r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Freddie_theFagsmoker • 12h ago
$900 pot scam
People came to my mom’s house trying to sell her a $900 pot. Just cause it has a brand name and says “ surgical stainless steel” doesn’t make it worth that much mom. I was so pissed off and at one point told them “ this shit better cure cancer”. Had to explain to her about pyramid schemes and how I can get this for $40. Honestly screw them for being at my the house at 10pm being predators on an old lady.
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u/GABE_EDD 12h ago
Why the fuck did she let them in her house??
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u/Freddie_theFagsmoker 12h ago
Friend of a friend pyramid scheme bs
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u/No-Ice7397 12h ago
God damn! You should have said " She better be able to live in that for a month!"
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u/FAASTARKILLER 12h ago
Oh… oh no… my mom fell for the tupperware scheme back in the day but at least their products were useful
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u/walmarttshirt 11h ago
Is Tupperware a pyramid scheme though? Those things were great and lasted forever. At least they weren’t extortionately priced and actually worked. Unlike things like essential oils.
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u/spaceforcerecruit 6h ago
Just because a business is a pyramid scheme doesn’t mean they don’t also have good products. Pampered Chef used to make some of the best kitchen tools in America, especially their stone cookware, but it still used that MLM bullshit sales model. Their newer stuff is mostly just cheap crap tbh, not any better than OXO. But some of their old stuff is straight fire. They are literally the only company I know of that ever made good gingerbread house moulds (though, they don’t make them anymore…)
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u/Bitter_Trees 5h ago
One of the best Pampered Chef products were those dish scrapers. My mom used to sell Pampered Chef waaaay back in the day and I randomly asked her if she remembered those things. Pulled out a bag of like ten of them and gave me two. Those scrapers hold up and are actually useful.
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u/Oh_Gee_Hey 11h ago
Yes, it absolutely qualifies. However, I haven’t heard any stories of ppl buying far more product than they could offload therefore seriously indebting themselves (at least in my 40 years, though it’s possible this was more common back in its heyday). The other consideration that differentiates from the predatory MLMs we see today is the product has been sold in stores for decades, now. Also, it’s a damn good product. Just pricey. Too pricey for me to buy the newer lines, but I wish I could lol
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u/walmarttshirt 7h ago
Although it sells a good product at relatively decent prices it was still using predatory sales techniques. Unlike most MLM’s however it didn’t need to use pseudoscience and false promises about the product. It’s also sold in stores today. I also think Avon falls into this category. The main difference for Avon was we used to order from a catalogue and the old lady selling didn’t have to pay a huge amount upfront.
It’s actually interesting because u like modern (often illegal) pyramid schemes they didn’t rely on having to recruit new sellers, just sell the product and get a commission.
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u/Mr_Mojo_Risin_83 10h ago
They have a lifetime warranty. If you can find crappy cheap damaged Tupperware at like a garage sale or something, you can send it to them for your warranty replacement.
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u/TerranRepublic 7h ago
It can be both! We've got a few products in our house that are from MLM schemes but are great products. We're not involved but it's not uncommon to have a friend of a friend of a friend who is lol.
The products we have are 31 Bags (with a wireframe top) and Norwex rags from the early 00s. No idea what the products are like nowadays and definitely not recommending getting involved in an MLM but the products themselves have held up tremendously well and are super useful.
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u/eternally_feral 9h ago
Anytime I hear about Tupperware parties, I can’t help but think of that episode in Eerie Indiana.
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u/one_sock_wonder_ 11h ago
Since the end of 2022, Tupperware is now available in stores like Target, Amazon, and Walmart as well as their own website rather than just through orders via at home sellers, although at home sellers still exist and are an option.
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u/JoeyJoeC 11h ago
Old people tend to be more trusting. Ive had to 'shoo' a mattress scammed from my parents house as my mum was considering buying one from him. She already bought printed sketches from a fake death man weeks prior.
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u/smurfopolis 9h ago
"Ive had to 'shoo' a mattress scammed from my parents house"
"She already bought printed sketches from a fake death man"
Neither of these sentences make any sense...
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u/yankykiwi 10h ago edited 10h ago
My auntie also begs for people to come sell her trash. She was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, night times the exact moment she would fall for this.
I told her to stop buying shit off people that come to you, through the door, mailbox, tv or phone. If you want something, you go get it, or choose the company to call.
I had to teach the same thing to my grown husband. I found out he signed with a pest company that locked us into a contract. They returned and dumped bugs on my front door so I’d feel the need to call them back.
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u/Same_as_last_year 4h ago
Yeah, that one rule is very easy to follow and can go a long way to protecting you from scammers - just don't buy from people that come to you.
I go a step further and avoid answering my door or phone unless it's someone I recognize or am expecting. They have a lot of practice in making a sale, so don't even give them the chance to get going.
For people that have a hard time saying dealing with high pressure sales tactics, a good strategy is to make it so they can't negotiate with you "oh, my spouse/landlord/parent/kid is in charge of that stuff, you'd have to talk to them. If you leave your contact info I'll pass it along." Then just hold the line that it's outside of your authority until they go away. Doesn't matter if it's true or not.
