Why Does EVERYTHING Feel Like a SCAM These Days?

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:10]Why does it feel like everything is a scam these days?

[00:00:18]Why does it feel like anytime I try to spend some money, I'm getting scammed?

[00:00:24]I'm getting robbed. I'm getting I'm getting bent over. No loops.

[00:00:30]Why does it feel that way? Sorry for that strong language, but that's how it feels. It's like anytime I try to spend some money, it feels like I'm getting ripped off. It hasn't always been this way. Young people out there, I'm telling you, back in the 80s and 90s, you spent a little money, you thought you was getting something, and you were. You spent your money, you was happy. Spent a couple hundred dollars at the grocery store, that was groceries for about two weeks. You had to have a couple buggies back then. They used to push the groceries out to the car for you. So like Yeah. Like you had a buggy, the bag person had a buggy. Two buggies. $200.

[00:01:07]Let's go. Felt like you was getting your money's worth.

[00:01:11]Whatever you were spending money on.

[00:01:14]I shouldn't say whatever. I shouldn't generalize. There were things even back then, you know, occasionally felt like you was getting ripped off. Um, I don't want to paint this perfect picture of the 80 and 90s, but it was a lot better than now when just like everything seems like you got to be always looking for the scam. Always watching for the scam if it if it isn't blatantly in your face. You always got to be watching for it. One I really want to touch on first here today is like renting. You know, like housing is like a basic need, a basic right, food, clothing, and shelter. When did trying to find shelter turn into a scam?

[00:01:48]I mean, just I I got an apartment, right? And I didn't really want to sign a lease, but I wanted to to take the job opportunity. Really good job opportunity. Working with a really good friend of mine. I wanted to take the job opportunity. Doesn't have employee housing. Had to get an apartment. It was in the middle of winter, so they kind of gave me a a really good deal cuz nobody else is going to rent the apartment, but uh it's time to renew it.

[00:02:11]So I was like, h it's not like really the standard of apartment like I want to live in. It was okay, but you know what I mean? I I you have I have standards in life. So it wasn't really the standard of apartment I wanted. So I start looking around at like other apartments in the area. Why are they just hundreds of dollars more than they should be? You know what I mean? Like you just kind of have an innate sense of what housing should cost in your area based on like what people are paying. You know, all this kind of stuff. You just kind of have a sense. And I'm like, why are people wanting $1,700 for a studio apartment? You know what I mean? Why are they wanting $1,600 for like a one-bedroom apartment? Or and and this was actually true with my apartment, but it's just me staying there. But they said on the lease of my apartment, it's a two-bedroom, but it's, you know, it's just me. But they said on there the uh the rent price we're quoting you is based on one person living there.

[00:03:09]So if somebody else wanted to live there, the rent would have went up.

[00:03:15]Same apartment, same one kitchen, same one bathroom, but if there was one other person in it, the rent would go up. I'm like, it's the same square footage. Nothing changes.

[00:03:27]The only thing that might have cost them more is they do pay the water. So they might have had to pay an extra $30, $15 a month in water, maybe if if if I had a roommate who showered all day every day.

[00:03:38]I'm like, why does the price go up for the same apartment if more people live in it? If I get a girlfriend, she move in, I got to pay more rent. I'm like, this just on top of like all the fees, application fee, and like just coming in our office and saying hello fee, and then even after they quote you the price monthly, they're like, "Oh, it's $1,500." But then when you start paying rent, they're like, "Oh, yeah, there's also the like fee for the lights in the lobby, and then there's the pest control fee, and there's this other fee." I'm like, "Wait a second. Y'all supposed to be paying some of this?" You know what I mean? The the the 145 $1600 I'm giving you a month, it don't cover all this.

[00:04:16]Like, when did I start having to pay for everything? What do y'all do? Who who you know I mean, I got a friend who's renewing her and her husband are renewing their uh apartment, their condo. There was a $75 renewal fee. So, for the privilege, like I have to pay for the privilege to stay here and keep paying you money.

[00:04:39]So, does that mean if I don't renew my lease, you owe me $75? Can I charge you a $75 non-renewal fee since you charge me a $75 renewal fee? It's crazy. It's crazy. I moved in my apartment, the walls weren't even painted. I called up to her. I said, "Hey, hey, I can't be entertaining people in an apartment with non-painted walls." And they said, "Oh, actually in the state of Montana, like we're not required to paint the walls.

