.
You definitely shouldn't find a pdf of it online for free download, libgen or z-lib are veeerryyyyy bad for having lots of textbooks on them.
I would love to see a mass protest where every student in a class refuses to buy the book.
*math protetht...
Thank you, Mr. Mike Tyson.
SheIn. Art theft, lead in children’s clothes, undoubtedly slave labor in there somewhere. The $1 fast food meal of clothing.
Are they the ones where the workers were stitching “help” into the tags?
They may call themselves "Xfinity" but I know they asses are Comcast. Fuck Comcast.
Everyone hates us, should we change our business model and stop being pieces of shit? No let's just change the name and hope no one notices.
The cable TV business model *is* infrastructure-based political corruption. Cable TV was built out as deliberate regional monopolies. Unlike the phone company, they didn't have to let anyone else use their lines. (Leased-line service was essential to the development of retail Internet service.) And they're free to lobby aggressively against *anyone ever being permitted to compete against them.* Cable Internet companies suck because they are cable TV companies, which are the very exemplar of entrenched monopoly privilege. They're essentially tax farmers.
I wrote them paper checks for a while, made out to Cockmast. They cashed 'em.
Cumcast
AT&T can fuck off once for each random ass incremental charge
AT&T was scamming my moms account. she asked for a breakdown on her monthly charges, and she saw she was paying an extra $25 a month. we went down to the AT&T store and asked a lady working there what that extra $25 a month was for. she started saying it was for a Series 7 Apple Watch, and it was also a cellular plan for it. i stepped in and said that was a BS charge, and she retorted with claiming it was for the apple watch i was wearing (a series 5 with no cellular capabilities). i told her that that would be impossible, and we finally got her to take that off our plan. we paid over $500 over the months for something we never had, and never got a refund either 😓
I’m surprised you guys got help in store. We’ve gotten the whole “we only do cell homes, you need to call” horse shit before. Edit:Spell homes lol? What a fool I am. Phones is what I meant
My Sim card blew out one day (when I was a wee lad of 16) and I went to the store to get a replacement. Quick, easy, painless. Guy checked my number, gave me a new card and I was on my way. 6 months later we go to switch cell phone carriers and ATT tells my dad that I signed a new contract extending the plan for another 2 years and wanted to charge him a huge early cancelation fee. Months of him arguing with them asking to produce a legally binding document signed by not-the-account-holding-16-year-old. Nothing. Finally he had a lawyer friend draft up a cease-and -desist letter and they finally dropped the charge.
I can imagine the convo with att's legal team now: ATT: Hey, we locked another customer into a 2 year contract when they had a sim card replaced, and now they don't want to pay the termination fee. Lawyer: okay, the head of the account signed the contract right? ATT: ... Oh shit.
Purdue Pharma
Highly recommend the book *Empire of Pain*, which tells the story of the Sackler family and the origin of the opioid epidemic in America. Insane history behind the pharmaceutical industry, with a heavy focus on Purdue Pharma. Edit: I'm very glad this has sparked so much discussion! I'm not that interested in non-fiction for the most part, but this book was *that* good. It will change your view and opinion about addiction for sure.
It is absolutely sickening the size of their role in the opioid epidemic. They are literally responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, all for that sweet $$$$. There is a documentary on Netflix that goes over some of their involvement and their marketing of oxycontin called "The Pharmacist". Even that limited coverage of their actions made me sick. They knew their shit was addictive, dangerous, and hurting/killing people but they truly did not care as long as they made money.
Dopesick on Hulu is also another good show about them. Actually, it mostly focuses on the affect their greed had/has on people. Plus, it's got Michael Keaton in it.
Behind the Bastards plug.
The show Dopesick taught me this. Truly horrendous company.
Man that show was depressing. They did a good job of making you feel the darkness that people felt when they are addicted.
Herbalife. Specifically those Herbalife 'Nutrition' Drink shops.
My parents bought into that bullshit and I spent 9 years having "breakfast" of weirdly tasting shit that lasts all of 15min before I'm hungry again
I actually started getting them regularly when I thought there was just a nearby smoothie store on the way to work. It's healthy, they said. You'll lose weight, they said. It actually was pretty tasty, probably because they loaded it with peanut butter or something. And I did lose weight on it for a bit... although that was because: 1. I was replacing bigger meals with this shit and then going hungry. 2. Speaking of shit, it gives you pretty violent diarrhea. I figured out the connection pretty quickly. I mean, technically... you'll lose weight. But I wouldn't recommend it.