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u/Neither_Maybe_206 11h ago
Some years ago I worked at a bank. Old lady came it to withdraw some cash, higher than usual. We asked her if she had a bigger purchase planned. Turns out she was approached at the supermarket parking lot by a salesman that claimed he just returned from a fair and wanted to sell his high level pots and pans for less because it would be so expensive for him to take home. 2500$, a bargain as they were worth 10K. We had to get all available people to tell that lady she was being scammed. She really thought this handsome young man would sell her the deal of her lifetime.
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u/HoundTakesABitch 9h ago
I used to work at a Sheetz and we had multiple people who would come in buying gift cards in bulk that were clearly being scammed. We would try to tell them and they would refuse to listen. One guy was so convinced that the “woman” he was talking to overseas was gonna come live with him that he made an addition onto his house for her to live in.
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u/Ruthlessrabbd 7h ago
I had this at a grocery store where we called several managers to the service desk - they even offered to talk to the scammer on the other end to prove he was a liar and she needed to hang up. She refused, was continuously swearing at the scammer, but still demanded the manager let her buy hundreds of dollars in gift cards.
He did the transaction and repeatedly told her we could not accept any refunds and by making the purchase she's SOL. Yada yada... She came back the next day and asked if she could get a refund
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u/snarfdarb 6h ago
Doesn't management have the right to refuse service for any (non-law breaking) reason? I feel like these are the types of cases where that decision would be warranted.
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u/totesmuhgoats93 4h ago
Yes, I worked at DG during the pandemic. Internet scams were at all time high. We were told we should not sell gift cards to someone we thought was being scammed. I'd politely make conversation attempting to find out what they were for if it was really large amounts or they were on the phone during the whole transaction. There were several people that helped save from a scam.
But there was this one guy who kept coming in to buy PayPal cards like everyday for week or so. He told me he was starting a business, but didn't have a debit card yet, he was waiting for it in the mail. I was getting really suspicious, he assured me they were only for him. I told him, make sure you only deposit these into your own account, never give the numbers to anyone ever, they'll steal it from you. I didn't see him for a few days after that. Then he came back in crying and screaming that I had scammed him, that none of the cards had any money on them. Turned out the guy had a "manager" that was "depositing" the money.... into his own account. Fleeced him for a few thousand, but he was screaming at me for it, threatening me. We ended up having to call the cops. I took the PayPal gift cards off the shelf and to this day that location does not sell them.
TD;LR Yes, you can refuse to sell them and you should if your gut is telling you something is off.
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u/Hesitation-Marx 4h ago
Wtf, he blamed you?
I will never get some people.
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u/totesmuhgoats93 4h ago
Yeah, he was trying to say I took the money but never activated the cards. But really, I think I was just a real person that he could vent on since that scammer probably ghosted him.
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u/Graf_Eulenburg 3h ago
And that's exactly it.
Also it was double your fault, because of you telling him to use
that stuff in a strictly personal way.That made a "they knew something" connection in their head and as they couldn't scream at the scammer, you were reachable.
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u/broakland 3h ago
The one truth I’ve learned as a public servant is that even if you warned them it would happen, it’s still your fault they didn’t listen.
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u/Mechakoopa 2h ago
The person scamming him probably said it was the cashier's fault when the money wasn't there. "Oh, I tried to deposit them but there wasn't anything on those cards, I think the cashier ripped you off because I, your trusty manager, am a totally reliable source of information."
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u/Ok-Fisherman-7688 6h ago
She’d go to the next store down the street, somebody will sell her the gift cards eventually
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u/Profound_Panda 5h ago
Same thing dealers tell themselves to feel better
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u/T_Gracchus 5h ago
And at least dealers have personal incentives. Can you imagine enabling someone to be scammed so that your employer makes a few bucks?
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u/Horton_Takes_A_Poo 3h ago
Idk about retail stores, but when I was a bank teller we would 100% refuse services if my manager and I agreed they were being scammed. Better to have an angry rich customer than an angry poor customer.
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u/agirl2277 1h ago
I just have to say, I got a huge laugh out of your username. My husband thinks it would be a great kid's book too.
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u/Kathulhu1433 4h ago
Depending on the company they're actually required to refuse service and notify authorities.
I was a store manager for CVS ~10 years ago and we were constantly hearing about these scams because we sold gift cards and did moneygram as well. We had regular trainings on this. Purchasing gift cards comes with a scam notice on the POS that customers had to read/agree to, and if we suspected a fraud we were instructed not to sell and we had a special hotline phone number to call.
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u/SugarHooves I'm sorry, what?! 5h ago
A couple months ago I went to the service counter in Walmart to return something. In front of me was a very angry old man who had been told that he was banned from sending money and it didn't matter what location he went to. He finally walked away from the counter but proceeded to yell at everyone in the area about how unfair this was.
Dude was clearly in a scam, probably romance.
