The duct cleaning thing makes me think there’s probably multiple other businesses that have well-known scams in the same sphere. My driveway looks like hell and I’ve gotten cold contact solicitations from guys to quote and repair it. Some are no doubt hucksters who’ll just spray it with black oil and some are legitimately working three houses down and just happened to see my jacked-up asphalt. I’m sure the legitimate companies wish the spray-oil guys would get lost.
I’m not sure what to make of the “I’m selling these magazines to win a scholarship” kids who comes to my door. I’m not buying any magazines from them anyway but my vague understanding is that you’re legitimately subscribing to People or buying a Dr Seuss collection but the kids themselves are paid peanuts and are shipped around to live in dorm-style conditions, roused at 5am to hit the streets and hustle their products.
“12 months, same as cash” sounds like a scam. We bought furniture and figured we’d pay it off early. We paid it off in 10 months… and then, it was all over. No interest, no other fees. We even got a call from them reminding us that 12 months were almost here, so pay before the interest kicks in. Very nice and painless.
Netflix sounded like a scam to me at first. We pay a monthly fee, but can hold the DVD for as long as we want with no late fees. Come on! Blockbuster charges us an arm and leg for 5 minutes late. And then we can send back without postage, and they’ll send us a new one, also without postage… as often as we want?
Duct cleaning businesses are cut from the same fabric as businesses that purport to rid your home of mold. After your little mold test kit detects the presence of mold – and it always will, since mold is everywhere – a company will rid your home of it for a not-so-small price.
Other legit businesses that have offense odors include:
You are paying around 20 cents a day for every disc on your plan, whether you watch it, hold it or it’s somewhere in transit or exchange. It’s honest and forthright and is (or at least was) a good deal; but there’s a scammy edge to it.
I had this argument with someone who’d been holding a disc for something like six weeks, the argument being they should send it back for something they’d watch instead of letting the cost accumulate for non-watching. I pointed out they’d paid something like $9-10 to have it sit on their shelf.
I understand why some folks look down on whole life and annuities. Payday lenders are about the shadiest thing still legal, and identity theft, alarm monitoring, and timeshares are not the most reputable things in the world. Lumping Internet cafés in with them seems incongruous, though. Why do you put them in this category? The only thing I can think of is that their services are comparable to most libraries’.
Payday lending seems to have a legitimate reason to exist and be used, but it is very easy to get in way over your head. I have charged something on a regular credit card that I intended to pay off promptly but ended up not paying off for a few months - yes I paid interest but it wasn’t the end of the world. With a payday loan, if you don’t pay it off promptly, they rape you with interest and fees and you can end up paying ten times the amount you borrowed in “fees” and “interest” after only a year. Bend over (or better yet, pay the damn thing off promptly).
I loaned a DVD to a woman at my church in April, and she just finally sent it back a couple weeks ago (BTW, she said she never had a chance to watch it :rolleyes:). Never got a late fee or anything, although I told her that if she didn’t send it back, I would have to pay for it. I have heard that it’s happened to some people.
I had a Netflix movie for well over two months (I’d literally set it down somewhere absent-mindedly and forgotten I even had it) before I got a very nice note asking to return it by a certain date or $20 (or something) would be charged to my credit card.
I find that hard to believe. I am nerdy enough to keep track how long I keep my disks (I want to keep tabs on what the average amount of time is) and I have kept movies out for over three months (I had two movies each for a 110 days to be exact) and never heard a peep from them. They want you to keep them. They make more profit the less turn around you have.
If a person is really interested in selling a product, why set up a system that requires exponential growth to survive?
Provide one example of a product that benefits from multi-level marketing and I would concede that it is legitimate in some circumstances. From my experience it is a guise for a pyramid scheme.
Avon, Tupperware and Mary Kay, to name three. In a general, business-model sense, multi-level marketing can make sense in lieu of building a traditional brick and mortar network of distributors, wholesalers and retailers. These days, the Internet makes it much easier to buy practically anything from anywhere and has just about taken over the niche that legitimate MLM once occupied.
Last year, one such person knocked on my door on a Sunday evening, and said he was selling magazines to raise money for nursing school. He had a missing front tooth, and fresh cuts and bruises on his face. :eek: After I sent him away, I mentioned it on Facebook (and one of my cats was sitting by the door and growling) and someone told me that in the future, I should call the police because in many cases, it’s thinly disguised slavery.
When I rented my first apartment I had to wire the deposit and first month rent directly to the out of state land lord’s checking account having never met him, only his agent. Sounded super fishy, but I had no experience with this before.
Well after sending the money, I see on the news of scammers posing as land lords and collecting deposits and first months rent on property they do not own! I was a little panicked. However, before I sent the money I had asked several other tenets, some who had lived there for years, and they assured me that they had to do the same thing. I lived there about 2 years until the building was sold and demolished.
So in this case, this man was collecting first months rent and deposit EXACTLY like a scammer would, but he was perfectly legitimate.
The problem is that is likely untrue. There is absolutely no evidence that duct cleaning actually does anything. Testing of air quality before and after cleaning has shown no differences. You paid $40 to have someone wave a magic wand over your ducts.
Remember those stupid school insurance policies that were sold via your kids? they would bring the thing home-you would pay a small weekly amount-and if your kid lost an eye, they would pay you $100 or so. Are these things still sold? I could never understand why public schools allowed these firms to solicit at public schools.