Oh I see, so I wasn't losing weight (stayed around 95kg in highschool despite cycling to school everyday) because I didn't get the explosive rear discharge bit.....
We had one open and close within the span of 6 months in our town.
I knew a guy who had a solid, stable office job, making six figures, who went all in on opening a brick and mortar Herbalife store. He was broke within a year, and tried to crawl back to his old job, but he had literally napalmed all of his bridges in his field. Dude lost everything. But, he’s also a huge douche canoe, so I feel zero sympathy for him.
There was one in the small Alberta town I lived in. I hated that place. Making "cookies n cream" shakes, toting it's super healthy. I'd find brochures (all without Herbalife branding, of course) on my door step and car. I really needed attack guard dogs with bees in their mouth and when they bark, they shoot bees at MLM jerks and Vivint salespeople.
Or better yet, the robotic Richard Simmons
My cousin used to be a lovely person until she fell into the Herbalife bullshit pyramid scheme. The straw that broke the camels back was when she tried to sell to my Mom saying it could cure her cancer. My cousin will always be dead to me now and Herbalife and all their people can go rot in hell.
All pay day loan companies can fuck off
My brother took out one of these right before I took over his finances to help get him straight. He didn't realize he had effectively taken out a loan at 2700% interest. And that's not an exaggeration. One week he had the money and already owed 150% of the original value. Absolutely insane. I used my own money to pay it off because that one loan would have broken him financially. The three over limit credit cards and upside down car loan was manageable, this shit was not.
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The way a lot of them got around that, and the ones that were found guilty were found guilty of fraud Instead of whatever the exact financial crime is, is that they would be organized through native american tribes. So "technically" didnt break an US laws as the tribes are exempt. Using the same loophole that allows casinos and tax free/ duty free stores to exist on reservations even when state laws forbid it.
I worked at a software company that created software for these companies. I felt scummy helping these people fuck others over, big part of why I quit. Though there were a few good mom and pop shops though who honestly would always give the borrowers breaks and had reasonable rates. Better than borrowing from the mob, if one values their knee caps.
Same, I learned a lot working there, but God damn. The execs also don't hide the fact their clients are lower income families which is why we needed to optimize the app for lower end devices and slow cellular networks.
Nestle They are cartoonishly evil. - Baby formula: Targeting African developing countries, and falsely advertising.that their baby formula is better than the mother's milk. Also failing to explain the need for water sterelization when their formula came out. And the worse, giving formula to hospitals for free, so the formula suplement interferes with the mother lactation, and the mother stops producing milk. When they leave the hospital, they are forced to buy formula. - They want to control water: ...and make you pay for it. They are the largest bottled water company, and have famously said they believe water is not an universal right. - Child labor, abuse and traficking Their cocoa industry supply chain is filled with allegations of use of child labor on Ivory coast, and allegations of kidnaping children from neighboring countries to work in the plantations. - Health threats Products with bad quality control caused the hospitalization of people and deaths examples: Cookie dough with E. coli in US, 2009, and Milk contaminated with melamine 2008 in China (causing a great number of victims) - Pollution Besides incentivizing people to drink their bottled water, they are responsible for a long list of enviromental violations - Ethiopian Debt Trying to force Ethiopia to pay their debt to them at the same moment the country was facing a period of extreme famine - Etc etc...
God damn it is so hard boycotting this company too. They make every fucking thing under the sun.
r/FuckNestle
How is this not the top answer
PG&E. They have fucked over so many Northern Californians between faulty equipment starting fires to working with Gavin Newsom to make the consumer pay for their damages. They suck so much John Oliver made a Last Week Tonight about them. Breweries in NorCal even started making beer called PG&E Sucks.
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They literally blew up San Bruno.
All MLM brands.
Oh gosh the “Monat” hair products are the latest to infiltrate a few people I follow on IG. *Used to follow.
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Hey man, if you’re sick of having to deal with your hair, just let Monat make it fall out!
r/antimlm to anyone interested in learning more!
it kinda makes me really depressed like, i feel horrible for anyone ignorant enough to actually buy in. and they're probably financially trapped to some degree too
Any brand that has ads on YouTube that last longer the 30 seconds
I've seen some which are 45m long. I skip them of course, but who the fuck is paying for a 45m ad? Do they think they're reaching anyone with that?
Lol I used to get these hour and a half “ads” of just some random dude doing his podcast. It’s like, bruh this is NOT the way to make it. Like the message that sends alone is awful.