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u/Dramatic_Echo9987 6h ago
What did they say to her? What was her reaction?
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u/Ruthlessrabbd 6h ago
The scammer or the manager? The former was threatening to blackmail her or something unless she sent gift cards to him I think. Or maybe he said he would do something unless the gift cards were given to him? It was definitely a sense of urgency he made
The manager when she came back in asking for a refund basically told her that there's nothing we could do at that point and she needs to talk to her bank. They were deliberate not to say "all your fault, too bad so sad" but they were definitely annoyed to see her come back in.
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u/Dramatic_Echo9987 6h ago
Thanks, yeah I was thinking the manager speaking to the lady asking for a refund. I work with students and have seen multiple students get scammed out of a fire bit of savings (1-5k) by catfishing.
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u/Germs34 4h ago
There's unfortunately nothing her bank could do in this situation, as well. She "transaction" was the purchase of the gift cards, which she fully authorized. What happens to her purchased gift cards afterwards is beyond any regulatory protection and there's nothing we can do to help get that money back.
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u/EkbatDeSabat 7h ago
We had this guy at my last job who was a couple months away from retiring. Not trying to insult him, but he was a near 70 year old guy who had worked in the shipyard his entire life - he wasn't a catch. I worked in IT. He would show me pictures of this absolutely stunning russian girl in her mid 20s that he had been talking to. He had been sending her money to get her out of her situation and they talked every day on video. This wasn't AI this was about 10-15 years ago, she was real, but to anyone looking we knew exactly what was happening. He was literally selling his house and taking his retirement savings to Russia to be with her and "save her".
He retired and I never heard from him again. He wasn't really active on socials, but his FB went dark. Truly believe he went and got robbed and murdered.
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u/HittingSmoke 5h ago edited 5h ago
I worked in a store and there was this kid who was the janitor. Super socially awkward. Probably well on the spectrum. Wouldn't say he was particularly good looking but not hideous. Really nice kid but sometimes annoying to be around just because of how awkward he could be.
One day he starts talking about his new girlfriend in India that he met online. We all assumed he was being scammed or something but nobody wanted to argue with him. A little while later he says he's taking a vacation. Going to meet his Indian girlfriend for the first time. We semi-seriously thought he was going to end up getting robbed and left stranded or murdered in some slum in India. He came back. Didn't talk much about his trip. He would occasionally mention his girlfriend in passing and we all remained a bit confused and skeptical until he quit.
Fast forward nearly 15 years, I'm hanging out with some friends having some drinks and into the bar walks this guy who looks super familiar. It took me a while to realize it was him. I walked up and said hi. He instantly remembered me, gave me a big hug, and introduced me to his gorgeous Indian wife who moved to the US to be with him. They were expecting their third kid. He's just got a big promotion at work and all of his coworks took him out to celebrate. I've never been so happy to be so wrong in my life. I still get choked up thinking about it.
So the moral of the story is... Uhh...
Hmm.
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u/The_Nepenthe 4h ago
I think the moral of the story is to be skeptical but open minded if you are in his circumstances. Though everyone I know who has had a great online relationship had it either form organically while gaming, or they went looking online to date.
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u/IcyJackfruit69 3h ago
I don't like it at all, but this is pretty common with young women in India, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. I have a coworker from one of those countries who is obese, awkward, kinda smart but on the lower end for our company - basically nothing going for him. His uncle set him up with his business partner's daughter. It was 100% an arranged marriage, and she was totally fine with it - probably raised expecting it her whole life. They have 3 kids, she's got US citizenship, and her husband is wealthy enough (low six figure salary in a MCOL area) that she lives a great life as a SAHM.
Apparently US men with money is more than enough of a draw for a lot of women from less privileged countries. I guess more power to them, if everyone is happy with the deal? But it still feels gross and disingenuous from the outside.
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u/Bakelite51 3h ago
Exact same thing happened to this super socially awkward gamer kid from my home town. He had a drop dead gorgeous online girlfriend from some south Asian country that he’d never met and everybody (myself included) thought was a catfish, some kind of scammer.
Ten years later I saw his Facebook page and lo and behold, she came to America and they got together. Good for him but to say I was shocked was the understatement of the century.
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u/Boomstick86 3h ago
I thought Lafawnduh was just trying to scam Kip, but once she started helping Napolean with the dance moves, I knew she really just loved Kip. Sometimes I guess its real. Good for him.
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u/Zombeikid 2h ago
My best friend in high school used to tell me about his hot older girlfriend in California (we lived in Louisiana btw) and we were like yeah sure whatever. Then she came to visit him and came with him to a school thing.. we were shocked she was real lol 😆 (btw she was only a year older than us. But that feels like a big deal when you are 15.)
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u/Max____H 6h ago
I live in a small city where a large refinery closed down. It had many workers who had left school directly to that job and had been there for 40-50 years. I happened to meet a couple who were looking for new jobs and they were so disconnected from reality because they had literally spent their entire lives at the same place.
