People Confess The Shadiest Practices From Their Profession Most People Don't Know About

Dispatch Lies To Hospitals All The Time

Worked for a private ambulance service that would still run high priority calls out of hospitals (if the sending hospital couldn't provide a service, either due to no personnel or equipment) or nursing homes/care facilities that didn't want to overuse 911.

Dispatch would lie ALL THE TIME about our ETA's to facilities. Say one of our units was 40 minutes away. Hospital would call us, dispatch would say 20 minutes, that way the hospital wouldn't call another service that might be closer. And by the time the sending hospital realized we weren't there in the time quoted, it would be too late/silly to call another service.

In other words, critical care was often delayed to make a set number of calls since calls = money.

- Proverbs10_4

Specialty Boxes

Many moving companies will force you to buy overpriced specialty boxes--I'm talking like thirty-forty bucks--for things like your tv or mattress so ask about that beforehand. We do charge $10 for a mattress bag if it's unwrapped as a bedbug precaution but that is clearly stated in writing beforehand and price is not jacked up.

Also, especially in NYC and Philly, many movers will charge the client for a parking ticket--that is not legal.

- manwithavandotcom

Lawyer's Intimidation Tactics

Lawyers have a bunch of opportunities to be shady. Just going to list one of the worst offenders below. Standard disclaimer that this isn't legal advice and I'm not your attorney.

Shady lawyers bully average people ALL the time with sh!tty intimidation tactics. These bad lawyers count on you not knowing your rights or just shutting down because 'a lawyer' is yelling legal terms (I know it sounds like a commercial but it's absolutely true).

For example, debt collection companies routinely hassle people with debt that is past the statute of limitations (SOL). When a claim is past the SOL, that means its almost impossible to sue someone on the claim. But that doesn't stop them from being cunts and sending scary letters with big red font. They are just hoping you give up, don't ask an independent attorney for help, and pay them.

- MeowSchwitzInThere

End Of The Fiscal Year Spending Spree

In case you didn't know, the government is incredibly irresponsible with your money, particularly as the fiscal year comes to a close.

Everybody is familiar with the concept of fallout money or spend down- the idea where you spend your remaining budget in an all out-spending-spree in order to justify retaining the same budget for next year. It's so wasteful.

My office of appx 40 people spent 120k in a week on sh!t none of us need. We had brand new office chairs last year. Bought new ones, the most expensive ones we could find, at that. We all got new monitors (that we didn't need) and four 70' plasma TVs that we're trying to figure out where to hang.

We didn't need any of this stuff. We blew through all of that money and we are a SMALL office. At the end of every fiscal year, the federal government pisses away hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars on dumb sh!t just so we can all say, "Yup, gonna need that same budget for next year."

If we didn't penalize being responsible spenders, we could fund all sorts of programs without needing to raise taxes/draft new legislation/enter the political mudslinging arena, but nope- instead, I have a brand new chair, monitor, and giant TV in my office.

- WatchTheBoom

Spotify Is Making Bank

Oh man - musician here - there are so many layers. But I'll start with the biggest issue. That song you heard on the radio? The artist or band who played it? They're the last people to get paid and often paid the least.

For example, a single Spotify stream returns about .00034 cents per stream to the artist. Meaning if you listened to the song 1000 times they're still not receiving a dollar. While Spotify is making BANK.

- stikkybiscuits

Here's Why You Hate Your Bank's Customer Service

When you call your bank, there's a better than solid chance you're not talking to anyone who works for your bank. You're probably talking to someone who works for a company like Fiserv. Any single employee can be answering calls for 20+ banks at a time. Say you're calling Navy Federal Credit union. The Fiserv employee gets your call. Just before you come on the line, an automated message tells the agent you're calling Navy Federal, so they say "Thanks for calling Navy Federal." The call they got just before yours was answered as: "Thanks for calling Bank of America."

And here's the worst part, they can't really do sh!t to help you besides reset your password for your online account or something of that nature. They're trained to just transfer you if you need any actual help with your account. But when they transfer you over to the actual bank, that bank may be backed up. If the wait is really long, they'll just reroute you back to the Fiserv queue. Right back to someone who cannot help you.

If you hate your bank's customer service, this is probably why.

- CDC_

Passengers Mail And Luggage

I work in the airline industry. Heard a story from my coworker about another station going through passengers mail and luggage and stealing any valuables. Laptops, phones, gift cards but mainly electronics. There was a system of maybe 20 workers in on it including people working the cameras. They got busted and there was a deep police investigation. A lot more than 20 people got fired and charged.