[00:05:08]Can I paint them myself?" She was like, "No, we don't allow tenants to paint the wall." So, I just have to have unpainted walls or, you know, I mean, pay y'all, "Hey, can y'all come paint the walls?" And then I have to pay a pay, excuse me, a $500 paint the wall fee. I'm just like, it just, you know, I mean, back in the day, it just felt like like they were happy. You know, when I was younger and I went to get an apartment, it just seemed like they were happy for you to come in and want to rent to you and I was happy to like rent from them. You know, it just seemed like it was a a happier we're doing each other a favor relationship. It didn't seem like I was like now it seems like I'm the bad guy.

[00:05:42]They trying everything they can to not rent us a place. Let's raise the rent.

[00:05:47]Let's make the income requirements totally unattainable.

[00:05:51]Who makes three times the rent out here?

[00:05:54]Well, ours is only 2.7 times. Stop, bro.

[00:05:57]And now I did a short talking about this the other day, and I, you know, I said the three times the rent, and people were saying, "Well, your rent should be 30% of your take-home pay, 30% of your income." Um, and so, blah, blah, mathematically, first off, why y'all so quick to stand up for Massa like that?

[00:06:15]You know what I mean?

[00:06:17]Why are people so quick to stand up for the system, the establishment? Why can't we just come together and say it's crazy? Cuz by the way, who came up with this whole your rent should be 30%. Who came up with that? Who? The system. They just make these numbers up, bro. They just make these numbers up. Y'all go around believing it. And they have to cover their expenses in case you destroy the That's why they have insurance.

[00:06:41]That's why they have insurance. I've stayed in Airbnbs all over the country.

[00:06:46]All over the country. I've stayed in Airbnbs different countries there. And you mean to tell me these single like I've I've stayed in rooms in people's houses. They have the same risk of me living there and destroying something as these big apartment complexes have. But these people don't have to charge me all that money. You know what I mean? Cuz they have insurance just like the big apartment complexes have insurance.

[00:07:10]That's what insurance is for. They don't have to like up my Come on. Y'all got to think about this stuff, man. It just feels like a scam. It just feels like I have to like bend over backwards and like myself out to get an apartment. So, I'm not renewing my lease, by the way, and I'm going back to Airbnbs. Okay, scam. I bought a car recently and and I think it is a really good car. I don't have a problem with it. But the whole experience except for the bank. My bank was amazing. Um, but the the experience of buying a car once again, like it it just felt like like I was all always I had to be on 10. I had to be on alert. every little thing. I had to read the fine print. Hey, can I keep that sheet of paper? Can I blah blah blah blah blah blah blah? And I'm not saying they scam me, but it was just like the whole thing is set up, you know, as soon as I get in there, the guy's like, "Hey, this is a non-haggle dealership. We don't haggle." Like it was just very once again like aggressive. It just felt like before like you would go to I don't know. It just seems like there's not the same relationship between like buyer and and retailer or consumer and seller. It just seems like it just it's just like so much greed and everybody's trying to get as much money out of you as possible and like and but my thing is this. If you trying to like get as much money out of people as possible, wouldn't it be better to be nice?

[00:08:30]You know what I mean?

[00:08:32]You know what I mean? I feel like the nice scammer scams the most people. But I was just like is if it feels like simultaneously we're being scammed as well as just like being treated like crap. But I guess they know in in most cases that you like you got to you know for a lot of people you got to have a car like you got to buy groceries, you got to rent, you know, um if unless you want to buy a home which a lot of people can't or a lot of people don't want to you know what I mean? So I think they're just like hey we got these people by the the coahones. Yeah, automate and like they got to do what we say. They have to spend this money. I think they look around it's like, "Yeah, we've been making people pay all these fees and we've been raising our prices for the past 5 years and people are still paying it. We're making record profits. Why should we stop?"

[00:09:21]The problem is, folks, more and more of us are waking up. And more and more of us are getting to the point we're like, we just can't do it. You know what I mean? If I've got an overabundance of income and you scam me for a couple dollars. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you got me. But when wages aren't going up and the cost of living is going up and inflation is going up and greedflation is really going up because a lot of this inflation ain't inflation, it's greedflation. They just raising the prices because they want to. They want to. I bought a car the other day. Um we talked about that a little bit and I was like, "Hey, maybe I want to get it like detailed really, really, really, really nice." your boy might have a date coming up or something. You know what I mean?

[00:10:03]Dealership didn't really detail it to my standard. I said, "Let me check out a detailed place. I'll throw a couple hundred down to get immaculate detail."

[00:10:10]Why is detailing a car $600?

[00:10:15]Why is getting a car detailed $600 and it's a little bitty Toyota?

[00:10:21]That's greedflation. That don't You can't tell me ShopVax and and and and glass cleaner and upholstery cleaner for cars went up that much. You know what I mean? Just a lot just a lot of griefflation going on. You know, like certain stores, like you know, to certain stores prices are even higher than other stores. You go in one grocery store, price is way up there. You go into another one, not as bad. I'm like, they both got chicken wings. They both got chicken thighs. Why is there so much cheaper? Why is there so much more expensive? You can't tell me it's just inflation or they would both be kind at the same price. And I know they get different supplier suppliers distrib.