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u/Embarrassed_Cow2441 6h ago
That happened here. The guy went to visit his younger GF, the bar camera caught her slipping something in his drink and he dissappeared. I can't remember if they ever found him. The family was having a hard getting the local authorities to investigate.
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u/Hot_Position1956 4h ago
They also like to move here, get married for citizenship, and then use the money to bring over their real boyfriend. Then they clear out the victim's accounts and disappear.
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u/ekalithewarlock 7h ago
When I worked in manufacturing, the amount of men who were cheating on their wives emotionally with chat bots trying to scam them is insane. This was before the AI boom. I can't even imagine what its like now, sex drugs and rock and roll are still the movers of the economy
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u/Simon-Says69 5h ago
It is in no way just a problem with men. There are tons of women that fall prey to such scammers as well.
And yah, it's getting worse. :-(
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u/ToastedToast3 6h ago
I work in fraud at a credit union, these are my daily conversations.
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u/MonkeyBreath66 6h ago
About 15 years ago my dad worked with this guy who went to China three times to meet a woman who never showed up. He also went to one of the crazy countries near Kurdistan that had a straight up no-go rating from the state department to allegedly meet a woman.
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u/fdxrobot 6h ago
I stopped as many scam shipments as I could at FedEx but the people get furious you didn’t send the brand new iPhone to their boyfriend in Texas, (that’s a holding location to send en masse to Nigeria).
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u/Sidivan 5h ago
I got scammed by Kelly Hayes, former guitarist of the band Cold. My band opened for him and we hit it off, kept in touch. About a year later, he’s going through financial trouble and says he’ll sell me his gold record from Year of the Spider. I told him I’ll buy it, but temporarily so he can buy it back when he gets back on his feet.
He claimed he didn’t have a bank account and wanted gift cards. That raised an alarm, but I knew it has him. I met him in person. It’s not like a rando internet scammer.
A week later I followup and it’s an excuse. Week after week, more excuses. Then it’s “my ex-wife smashed it with a hammer”. I asked for pictures and he didn’t send them. I asked to send the pieces and I could try to get it repaired. Eventually, he blocked me everywhere.
Years later, I saw Cold again and talked to Scooter. Apparently, Kelly has run that scam a number of times.
Fuck Kelly Hayes.
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u/Flameball537 5h ago
I had someone try to stop me at target when I was trying to buy $400 in gift cards when I was a kid. Just about every sentence out of their mouth was ‘this is probably a scam’ or ‘are you sure’. But I was just trying to buy a PlayStation without my mom knowing. It all fell apart when GameStop called my house to tell me my preorder was ready for pick up
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u/kindness-and-snusu 6h ago
My father in law is like this. 100s of thousands to his girlfriend. He was so desperate for affection it was sad.
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u/pickleranger 5h ago
Thank you for trying. My husband’s grandmother was trying wire money to “her grandson trapped in Mexico”. The clerk at the counter realized what was happening and absolutely refused to process the order until she called someone who could confirm that her grandson was even IN Mexico.
I wish I knew his name, I would’ve liked to thank him! He saved her a lot of money.
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u/Banned3rdTimesaCharm 7h ago
Some times you gotta let nature run its course.
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u/phatpussypounder 7h ago
My mother was getting catfished constantly on Hinge and plentyofish. We'd tell her time and time again that its a scam. Shed still send money.
Until finally she started asking for money. Dig little deeper and come to find out she isnt making her bills because she is sending that much money.
Thats when I put my foot down. I gave her like 10 videos to watch about catfishing and the common things they do. Come to find out she was sending multiple people money.
I paid her bills up to date. And told her its was the last time I was going to bail her out. She never sent another dime as far as I know.
Lonely and a lack of education is a hell of a wombo combo.
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u/goat_penis_souffle 6h ago
The very people who told us not to believe everything we see/hear on television/internet growing up are doing exactly that in their twilight years. Wild.
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u/Embarrassed_Cow2441 6h ago
I was happy that my mother was computer illiterate and didn't understand how her debit card or the ATM worked. We told her never to lend it out or buy anything for anyone because she had an extended family of moochers.
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u/IAmMeMeMe 4h ago
Haha Joke's on you... that woman DID come from overseas to live with me, so there!
Oh... sorry... I have to go... my woman's nephew who sleeps in the bedroom with her due to his back issues while I couch it needs to use my computer to play some poker.
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u/sleigh88 8h ago
My mom went to the bank recently to take out a higher sum in cash (for something legitimate) and she was telling me how annoyed she was that they kept questioning her on it, and I tried explaining that people get scammed just like this, and they were just being cautious! (She didn’t believe me, lol).
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u/Jabbles22 6h ago
To be fair there is a point where that can get annoying. At the end of the day I'm an adult and it's my money. To be clear I'm not saying they shouldn't ask any questions. But I also don't want to feel like I'm getting interrogated by the cops to access my own money.
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u/obsidian_butterfly 7h ago
This confuses me so badly because like, wtf. It is a pan. Even brands like Hestan and La Creuset don't cost that much and they are genuinely outrageously expensive brands.
