Asklemmy

Religion

The American healthcare system.

Homeopathy, acupuncture, ozone therapy... all "alternative medicines" basically.

Ponzi schemes, especially the insurance companies. They really are a Ponzi scheme.

Think about it, they promise you things asking for money, then when you need their services they decide where you go, how much they will pay (leaving the rest for you to pay as a deductible), then they turn around and increase your costs for their services, that they fight tooth and nail not to pay anything.

A large portion of art/artifacts are forgeries. Everyone is alright with it because galleries and collectors want to brag about having some unique old art piece and forgers are very good at making pieces that would fool anyone who is just looking at it.

That you can get rich if you work hard.

Lotteries. They're just tax for poor people.

The McDonald's Monopoly promotions

Homeopathy. It's literally based on the idea that diluting stuff turns it into a remedy.

printer ink, it costs them like 3 cents to make each cartridge and they sell it for so god damn much.

they also go out of their way to have chips in the cartridges and in the printers that make the printer not function if any ink is even running low, doesn't matter if you want to print something in black and white you had better fucking buy more cyan ink

Toothpaste.

You only need to squeeze out an amount the size of a pea on to the bristles of your toothbrush.

The image of squeezing along the entire length of the brush bristles was concocted by an ad agency, a la Mad Men, to make consumers use their toothpaste faster, hence buy more product.

Cryptocurrency in general. Even on the surface, as presented, the main appeal to buy in is "to get rich from it" and the main way you're supposed to get rich is "other people buying in, get in early while you can."

Ponzi. Schemes. All of them.

Credit scores are a scam to sell credit cards.

You take small loans each month via a credit card that you have to pay back. This increases an imaginary number that lets you take out bigger loans in the furure.

This is all tracked by private companies that you trust with your personal data. That, or you'll not be able to take out a loan if you want to buy a house or start a business.

If you have a good credit score it means that you don't overspend or forget to pay, which you can also achieve with a regular debit card by default. This doesn't serve people, only the banks who expect that a number of people will overspend or not be able to pay their loans back.

Credit cards alone aren't the problem. Forcing them on people with the credit score system is.

Bernie Madoff should have been caught years before he did.

Tax-free charitable organizations

Mormon church

Landlords

Bitcoin

It's absurd that people still think chiropractic is legitimate.

Restaurants being rated with “Michelin stars” was created as a ploy to encourage people to buy cars and drive more to go on road trips to these restaurants so they’d wear through more tires and have to buy more

*Edited because I was a bit off base

Capitalism, religion, monarchy, and religion.

Old Egypt was full of pyramid schemes way back then

The current economic order

Luxury handbags that cost $60k. Not just a handbag, but to diversify your investment and launder money.

Capitalism

ESG and carbon offsets as an effective way of combating climate change

Interest and Rent.

Passiv income in general ,as it obviously constituts itself from other Peoples Active Income , its per definition a scam...

*"Because you once where in need and i lended you some coin , you now have to pay me back a expotentially rising amount of Coin ! its rate of rising is not messured on your harvest or the amount of offspring of your Herd but on Time going forward ! Because it surely will ! , If you Cant you will fall in Debt-Slavery to me. I am a Risktaker . you take the Risk . I Take . Always ." *

they sold you for absolute Fools , Folks !

(PS: Muslims not included)

That 90% of the people who don't watch sports on Cable TV subsidize it to the tune of 10% of their bill for the 10% of people who watch it

Theranos ‘company’.

ITT: Things people personally think are scammy, but not actual legally-defined scams.