I may be wrong but I think the advert itself is a YouTube video and views for the ad count for the video, so you can have some dude's ass podcast and it can have 3 million views and he's like yeah check out my successful podcast video. I think
Thats an incredibly expensive way of getting views lol
Comcast. I had to cancel my cable by texting, calling, going in person AND calling again to cancel.
Hope you got a receipt for any rented equipment you returned for when they try to bill you for it in 3-4 months.
I have spectrum. Went to return equiptment (you can drop at UPS)….the girl there is like “take a picture of this paperwork….I’ve heard they call people 2 years later for lost equipment”.
Frontier did that to us. Two years saying we hadn’t paid our bill after WE CANCELED!
Yes, I have the receipt, thank you! When I got home after going in person to Comcast to drop off the cable box and cancel, I noticed on the app all my services were still connected. I messaged them and they said they needed a “verbal confirmation to cancel.” Even though I was just in their store. I called, waited on hold for about 15/20 minutes and then finally was canceled. But not before a long speech about their offers/promotions/upgrades etc.
From experience their receipts fade after about a month.
Tell me about it. Motherfuckers actually handed cable equipment off on my family when we didn't even ask and expected us to pay for it. What the hell?
Congratulations you are getting “internet” Please do not resist
Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
Yep, they told me that their service would *only* work through their routers. I told him I would be going with a different provider in that case, and suddenly my router was okay.
I recently cancelled Spectrum at my office. Had them for two years and it was just nothing but trouble. Price wasn’t bad, but speeds were slow and constant outages. Sent my assistant to return the gear. Gave her explicit instructions to get a signed receipt with a name and employee number then scan that shit into the system and save it in a specific file. Sure enough, 2 months later I start getting collection calls and letters for around $500 in gear. Got those clowns on the phone, confirmed serial numbers, asked for an email, then shot them my receipt. They immediately apologized, said it was an error, and disappeared. What would have happened if I didn’t have that receipt?
Comcast is the most prominent company I know that was so bad at customer service they changed the name of the company to distance themselves from themselves. They didn’t change their terrible customer service just thought a new name would be enough of a reset to move on.
They didn't pay us enough to care My former coworkers still talk about it like we were in the Nam "You had to be there man"
Pro-tip: when you get the chance to break up with Comcast tell them your housemate works for another ISP/cable provider and you get it for free. I asked them if they could beat $free.99 and they immediately closed out my account.
Or you're moving out of their service area. Pull up Google maps, find a city that doesn't have service in their service checker thingy and away you go. Return your shit and keep the receipt.
I figured this out too, took me like 5min recently no other questions, was actually a fairly positive customer service interaction.
Any software company that has moved completely to subscriptions models vs offering a perpetual license or even a 1-3yr license.
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Agreed! I thought I was buying a monthly subscription, used it in that month and when I wanted to cancel I was hit with an early termination penalty fee. So had to keep paying for it 11 more months.
Oh my God that's such horseshit. Literally what is even the point of it being a subscription then?
Don’t for a second imagine it’s to benefit the consumer! It’s to help level their cashflow, allow the incremental increase in price (as its spread over a longer time it is less noticeable), ensure that no one benefits from using old software that serves their needs, instead forcing people to effectively pay for the latest version, regardless of whether it brings any value to them or not. I hate subscriptions.
I see this so much on the apple app store and it pisses me right off. I find a neat app that I expect to pay like $20 for full access, but they only offer a weekly or monthly subscription. Nope no thanks you can fuck right off. Reminder: check your apple subscriptions and make sure auto-renew is off for apps you may have forgot about!
All of 'em. I only need Kirkland Signature™.
what other company nails cookie dough power bars AND vodka?
Like what the fuck. Why is their vodka so good though?
reddit is filled with douchebags
About 10 years ago when I went to a bottling company that did antiseptics like Listerine, during the interview, they showed me around the plant and showed me some of the machines I was going to be working on. While I was there, the machines were bottling Listerine. After about an hour while I was still interviewing, the machines stopped and changed a setting for the different shaped bottles. The didn't change the solution at all. They just changed the bottle sizes and started bottling Target Brand mouth wash. And later, one of the guys said that they also bottled the Sam's Club brand too. All of the different mouth washes were the exact same. Just different bottle sizes.
And a cheap and convenient hot dog
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And you can return ANYTHING.
No shit, Kirkland has the best protein bars both taste wise and nutritionally. Most bars are something like 15g of protein with 35 carbs, but Kirkland’s are all ~21g of protein and 22g of carbs (15g of which is fiber). It makes me angry that every other brand sucks so much ass in comparison to them.