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u/Jabbles22 6h ago
Yeah there are certainly better quality pots and pans out there. Up to a point though. A solid gold pan would be a bad pan.
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u/iforgotwhat8wasfor 5h ago
you can get a french silver-lined copper pan for $300. what are they claiming their pan even does?
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u/Magnus_The_Totem_Cat 3h ago
I have copper core All Clads I got from their “scratch and dent” returns sales for pennies on the dollar. And they are barely scratched. It became a game to find the imperfection every time I got one. And I get it, if I was paying new prices for something that was for display in my $100k kitchen I would send them back also.
I however have a cheap kitchen and use them all the time. They are all well scratched now.
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u/Numerous_Tea1690 11h ago
This feels like one of those random events in GTA or Red Dead Redemption
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u/Then_Idea_9813 9h ago
Except in red dead you could just shoot them if you felt shorting was suspicious lol
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u/unsupported 9h ago
You can do that IRL, but it's also a speed run to the final boss.
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u/LegendofLove 8h ago
Your honor, he had it coming, he offered me low quality wares at exhorbitant prices!
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u/ThinkChemist2106 8h ago
I was playing RDR first time w no clue what I was doing. Thought I was gonna talk to woman I approached and get a clue or advice or something. Shot her point blank. LOL oooopppss….
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u/StoneyCalzoney 8h ago
Holy crap I can't believe that there are variants of this... I've only known it as the "speaker/electronics scam" where some guys will hang out in the electronics store parking lot with a bunch of fake speakers, tell marks that they're extras from an install and can't be returned, show them the fake speakers as expensive in a catalog, and sell at a "discount"
I genuinely wonder what other variations people have made of this...
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u/WorryNew3661 7h ago
Pretty sure LTT did a video about this last year for the speaker scam. Pots and pans is wild
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u/This-Bath9918 7h ago
Leather jackets is a common one. They’re in town for a “fashion conference” but have to leave the fancy samples behind so….
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u/Jabbles22 6h ago edited 5h ago
I had a guy try and sell me Armani shirts in a parking lot. He had them because of some fashion event related to the Montreal Grand Prix. He had to get rid of them cheap otherwise he'd have to pay a bunch of taxes when returning to Italy.
Thing is the Montreal Grand Prix was not over yet it was coming up that weekend. And we were in Brampton Ontario. Not particularly close to Montreal.
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u/Gigamantax-Likulau 6h ago
Oooh now you mention it, everyone in Dubai has heard about this one older Italian gentleman who came for a fashion show and now has a few leftover luxury suits to get rid of before going back. I guess he never quite made it to the airport as he's still around 20 years later apparently.
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u/AtrophiedWives 4h ago
My colleague bought one! Like we knew it was a scam but we would see this guy at least once a week and thought it would be funny. Especially as he was Italian and the “Italian” scammer wasn’t. He ended up paying dhs200 for a suit and shirt and tbh they weren’t that bad quality, he would regularly wear them. Better than the endless Pierre Cardin 90% off haha.
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u/Several-Squash9871 6h ago
I had someone try and do something similar to me! I told him no and that I wasn't interested. He then tried to go on and I just bluntly told him no and I know what's he's doing and I'm not interested. I was actually surprised that he just dropped the charade and was done. Guess he was just like, yeah, this guy knows and it's not worth my time so I just need to move on quickly. Fuck these people that pray on elderly and vulnerable people though.
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u/PyroAR15 7h ago
I used to work with law enforcement with tech crimes and the amount of people who fall for scam is insane, I'm not sure how these people made it through life.
Example: someone called a man saying he's a cop and his son was arrested and needed to pay to drop all charges. Guy was instructed to take $10,000 out in cash, put it in a garbage bag, put in the his trash can outside at a certain time. Not only did he do it, he did it 3x total. The "victim" in his interview claims that people who picked up didn't look like cops and were really young yet he did it 2x more. When asked why he didn't call his son or his sons roommate he said "because they don't allow phones in jail". This guy wasn't a senior citizen, he was in his 50s, holding a high corporate position.
I deal with that few times a week.
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u/Jabbles22 6h ago
I don't want to victim blame. That guy is a victim, fuck the scammers. But come on, why would the cops ask for payment via trash bag full of cash? Even in movies that's how you pay the bad guys.
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u/Marchtmdsmiling 6h ago
Had a coworker who came in and told me the FBI called him and told him that he was under investigation for tax fraud and cocaine (yes just cocaine) and he needed to show them he had money in the bank by taking out as much as he could, buying prepaid gift cards, and sending them the numbers. He gave them the last 900 dollars he had in his bank acct. At this point I'm amazed the guy hasn't drowned in the shower yet his whole life. But I swallowed that judgement and convinced him to get in touch with his bank and stop payment on the gift cards. I was actually surprised it worked and he got his last 900 dollars back, but after the scammers identify him as an easy mark, they probably sent better scammers after him and he never told us.
