The Eternal

There's a number of things that I think are complete and total ripoffs or brilliant scams. Here's a few of mine, can you name any others?

1) Bottled Water - Usually, absolutely nothing is done to this spring or glacier or ice berg water. No filtering, no testing, nothing. And it's sold at more than the price of gasoline. Gasoline has a very complex and expensive refining process. It doesn't just get pumped directly into bottles so how is it cheaper?

2) Banks - Would you give your buddy $20 and ask him hold it for you for a month while he invests it and turns it into $25? And then he charges you $1.50 in service charges to hold your money. So he just made $6.50 off you and you've now got $23.50. Banks are great. Except they charge you to take your money and then don't give you any of the profit they make while they have it. Think about it next time you deposit some money and see "-$1.50 service charge" on your account.

3) Apple stuff - Selling "Cool" for 50% more than the exact same hardware as a PC. Had to put this in there.

4) Wisdom Teeth removal - since I had this done recently, I put some thought into it. $1200 to have 3 teeth removed. It took him 20 minutes. Sure, anesthesia and other tools were used, which let's say cost $200. That means he charges $3000 per hour. And we thought Lawyers were bad at $400-500 per hour. Dental specialists got them beat by a long shot. I mean even if he paid his 10 helpers 30 bucks an hour, he's still making off with $2700 per hour. Business expenses can't be that high. Even if expenses were 75% that one specialist is making almost $100k per month. Provided a full month of uncanceled appointments of course.

There should be some kind of Consumer protection against this sort of ripoff. Wisdom teeth can become a major health problem if you don't remove them, and half the population can't afford their ridiculous prices.

5) MMOs - We bought the game for $60 and pay $15 per month to play the most stretched out, prolonged and slow moving content of every gaming genre combined. Deliberately designed to make everything take forever so that you pay and pay and pay while getting minimal new content in return. On top of the $180 per year you paid, you have to pay another $60 for an expansion every 2 years.

Yeah, we all fell for this one. But then, we all have bank accounts too.

#4.... That's the advantage of spending 8-12+ years in college... then tack on the malpractice insurance and the expensive attorneys he probably keeps on retainer.. Board fees, operating costs, continuing education, licenses, interest on student loans.... Specialists make a ton of money, but they also spend a lot getting there/staying there.

I included operating costs in my estimate. Student loans are estimated to be about $100,000 for an Oral Surgeon. That would be paid for in under a year by the prices they are charging. Of course, you don't start off as an oral surgeon making that kind of cash, but the point is once you start, you pay off your debt in no time at all and then it's smooth sailing after that with huge profits. I still see no justification in charging that kind of money.

you left out alcohol. The state sells it to you only to arrest you for consuming it.

I love when I bought my car and they had an $80 notary fee... My best friend and I are both notary's and granted I can't notarize my own stuff but I asked the dealer to remove the fee and I'd bring my own notary... I don't know what going prices are in other states but here we only charge $10-$15.. Oh don't forget the insurance they want to sell you in case you die, it will pay your car off... First of all, I have life insurance... secondly... if I'm dead.. come pick up the damn car and who gives a shit about my credit rating lolol... I'm sure you all have had cases of the 'fine print' when buying an automobile..

Ryghtchuss wrote:you left out alcohol. The state sells it to you only to arrest you for consuming it.

Yeah, post any more you can think of!

Ryghtchuss wrote:you left out alcohol. The state sells it to you only to arrest you for consuming it.

To go with this one, if you drink and drive your in deep shit! But if you choose to walk home from the bar and be safe, your still in deep shit for public drunkeness!

Isn't wisdom teeth removal covered under your health care system? Do you even see a bill? Honest questions, I'm not very familiar with the canadian system.

Also one of the right wing arguments to a nationalized system is that the health care providers aren't compensated as well. This would seem to debunk that.

It's the hospitals themselves that get the lion share of most procedures fees/costs.