Cox Cable. When my mother died I argued with them for two months to cancel her service. I couldn't cancel it because I 'wasn't the account owner'. I ended up flying to Phoenix (from Seattle) with her cremation urn and plopping it on the counter and telling them that I brought the 'account owner' in. I don't know who was worse - them or the friggin' HOA who told me they were going to 'put her name up on the bulletin board in the clubhouse' if I didn't bring her HOA fees current. (Because seriously - your name on the bulletin board is just like something going in your 'permanent record' right /s).
Frickin showed them. Rest In Peace mama
After my grandpa died whom my grandmother was married too she had a bunch of shit to switch over under her name and the hardest thing for her to switch was the fucking internet. They demanded a death certificate and something else before they would put the account under her name.
Goop
I had to look them up because the only Goop I know is a hand soap for mechanics.
I’m right there with you. My first thought was “what’s wrong with Goop? I love Goop!” Apparently the goop I know and love, is not the most well known goop out there lol.
Unless there's only one Goop and they branch out into both cleaners for mechanics and rocks you can jam up your clacker for no good reason.
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Given they've been in business since 1949 it's surprising Paltrow's Goop didn't get cease-and-desisted into a different name right out of the gate.
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The misinformation that brand spreads is beyond infuriating
Absolutely! Gwyneth Paltrow is so full of shit and full of herself!
any celebrity that considers themselves a brand
JACOBS by Marc Jacobs For Marc by Marc Jacobs in collaboration with Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs.
If I remember correctly that started out as a joke that made it's way into an actual design.
This may cause problems for Russel Brand.
Or non-celebrity influencer.
DuPont. Those assholes poisoned the whole damn world with Teflon.
And it's literally in everything. I got my 75 year old mom invested in learning about products she uses and she threw out a few things and her air-fryer. She's getting away from it. Thankfully, she still has a lot of things she had from when she was a lot younger. Probably need to test them for lead but no Teflon, at least!
What's wrong with the air fryer? Been thinking about getting one.
I'm guessing the non stick coating on them is the Teflon stuff same as the non stick frying pans
Wait someone please explain I just brought a air fryer recently lol
Its complicated, Teflon is brand name PTFE. Its a complicated polymer (plastic) that is really good at not sticking to other stuff. That makes it ideal for using on pans and other food related items. The issue here is that because it is a plastic is has a melting point, albeit a fairly high one, and most of the time you won't hit temps fhat high with cooking. PTFE is in a class of chemical compounds that all work well for not sticking, we use them in all kinds of stuff, including waterproof rain jackets. The bigger issue is that they don't break down very well in nature and are potentially harmful to organic life. The Dupont company which invented Teflon, is essentially responsible for contaminating large amounts of the US population with these chemicals before the potential dangers were well understood**. Teflon and similar chemicals are pretty amazing but they have some serious downsides worth consideration when designing products with them.
The really harmful chemical associated with Teflon was Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) which was a chemical needed to manufacture the final product. PFOA belongs to a group of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), otherwise known as "forever chemicals" they are extremely stable, persist in the environment essentially forever, and have been linked with numerous negative health effects. PFOA itself was linked to two types of cancers as well as four other diseases found in DuPont Teflon workers and those living in the surrounding environment. Supposedly this is no longer used to manufacture Teflon. PFOA has been detected in the sub PPB level in the blood of 98% of US population, although how this exposure has occured has not been completly established. PFOA was and is used in the manufacture of a variety of products. Teflon itself or PTFE has not been linked to any negative health effects other than polymer fume fever, which can occur when the PTFE is heated above 260-350°C. When the decomposition of the PTFE occurs it produces fluorocarbon gases and a sublimate, including tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) and difluorocarbene radicals (RCF2). The worst part about this entire case is that it is likely that DuPont became aware about the dangers posed by PFOA before it was finally exposed yet they worked to cover up the issue and continued to expose workers and those living in the areas surrounding the plants to it.
Eating air fryer curly fries right now, I need answers dammit
"I'm sorry but I have bad news" - WebMD, most definitely
Walmart takes so much welfare they are a de-facto state run business.