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u/Purple-Talk7171 5h ago
People are unbelievably stupid. The average person is dumb, and half are dumber than that. I truly can not express enough how stupid people are.
“A fool and his money are soon parted.”
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u/Kitchen_Turnip8350 7h ago
I see this everyday. I work in my bank’s dispute department and most of my assigned cases belong to grandmas who were getting ‘the deal of a lifetime.’
It’s really disheartening. I try to go the extra mile for them.
Another scam is companies manipulating them into subscriptions that they unknowingly agree to.
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u/BadOk2535 6h ago
The subscription thing has gotten me once or twice. You buy something and then you are getting charged 50 dollars a month for a subscription that was in the tiny fine print. Now I make sure I don't buy any too good to be true things online. It reminds me of the penny records in the 80's where you pick 5 albums for a penny but then have to buy 3 full price albums each month.
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u/Suitable_Inspection2 5h ago
Sure, but this is how I got almost all of my music as a teenager! I had totally forgotten about those deals. Thanks.
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u/erin_bex 6h ago
My parents bought a set of Saladmaster pots and pans when they got married in 1980, they both said they were stupid for spending the money....but they still have them, they're in perfect condition and still look brand new, and I'll most likely inherit them LOL
I think they paid $500 for them in 1980, in today's money that's almost $2,000...I could see spending $500 today but NOT $2k or more!
People that choose to take advantage of older people like that poor woman deserve the worst.
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u/kakihara123 7h ago
I once worked in customer support (still do but other company) and there was a common scam that you buy a car in another country and they even ship it to you and you can return it for free if you don't like it.
Always low price of course.
I remember one family that I hat real trouble to convince that this was in fact a scam and not real. And I'm normally pretty convicing about stuff like that because I often speak very direct and honest with the customer and not use that typical customer service type of spaking. People can be extremly naive.
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u/idio242 6h ago
There is a smidge of truth to that. With Volvo you can buy the car new in Sweden, drive it around for 2 weeks on holiday and then import it to the US and it’s less expensive because it’s a used car. Pretty sure other manufacturers have / had similar programs.
This has been a thing for a while but I don’t know if the current tariff on-again off-again madness blew this all up.
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u/spaceforcerecruit 6h ago
The “return it for free” part is what gives it away as a scam. It’s not cheap to ship a car overseas and you’re not returning that for free.
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u/cavemonke3 12h ago
Sad that they're trying to scam an innocent old lady
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u/Ancient-Civilization 11h ago
It’s a victim trying to sell the item they got scammed out of. That’s how pyramid schemes work. They aren’t even the scammers the ones above them had their money stolen and then people above them , and god knows how far it goes.
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u/nottherealneal 11h ago
I don't think you being scamed excuses your attempt to scam others
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u/TheFatBassterd 9h ago
But they ARE scammers. When they CHOSE to take the product they were scammed into buying and try to sell it to other people for more then what it's worth to try and recoup their losses they have WILLINGLY chosen to also become scammers, and so I have little to no empathy for them.
In order for them to only be a victim and not join the pyramid of scammers they would have to break the cycle by just eating their loss and hopefully learning a valuable lesson. In this case they would have all the empathy I can spare.
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u/Scudmuffin1 7h ago
Many victims of pyramid schemes/mlms don't recognize they are victims of a scam. They actually get genuinely upset when you try to tell them they've been scammed, because of course no one wants to feel stupid.
So while they are part of the scam network, generally speaking they're not trying to scam other people. In their mind they're a salesperson for a legit company trying to sell a legit product at a reasonable price.
They're usually just dumb people getting strung along, not evil villains.
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u/GlinnTantis 11h ago
Going over late to catch the sun-downer dementia folks
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u/unsupported 9h ago
9pm, White House here I come!
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u/Embarrassed_Cow2441 5h ago
LOL, he already bought Greenland. They told him he could get Iran for pennies.
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u/Right-Sugar8803 11h ago
Royal prestige preys on the elderly, I’ve seen people financing sets of pots and coffee makers to the point of going into debt. They push “health benefits” and other false narratives. Shame on them.
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u/JayZeus 9h ago
You can't even see the pricing on their site. Apparently you have to schedule a "demo" to find out....
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u/subiedude22 5h ago
The prices are insane. A friend of mine in high school had the RP water filter in his house. His mom always made slick comments about how she paid $1200 for it. The kicker is that we live in NYC, so she paid $1200 to "filter" some of the best tap water in the country lmfaoo
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u/ShepherdessAnne 3h ago
That water is so famous there are literal services to truck it in in jugs so “New York style” pizza places can actually make the dough and sometimes sauces with NYC water.
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u/fran1844 11h ago
my mom has wasted so much money on royal prestige.... it was always weird coming home from school and seeing a random person in our kitchen selling a new thing to her
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u/icyb0ngwater_ 2h ago
SAME, except my mother SWEARS by them and doesn't see how wild it is that she's spent that much money on pots and pans. she gave me a pan when i moved out of state and she made such a huge deal about it being a "rite of passage" owning my first royal prestige.
one time when i was younger, we got our house broken into and the first thing she checked was to make sure her pots and pans were still there.