[00:11:07]More and more people are waking up though because more and more people have to wake up. When we're allowed to be asleep because it's not really bothering us or it's not really affecting our bottom line, we keep sleeping. We're lazy. I'll be honest. I'm putting my the we. I'm saying we. We're lazy.

[00:11:24]Yeah. We don't want to wake up. We don't want to stand up. We don't want to have to ch switch stuff up if it's not affecting us. But it's affecting people.

[00:11:32]Like for real, you know, like for real, for real. Like people out here having to make hard choices. You know what I mean?

[00:11:39]Do I get an apartment and never eat, you know what I mean? Or or or or eat very basically or do I like live in my car and be able to have two meals a day? You know what I mean?

[00:11:51]wages are not going up, but things, you know, rent is price like all it's just we're we're getting hit on both ends.

[00:11:59]They're screwing us by not paying us more and then they're screwing us by charging us more. And you can't like screw people on both ends. You know what I mean? Like you got to give them an outlet.

[00:12:11]And I think the the good that's going to come out of this, we're in the we're in the rough times and it might even get a little rougher, but I think the good that's going to come out of this is we're going to start looking for more alternatives. And eventually all these places that are like, you know, just treating us, you know, just like an ATM and just like using us for our money and, you know, just using us for our time and our energy at work, things like that. I think the day is going to come because it has to where those are the places that are going to end up broke, out of business, struggling because we're going to come up with alternatives cuz we have to. Necessity is a mother of invention. It's getting real necessity out here. It's getting necessary out here. Like I said, I'm not renting another apartment. I'm going to go back to Airbnbs. And even though in the area I'm at, the Airbnbs are pricey. Uh what I did was I reached out to an Airbnb host and I told her, "Hey, I like your place outside of my budget. Can you work with me? If I do x amount of months, she worked with me. Got it down to a price point I could afford."

[00:13:17]That's an option. You know, other people, you know, be it housing, be it food, be it clothing, I think more and more of us are going to start like finding alternatives. We're going to start getting on the internet talking about these alternatives. a lot of these alternatives are going to start to be profitable and hopefully not in a scummy greedflation way, but you know what I mean? Like as as more of us stop maybe going with these big corporations or or the big box stores or whatever it is, these big uh property management complex, like as more of us stop dealing with the big corporate stuff and we start dealing local or we start dealing with individuals and we start like bartering or we start just like you know uh giving giving stuff away at each other like I think it it it it's going to change. It has to change. And I think for a lot of us, our quality of life is going to get a lot better over the coming years as things change. Imagine if more people start growing their own food. And like all of us get to eat more locally grown food. And if people start growing their own food, they're not going to put the same chemicals, all that stuff in it. You know, the more of that food we eat, the healthier we're going to be.

[00:14:26]When you can't afford food, it's so full of chemicals and all this other stuff.

[00:14:29]you still don't feel like you're getting your money's worth. Food don't hit the same. Food don't hit the same. When I go out the country and eat, food hits a lot different. Pisses me off. If I hop on a plane and fly for 14 hours and I'm in another country and I eat my stuff, I can eat almost anything. If I see it, I can eat it. Oo, I eat good and it's cheaper. I come back to the States, I touch down the airport. Soon as I go to the Panda Express just to get me a little food on a layover, my stomach is is rumbling and I get the bubble guts and I'm I'm nervous on the plane. You know, I'm just saying another. But when more of us, excuse me, who have the ability start growing our own food, more of us start eating that food, we might get healthier. Then we don't have to go to the doctor, which is another place that seems like a scam these days. I went to the to the urgent care the other day and I had to like damn near convince the guy I was sick. I'm like, I've been sick for three weeks. He's like basically like, are you sure?

[00:15:32]Bro, I wouldn't be here paying you $150 if I wasn't sure. Anyway, things starting to feel like a scam. Love to hear in the comment box like your thoughts on this. What are some things that are really annoying you?

[00:15:45]What are bothering you? But most importantly, what are some of the steps you are going to start taking to like uh uh overcome this? You know, a big one for me right now, like I said, I'm not going to sign another lease. I'm going to stay in Airbnbs. Um that's as far as I've got, you know, step one. But I definitely in other areas of my life want to start switching up, changing things up as well. Uh I need to learn from y'all. We can learn from each other. So, uh yeah, let me know cuz cuz something's got to give, bro. This is It's crazy out here. Love y'all. Talk to you'all later.