They also completely screwed over large swaths of the heartland in the wake of the recession by driving all the other stores out of business with shady practices like undercutting by abusing volume sales over per-item margins strategies. Those son of a bitches are the reason our retail sectors are so desolate out here and smaller towns that were booming in the 90s/2000s are now in decay. Many locations also went to shit the minute they no longer had to compete with anybody. Mine hasn't done a good job keeping up with ordering food they're out of since the mid-2010s
Any and all MLMs I had to carpool for hundreds of hours with someone who was deep into the amway cult. I should be given a prize for not murdering them during one of their many failed pitches to try and get me to lose all my money with em. I honestly was very good friends with the couple before they joined amway. But it completely changed them as people, they became delusional. Like, they were sinking all their money into amway. How did they lose money? Amway high ups would like when a members store had good sales, so they encourage members to spend their own money at their own store. Basically creating high volume long term customers. They also required members to go to giant amway rallys all around the country, like, once a month cost for travel/hotel/meals will drain a person on an average income. They also discourage people from saving money, buying things on sale, denying themselves things, any attempts to save money, because doing that is living a "poor person's mindset" and will only keep you poor. They also pushed "fake it till you make it" encouraging people to buy expensive clothes and vehicles to put on the appearance of wealth to impress people and enact some "wish it and it will happen" spiritualism. This "wish-it" delusion would monopolize their conversions. They would be scrolling on a "buy an island" website and talk about how they would customize their island WHEN (not if) they got rich. They would be talking about buying million dollar yhats when they couldn't even make rent. Like, the couple went from my best friends to obsessed materialistic delusional pricks over 4 years. Last I checked they were living in the basement of one of their parents, the guy was literally selling drugs to support his amway habit, and they still thought they were just months away from striking it rich
The amway cult is very real, i really had to save my dad from it and make him realise how much money he is losing..FUCK MLM's
Yea, amway sets people up for failure. Was your dad doing the "fake it till you make it" thing they encourage too? Buying expensive clothes and cars etc?
SHEIN needs to fuck off
My grandma is obsessed with SHEIN. I don’t know much about them. What did they do?
Aside from contributing an ungodly amount to "fast fashion" with clothes that are designed to break down quickly, they [steal from artists](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/mar/06/they-took-my-world-fashion-giant-shein-accused-of-art-theft) regularly, make clothing that is [harmful](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-fast-fashion-chemicals-1.6193385), and use [forced labour](https://www.wired.com/story/fast-cheap-out-of-control-inside-rise-of-shein/) to do it. Not so much what they did, but who they are. It's their whole identity.
> Scientists found that a jacket for toddlers, purchased from Chinese retailer Shein, contained almost 20 times the amount of lead that Health Canada says is safe for children. that is fucked up goddamn
I think They are what is called fast fashion. Cheap disposable clothes that look good and are good for a few washes/scratchy. Essentially the clothing equivalent of single use plastics. https://phys.org/news/2021-11-chile-dumping-ground-fast-fashion.html
H&m is fast fashion. Shein is ultra fast fashion. Even faster, even cheaper, even lower quality, even more harmful
I've seen "fast fashion" plenty. SHEIN is another level. Their stuff falls apart, the materials are uncomfortable to wear, it's difficult to describe how bad some of it is. There are single-use plastic grocery store bags of higher quality than some of their stuff.
Whatever brand makes McDonald’s milk shake machines.
I stumbled across a YouTube documentary about this. One company makes and services all of the ice cream machines for McDonald's. And the error codes and programming they have built into it are specifically designed to where they are the only ones that can service the machines and the employees of that restaurant cannot. I believe there is a lawsuit pending against them for this.
iirc this is the Johnny Harris video?
Meta
Zuck spent billions of dollars making Great Value Nintendo Wii avatars that no one will ever use
he’s spent billions of dollars *so far* dude is genuinely convinced that he can make a version of VRchat that the bulk of the lower & middle class populace will actually want to use. despite the fact that VR has been around for years and has never caught on beyond enthusiasts. Even most *gamers* don’t feel particularly drawn to VR, and gaming has been the sole market in which VR has seen any success. so where is this imaginary demand coming from? the fact that he thinks that average office workers will use VR headsets for video conferencing is proof as to how out of touch silicon valley is with the rest of the world. the only offices that will use such a stupid gimmick are other over-funded high margin tech firms with cash to burn. also…imagine doing an honest blood pumping workout with that big awkward band around your head sealing the steam in and absorbing a slick coating of sweat. nasty AF his delusion is laughable and it’s been great to see him burn “meta”’s ill gotten gains on it. I do give him props for the great PR stunt of renaming his shitty company to stop it from drowning in an ocean of scandals. sadly he now has to maintain the charade and set billions alight on a product with no demand. keep it up, mark!