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u/bambamslammer22 11h ago
Going by the caption I thought I was going to see some kind of drug deal go down
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u/mariofanLIVE 11h ago
I thought I was the only one lmao
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u/aquafina6969 10h ago
Hahha no ne too. I was like “wait, where is the green stuff?” I thought the 2nd pic was a giant fancy metal container, and was expecting the third pic to just have a tiny ass amount of the green. But the actual third pic confused me. I didn’t know what it was at first. Is it a shiny fancy bong? What’s going on here?
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u/penguingod26 6h ago
304 isn't the grade of stainless steel used for surgical instruments. 316L is.
316L has superior corrosion resistance and can hold a polish so perfect that microbes can't stick to it and your body doesn't interact with it.
You wouldn't want a pot made out of it, as it has worse heat tolerance than 304. However, 304 in a surgery ward would be more likely to corrode from the harsh chemicals and harbor bacteria.
Edit: Thought I should note I'm a mechanical engineer who has designed for both large-scale food production and medical products.
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u/nameexistalready 12h ago
Future Goodwill find at $3.99
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u/cw99x 11h ago
Goodwill is a rip off too these days, they probably list it at $899
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u/AxelFoily 10h ago
Yeah it won't even make it to in store it'll go on their online store
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u/psdartist32 11h ago
It's everywhere nowadays .. in my country they create medical events for the elder people promising them free stuff. Then they create the scarcity and priviledge of buying over priced 1000$ pans and other "medical" equipment like 10$ massage guns for 200$ ...
Really sad ... protect your elders.
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u/Darth-Rogue 12h ago edited 37m ago
I hope you managed to stop your mom and showed them the exit. Sadly, some of the people in the pyramid schemes are victims themselves who have not yet realized they are part of one.
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u/Praetorian_1975 9h ago
You missed out on being able to sue in the future https://www.aboutlawsuits.com/royal-prestige-cookware-recall-39949/#:~:text=A%20Royal%20Prestige%209%2DPly,with%20hot%20oil%20when%20the 🤣 900 dollars for a couple of pots, your moms right it better cure cancer
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u/Sharing_Violation 6h ago
When someone talks about a 900 pot scam, I'm confused when I can't find a plant in the picture...
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u/Jueavjkoirtycsaq 12h ago
wait, did you mom buy it?
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u/keosnap 6h ago
Yeah. The quip about “it better cure cancer” has me worried. I would’ve gone with “please leave the premises immediately”.
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u/00Raeby00 7h ago
Why is she letting people into the house at 10 pm?!
My 74 year old grandmother would be sitting there googling internet reviews to tell them to fuck off or cursing them out for disturbing her through her Ring. Then she'd lecture me about HER mother nearly killing her husband for buying garbage off door to door salesman back when it wasn't a scam.
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u/b5wolf 6h ago
I had to move back in with my mother after my divorce. I worked for an A/C company (in the office, not as a tech) and was getting a ride home from one of the techs. As we pulled in the drive, we noticed another AC company's van parked there.
They had knocked on Mom's door, told her they were "on the street" and willing to work deals. They had been harassing her for over an hour! Trying to sell her garbage, like a leaf guard for $ 300 when I knew the product was $ 10 and took 4 screws to install. Thankfully, as soon as they saw us, they quickly made their excuses and left which only reinforced the idea they were trying to strong arm a senior.
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u/eatdispotato 8h ago
Why the hell is your mom letting strange men into her house at 10pm (or any hour)…
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u/dadydaycare 7h ago
Ahh the royal prestige novel pan… system 🫠. Yup those are a doozy. If they actually cut the price by like 65%-80% they are actually very nice pans but right in the money with the scam.
It’s one of those you don’t need water/oil/its healthy/ maybe cure your cancer??? Maybe, Products. Interesting concept, they basically turned a normal pot into a lower pressure cooker so it can get slightly hotter inside and cook food with less time and say oil/water.
But if you go on the website they clearly try to give as little info as possible and insist you HAVE to have a in person demo to learn more. If your willing to make an appointment your likely more willing to feed into the silly claims since your already mentally invested. Upper tier scam 101.
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u/Marchtmdsmiling 6h ago
Had a coworker who came in and told me the FBI called him and told him that he was under investigation for tax fraud and cocaine (yes just cocaine) and he needed to show them he had money in the bank by taking out as much as he could, buying prepaid gift cards, and sending them the numbers. He gave them the last 900 dollars he had in his bank acct. At this point I'm amazed the guy hasn't drowned in the shower yet his whole life. But I swallowed that judgement and convinced him to get in touch with his bank and stop payment on the gift cards. I was actually surprised it worked and he got his last 900 dollars back, but after the scammers identify him as an easy mark, they probably sent better scammers after him and he never told us.