One thing that was messed up, the thieves would bribe other workers with the valuables they stole and if that person accepted without knowing what was really going on then they got fired too.

"Hey can you cover my shift? I'll give you this 100 dollar gift card." Unknowing worker accepts thinking its a sweet deal and gets fired during investigation. Smh

- CyberPunk77

Re-Sticker The Store

I used to work for a well known supplement store... Let's say it's 3 letters that start with G and ends with C.

The week before any big sales, we would have to re-sticker everything in the store. The items that were due to go on sale would go up in price, so that "save 30%" was actually more like saving 5%

- PokeyGumdrops

The Poor Schmuck Who Got Stuck With The Bag

I'm an attorney so nothing shady we do isn't well known but there is one area of law that really bothers me. There's something called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Basically, don't do something oversees that is illegal here.

Big example is bribery. The fines for it are a joke for the company but for the individual can be life destroying. Here is what happens and EVERYONE knows it except for the poor schmuck who go stuck with the bag.

They hire some business student fresh out of school and give him the job of export manager in some country that basically requires bribes. They offer a salary that anyone would jump at. The poor schmuck eventually finds himself in a situation where he pretty much has to offer a bribe in order to meet a quota/deadline. He does.

The company then does an "investigation" and are shocked (shocked, I tell you) to find this guy paid a sunshine payment. They self report to the government and pay some tiny little fine. The fine is less or sometimes nothing since it's just an "oopsie" and the government goes after the poor schmuck instead. And the schmuck get his life destroyed.

The company then goes back to some business school and find another schmuck. Rinse and repeat. I always feel so sorry for these guys.

- voice_of_craisin

Through Another Office

I work for a major market research company. We fudge the numbers heavily and do business with countries that are illegal to do business with. The work around is that we have an office in a country that can work with the country that we can't work with so we do business with them through another office.

- Preparation_Asleep

Driven By Money And Greed

I worked for a cardiac holter monitoring company as a holter technician. In the beginning when I started working there it was a small amount of patients, then our small company got bought out by a large corporation.

This meant that we had more doctors' offices signed up with our service, more patients and a shit ton more reports to do. In order to keep the dollars rolling in and scans rolling out, they basically had asked us to let the program run the EKG with little to no editing, which was literally never accurate due to artifact and interference as the patient wore the monitor. Jeopardizing people's lives in the process.

I brought this up multiple times how this wasn't right and there's just no way we could possibly be sending these reports out to doctors offices. Got fired. LOL.

Also heard by my friend still working there they have gotten in trouble for a patient passing away on the monitor and it was not on the report as asystole.

As much as I had dreamed all my life to get into healthcare, I found it is pretty much always driven by money and greed.

- xccrunky

Attracting Anti-Mark Tourists

I don't work here anymore, but I worked a part time job in the tourist trap part of town until my actual job started this past summer.

They instructed us to not wear masks because it would bring in foot traffic from the anti-mask tourists. It worked, but holy shit did I quit so quickly and have to borrow money from my parents so I could pay rent without putting myself and others at risk.

F*ck that place.

- FunkySpiders

Sure To End Up Sick With Something

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but as someone who works in catering/parties, it's pretty unsanitary. It's true for most food-oriented businesses, but it's a pretty big deal right now.

We have parties back to back in the middle of a pandemic with no sanitary measurements in between.

Hell, the bathrooms don't get cleaned for days at a time. You're touching stuff potentially hundreds of other people touched before you. Masks aren't enforced either.

I can't fathom how people think they're safe not wearing masks in a room full of hundreds of others not wearing masks. You're just one of many - and if something as basic as masks aren't enforced, what makes you think something as complicated as complete sanitation would be, either?

We're not allowed to leave the floor or wash our hands, so I'm putting straws into your drinks and handing you food right after picking used plates and dirty silverware up. Even if you don't wind up with COVID, you're sure to end up sick with something.

- colakit

Whatever Ashes

I work for a veterinary who also owns a crematory. My boss is a very upstanding person and would never do this, but some crematories will stack a bunch of animals together and give them whatever they scoop out, so you may not even be getting any of your pet back even if you are paying more for individual cremation.

- Spare_Volume_8025

It's All A Scam

I work in commercial construction.

It's all a scam. The price the contractor gives you isn't what it will really cost to do the job. The first price you get is just to get their foot in the door. Then they nickel and dime you with change-orders.

Some contractors are actually honest, but you'll almost always get screwed if you're going low bid. Good rule of thumb:

1. Always have 15% extra money for contingency....but never let your contractor know that it exists.