Why Businesses and Consumers Choose to Screw Each Other for Profit
There are a lot of people in this world and a certain percentage of them will purchase just about anything because they want it to be true. They really don’t understand money, products, or services and how they are provided. Most go to work, earn a paycheck and spend it the best they know how to maintain or improve the quality of their life.
Almost every company in the market today has developed a way to get extra money out of every consumer and however unethical it appears it’s as legal. They ripped me off and mislead me, what do you mean it’s legal? Well they got you to sign a contract, user agreement, privacy policy or something of that nature that basically screws you in the fine print.
Americans have come to expect 100% satisfaction on every single product or service they purchase. If they find any reason they are not satisfied or think the product / service can be better they want to return it for a refund regardless of whether they have used it or not. This American consumerism has created a chain of events that makes it difficult for businesses to profit.
Now almost any customer that has the opportunity to screw a business and save money will take that opportunity. They will say “oh well, it’s their own fault for allowing me to get away with it” or something along those lines. If a consumer sees a product that has been mismarked, a coupon that doubles, or a chance to receive a discount on a product for subscribing to a service they know they can just cancel; almost every consumer will take advantage of it if they are aware.
It’s ok for a consumer to screw a business if they can get away with it because “it’s the businesses fault” for mismanagement. Of course if the consumer gets screwed they’ll ask for a refund. If they don’t receive a refund they’ll contact their bank or credit card company and dispute the charge using any means necessary. According to the average person it’s not ok to screw the consumer but it’s ok to screw a business if they give you the opportunity.
It’s so easy to fail in a legitimate business and it takes a lot of work to be successful. The sheer amount of work and customer dedication it takes to run a successful business is a deterrent to running a legitimate business when a scam product or service has such amazing short term gains. The best example is that gardening tool they were selling on TV that sold for only $19.99 and you got all these free accessories, just pay the shipping. Well this company automated the telephone
I’ll give you an excellent example of how even a legitimate business chooses to screw consumers every month of every year just because people refuse to read the fine print.
A business will offer 0% interest for 12 to 36 months on large consumer purchases such as a TV through Best Buy or mattress through Mattress World. Now if you purchase a $1,200 TV at 0% interest for 1 year and decide not to pay off the TV within that one year because you’ve only been making minimum payments… you get screwed.
Most 0% interest financing options allow you to pay off the entire purchase within the 0% interest time frame and receive 0% interest. However, if your entire purchase is not paid off within the time frame they will charge you interest at the rate specified (ie: 31.75%) for every single month during that time frame.
In this day in age most consumers do not care about businesses and most businesses don’t care about consumers. They care about profits and their own well being which become the American way. It’s a constant battle because to most people doing the screwing than being screwed.
Here is an example of ComplaintsBoard.com, and website for consumers to complain and inform others when they have a complaint about other businesses. This site, ComplaintsBoard.com, is advertised as a consumer advocate against poor business practices but it’s only out for profit just like any other business. I just took this screenshot tonight as an example:
acai berry scam
Tons of Consumer Complaints about Acai Berry Scams and ComplaintsBoard.com is littered with Google Ads linking to those exact same products that consumers are complaining about. They are supposedly advocating against scams and unsatisfactory products but they receive money from Google Advertisers for advertising the exact same products or services their visitors are complaining about!
Just like any other business ComplaintsBoard.com is it in for the money by any means possible.
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I think it is perfectly fine to screw over a big business, they’ll screw you any chance they get.
I return a game to blockbuster, I don’t know what happens, but I get letters from the collection agency asking for $100.
I put my gym membership on hold, they charge me twice as much to start it back up. Then they start double charging me monthly… for some reason.
Cancelled internet, moved out the house, and they kept sending bills to my new place for the old connection.
There’s many more problems I’ve had… It’s easier for businesses to screw people over, they just send collection agencies and ruin your credit.
Anyways… I’m using my 3 months of free internet. Rogers still sucks.
Yeah, I’m on Qwest.net right now. It’s quite insane the amount of things they’ve managed to mess up. I ordered a free new customer install along with the most basic internet package they had with a static IP. The package was a phone line, $14.99, internet $19.99, and a static IP for $5.95. This of course included free installation.
My first bill was almost $100 and I was expecting a $40 bill. The internet installation was free but not the phone line. The phone install was charged at $29.99 and was for a 3 month period. Also in order to have a phone line with internet I needed the Silver Package which was an additional $29.99 a month.
Needless to say their service sucks compared to Comcast (Cable Internet) and I only got the service for the static IP address. Yeah, I got screwed and they gave me a partial credit… so they still came out ahead and I came out behind.
Well.. I used the Direct TV, HD-DVD, Surround Sound package to save $500 on a TV at BestBuy. I returned the HD-DVD and Surround Sound + Cancelled the Direct TV. This left me with a $1,000 42″ Westinghouse LCD 1080P for only $500.. Oh and I bought it across state lines so I wouldn’t have to pay tax.
Totally get it Rajbir… you get screwed so when you get the chance you screw someone else. Repeat.
Ryan, I have to be very good to my customers because if I don’t……they will screw me in Yelp.com (or one of the bazillion other review sites like Yahoo Local, Google Maps, or City Search).
On the consumer side, I shop at Costco, eat at In N’ Out Burger (an upscale fast food chain), and fly only on Southwest Airlines. (Those 3 corporations have the HIGHEST customer satisfaction in their respective industries, and I model my own business practices after these companies.)
@ Sacramento Weddings… So, you’ll start charging bigger people double the rates for your DJ service like Southwest does? LOL. And a Double Double wouldn’t be a Double Double with “No Cheese.” ….. I crack myself up. (BTW, I got nuthin funny for ‘Costco’)
@RJ….At In N’ Out Burger –I always order the “Double Meat” (Double Double with NO CHEESE) — its not on the menu but its got its own cash register button ($2.35 — about 60 cents less than Double Double).
In N’ Out has the HIGHEST CUSTOMER SATISFACTION in the fast food industry, they were cited in the best-selling book “Fast Food Nation” as an example of excellent standards in a sea of crappy (literally, fecal contaminated) cow meat.
@Sac – Have you seen the In-n-Out 100×100 Burger video on YouTube?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i49qU0M6-E (There used to be a better one, but that’s all i could find)
Hi,
interesting post. I own a little business since one year. I real start up, and I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I’m making building blocks, the old school, hard maple building blocks for kids to play with. Kids love them. It’s been crazy how people try to scam every single little dollar away from you, but simply because large toy companies have completely wrecked the playing ground for toy business’. I’m not ashamed of my products, they are high quality, but people can’t distinguish that anymore. To this day I have not had any disputes from unhappy customers, but I’m pretty sure someone will come some day and not like what they got, or because there might be a small fault (remember it’s all wood, and wood is not 100% controllable like plastic is), and they will want their money back, after having played with the toys for 6 months or so.
Interestingly these kind of business practices are pretty much non existent in Germany. You couldn’t just give a digital camera back 10 days after buying it, because you just felt like it. (I think it’s slowly making it’s way into the chains as well).
I think this recession is going to change a whole lot in that, people are going to be more careful with what they buy, buy less, but they will choose more homegrown higher quality products. Becoming more consumer normal, and less consumption insane!
I’m a business owner, and I’m not up to screwing people, I want them to live healthy lives (both personal health and financial health), I’m transparent with my business and I demand respect of customers!
Peace out, Hans
@Hans….my favorite childhood toys were: Lincoln Logs, Legos, & Erector Set.
Lincoln Logs were real wood……..they probably were my favorite age 4-6.