No matter where you turn on the web, there's always going to be some kind of sales pitch... regardless of whether it's related to the actual site you are visiting, or the advertising they are allowing to invade their space, in an attempt to squeeze just one more drop of blood from a stone.
It never ceases to amaze me how many businesses spend years having their "closing sale" and going out of business sales"
Some of these operators cleverly navigate legalities of deceptive practices by "passing along" the business to an entire family of (evidently?!?!) dozens of people, each of whom gradually "goes out of business."
Yes, I am perfectly well aware that this is merely a version of free market enterprise preying on the gullible... but the thing that always strikes me the most about these kinds of practices is whether the products in question even have any business EXISTING if the only way to make sales is to pretend that you are going out of business.
Gimme a break! These products have never been sold anywhere at their ostensible "original price!"
I see less of a case of deception on the pricing methodology end of things, than the deception that you're offering anything besides pure garbage for sale.
These sorts of things show up particularly often around the Christmas holidays, when people are looking for the interesting and unusual.
"Wow! An actual handmade wooden jigsaw puzzle for Aunt Susan! I always wanted to get her one, but I couldn't see spending the usual $150. But this company is going out of business, and theirs is only $29.95! I sure got lucky!"
No, you didn't.
It's a crap puzzle that was never anything like the $150.00 version. It was always a piece of crap, designed to make the seller a 300% profit at $29.95.
I know this for a fact, because our 30-year old daughter bought one on a whim, and it was not even anything like what was pictured.
Of course, in some cultures "cheating and scamming" is a perfectly acceptable way of doing business; not even slightly criminalized. "Getting outraged" doesn't serve much purpose... it's better to just back away and ask yourself whether something makes sense.
Just because we wish for a new Mercedes at the price of a Ford Fiesta doesn't mean that will ever be our reality... even when it looks that way.
Be careful out there, folks!
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Sequence: 054 — Timestamp: 2022.04.28 - 18:27 PDT
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Hey there my friend! Nice seeing you here :).
Seriously, the going out of business sales happen way more often then they used to. Luckily I'm not someone who buys things on a whim so I've never fallen for that. I didn't realize how they were working it though, super shady.
How have you been?
Hey, thanks for coming by... and good to see you, too!
Been doing allright; the best we can. The whole Covid/Pandemic circus was tough on the self-employed, which would be both my wife and myself... she sees clients (and pretty much couldn't) and I sell at arts and crafts shows (and pretty much couldn't) but we're surfacing on the other side, now.
How are things with you?
That circus was tough on most, but the self-employed we're definitely at the top. So many small businesses in my area didn't make it, so I'm glad you guys broke through the other side!
We actually spent a good part of 2020 traveling- on the upside, there was almost no traffic hah. It was really crazy how differently things were handled from state to state. We went to South Dakota during one of the major lockdowns here in NY and you wouldn't even know there was a "pandemic" happening. They still held their Sturgis annual motorcycle rally with more than 500,000 people showing up. Later the news reported "one possible covid related death due to the rally"...I don't think anything could have convinced me that covid was mostly theater more than that did.
I'm really good actually. I have learned through this not to rely on the external, that all things good start from within :)
Many decades ago I briefly worked at a huge thrift store. I had come to know the owners because i bought books from them for resale at the swap meet I sold at.
One of his favorite tricks was running an ad for liquidation sale. He laughed at how many stupid people thought that meant something special as he said every day he opened the doors was a liquidation sale, lol. I won't even go into some of his even shadier tactics, other than to say he accepted trade ins and if you were unfortunate enough to mention the word NEED in what you were wanting to trade for he would have his wife go put a new price on those items while he kept you busy denigrating the quality and value of your items to be traded. Usually whatever he would give in trade was less than what she would mark the item higher. Complete scumbags they were.
Maybe I'm just old fashioned but there's a certain lack of personal ethics and accountability that just rubs me the wrong way.
Way back when I used to write about so-called "business opportunities" and it never ceased to amaze me just how many of these were primarily opportunities to fleece well-meaning people who wanted to make some extra money.
That situation you were in sounds pretty sketchy.
Indeed most were designed to fleece. I used to buy the business opportunity magazines back in the 80's. They were filled with scams designed to fleece. Tried the Amway as well. Under the Bill Britt arm, and it didn't take me long to see they were getting filthy rich from charging for the meetings and sales tapes. Not to say there wasn't money being made on the actual product, but the large incomes were from speaker fees and direct distributor commissions for putting folks in those seats, coupled with the tape sales. Don't get me wrong, some of those tapes were great (still got a soft spot for Larry Winters) but the truth is most people will come out of that Amway experience with a much lighter wallet and a lot of overpriced product and sales tapes, lol.
Yeah, that situation was sketchy. It was invaluable to me though as I learned a lot from watching him operate despite leaving him quickly. Despite making a lot of my money in life from sales, I'm not a salesmen. I can't find it within me to sell someone something I don't believe in.
Watching him interact with others made me more aware of signals people send out so I could see quicker that people did want to buy but were maybe hesitant.
You'll appreciate this story I think. I was at the swap meet selling and had this case that was from an auction lot. It was decent sized, but I had no idea what was originally in it. Two men came up and the one guy was examining it hard. He finally looks at me and asks me if it can be used to hold something ( I forget now what it was, this was decades ago).
I told him if he bought it that it could hold whatever his heart desired to put into it, and we all laughed and he bought it. Before meeting that sketchy man and his wife, I probably would have killed the sale by stating I don't know, I don't know what came in it and influenced that whole exchange negatively.
So from bad (the sketchy guys attention to words to manipulate) I was able to understand how my own words could also be a deal killer when someone who was interested was making inquiries.
Out of curiosity, what was the sketchiest "business opportunity" you've encountered?
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