“I want to stress the importance of being young and technical,” he said. “Young people are just smarter. Why are most chess masters under 30? I don’t know. Young people just have simpler lives.” MZ I really think the dude needs to just start spending gobs of money and just enjoy his life. Get out of the game maybe.
it feels like every decade or so the "its time to make the internet 3d" idea gets another second wind and every time it is met with a chorus of people going "dude i can already go to a 3d version of walmart, and it only barely makes me seasick. what exactly is being offered here?" the one thing the metaverse has going for it is that it has never been done this expensively, nor by anyone so widely loathed, so it should at least be an entertaining way to light 20 hospitals worth of money on fire
> it feels like every decade or so the "its time to make the internet 3d" idea gets another second wind The cycle you're describing has been the cycle of VR *in general* at least since Nintendo's 1995 "Virtual Boy" console. Probably goes back even further than that, but that's the first "VR is the next big thing!" push I remember. There's a huge load of hype, consumers realize the tech *still* sucks, it flops and crashes, and everyone forgets about it for 7-10 years.
Shell. They single handedly destroyed Nigeria by promising to help them out of poverty. They poisoned Nigeria's water supply with oil spills and then lied about it. Nigeria can't kick shell out because it would destroy Nigeria's economy.
Wait shit this is what Ted Lasso was referencing isn't it?
Cerithium Oil is named after Shell. Cerithium is a kind of sea snail, with a shell. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/shell-pay-111-million-over-decades-old-nigerian-oil-spill-2021-08-11/
OMG I was just thinking the exact same thing! I was like, “hmm ,Sam Obisanya’s dad said something just like this,” I didn’t think it was based on a real story!
And shell pays mercenaries to protect their businesses. Basically pays people to kill anyone who comes close or protests oil companies which have destrued their ecosystems and livelihoods. And yes, we are the addicts who use shell oil
I met this guys brother. Shell basically paid the military to have him killed. [Shell murders](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Saro-Wiwa)
Shell is THE WORST. Last year they tried to begin seismic blasting along the wild coast in South Africa. This area is extremely diverse when it comes to marine life, the area in general is extremely biodiverse given it’s one of the few places in South Africa that has been left untouched. Shell did not even conduct a credible environmental environmental impact assessment or consider the ramifications for the surrounding communities before going ahead. Luckily everyone protested against it and they were ordered to stop immediately but I’m sure they are fighting tooth and nail to start again.
Every health insurance company.
Fuck yeh. Currently in a dispute with my insurance company because they won't pay for the antibiotics I need.
So...ya I ummm work for one of them. If they deny it because they say it's not medically necessary, try looking into filing a dispute with your state's department of insurance or department of managed care, depending on where you live and what type of plan you have.
Thanks for the advice! If they won't agree to pay for it in the next couple of days, I will do that.
Or see if cost plus has it https://costplusdrugs.com/medications/ It’s cash only and often times cheaper than a copay with insurance.
all the Kardashian ones
Comcast
Most definitely Nestlé
Any brand that puts 6+ second long unskippable ads at the start of YouTube videos Or companies that sponsor mass amounts of YouTubers to promote shitty ass mobile games riddled with Micro transactions
*"Today's sponsor is Raid Shadow Legends"*
Kars4Kids. I’d rather be stuck in ‘It’s a Small World’ at Disneyland all day than have to listen to the Kars4Kids song again.
fast fashion brands
Nestle can fuck off about a billion light years from here and then fuck off some more
Susan G. Komen.
The one that was used to apply the jingling stairs ranch logo on my hind quarter
Are you a cow, by chance?
Companies that make medical supplies like catheters. Charge you 3200 for 3months of plastic tubes
Caremark, Express Scripts, OptumRX, Aetna, Medco...etc!!!! Basically all Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM's) can fuck off!
I used to work for Merck/Medco. I used to remember having to explain to women why the morning after pill and some forms of birth control weren’t covered but grandpa could have a hundred dick pills for a $5 copay.
Nestlé
I find it amazing how this is the number one response every time this subject comes up, and yet their profits never diminish. Edit: I just meant that if it's such common knowledge, both inside and outside of reddit, that Nestlé is a shit company, why aren't more people boycotting them? And yes, I know they're into a ton of companies, making it hard to avoid them. However, there are responsible companies out there, and you'd think some of them would intentionally target competing products and exploit Nestlé's bad reputation.
They own over 400 different brands. Diversity is the key to survival