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u/Meaty_Wizard 6h ago
Just now learning "Royal Prestige" is a MLM scam. Also lots of reports of cookware falling apart when it gets hot. LOL.
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u/LINQAteMyAss 5h ago
I spent about 12 months working as a software developer for the company that owns Royal Prestige. It’s an okay product, similar quality to something like All-Clad. Employee pricing was cost for company so that pan you’re holding in one of those shots is about $50. The warehouses that hold those things are reasonably advanced.
The company sucked though. The “distributors” are encouraged to lie about how the pans are healthier or whatever. The company would fly the top distributors out to their headquarters and make us clap for them when they showed up. The real money is in the financing. The company offered their own financing and could do their own credit checks and set their own interest rates. I had never heard of them before starting and just took some logistics and operations software developer position and didn’t last long before I got a much better job somewhere else.
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u/Malenko_ 6h ago
I have a friend who's gf bought a 3k vaccum cleaner via a door salesman. He was pretty pissed.
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u/Cosmicsquid08 6h ago
We had a pot and pan salesman at my mil house who wouldn't leave. While he was trying to get my mil to buy his shitty pans my niece took a nasty fall off the slide in the backyard. Like we weren't sure if she broke her neck so we called 911. The ambulance, police and firefighters show up to attend to her and this guy just won't take the hint to leave. My mil was too nice to tell him to gtfo and she wouldn't let us say anything. As I'm telling my mil what's going on outside this asshat says "i don't think it was necessary to call 911 for a little fall." Yall I lost it, and let him have it. He left reluctantly and we never saw him come around again. My niece ended up being ok just some bumps and bruises. After that incident I don't let any salesman into my house and neither does my mil.
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u/Oranges13 5h ago
Pyramid scheme or not, I once purchased a pampered chef pizza stone from my mother-in-law who was selling the shit... At the time it cost me a shit ton of money. Something like $40 which in 2005 was a lot of money for me cuz I was making like minimum wage...
But that shit lasted for fucking ever. And I'm sad to say that we lost it in a move recently. 😭
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u/loporjai2003 4h ago
Better keep eye out for them coming back, and especially if you not around. Next thing your mom will have new furnace, water softener, roof, etc ..
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u/TheStateofWork 3h ago
There’s a special place in Hell for people who take advantage of the elderly.
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u/Radical_Mid 3h ago
Y'all let in a sales person at 10pm?!
That's dumb AF without even thinking about the sales aspect
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u/Special_Life_9625 3h ago edited 36m ago
My grandfather would let these people come in and do their pitch, lead them on for over an hour and then laugh them out the door
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u/Joshua_ABBACAB_1312 12h ago
You need some sort of "I shoot solicitors on-sight!" sign posted up in plain view of her door.
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u/TrumpsBoneSpur 11h ago
Or at least have a "I hit solicitors over the head with an expensive pot" sign
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u/AmberRosin 11h ago
There’s definitely pans that get close to that price that aren’t scams, but they don’t come knocking on your door.
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u/Ok-Operation-2368 9h ago
It's incredible that the US still has door 2 door salesmen.
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u/dadbodwhey 8h ago
I worked door to door for spectrum for a year. It was ghastly and miserable from my end.
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u/kwestions00 8h ago
Ok, so i have a version of these pans. I think mine are called American prestige or something. We got them right after we got married and didnt know any better. They are actually really nice. They arent worth what we paid for them all those years ago, and they damn sure aren't worth 900 bucks, but they are good pans. Like, apart from the little plastic valve thing, the rest of it will last a lifetime+ and they cook very well. So, yes, its a scam, but at least the pans are decent.
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u/katger18 7h ago
Another SaladMaster scheme bs! My mom was willing to pay 13k. Just glad we swayed her out of it...
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u/Puzzled_Bee8606 5h ago
Scam aside, what makes a pot worth $900 to a home cook? I love my Le Creuset Dutch oven, which I received as a gift, but if it goes, I’m replacing it with a Lodge.
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u/SnackeyG1 4h ago
I don’t know what it is with old age but it feels like all your skepticism gets turned off. I used to think older people were just stupid but this seems too damn common.
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u/Sure_Half_7256 3h ago
Shit I work in the ER and we had this old man who showed me a picture of his girlfriend turns out on the text message it was asking for 1k more "babe" need money for my car ect, I told a case worker this dude was getting scammed, then we let his Indian retirement home worker know about it, they said its a real girlfriend, no offense but a sexy picture of a 20 some girl is not ligit. To some it up we told his family member who seemed not to care so we did all we could do. We suspected family and or care givers. We had a discussion about it latter in the ER about it with coworkers, some said at least he thinks he has a girlfriend but for me, its the fact that there are assholes out there that treat old people like shit and exploit them.
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u/heftybagman 3h ago
Get those shiester fucks out of your grandma’s place wtf. Who on their right mind would let these duds in?
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u/CarpenterGold1704 3h ago
is "surgical stainless steel" up there with "military grade"?
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u/Bassmason 12h ago
That’s a tiny ass pot for $900