Comment by RankingMember
1 day ago
What really pisses me off is that this stuff is annoying and sometimes fools us, tech savvy people on a hacker forum. I can't imagine how many elderly/non-techie people are being fleeced out of their money because of these kind of dark patterns.
Yup. Reminds me of how my dad would do his taxes at H&R Block, and then every year take out their “refund anticipation loan” (despite not having some big urgent expense). They deduct their overpriced tax prep fee and a healthy 150%APR interest payment from the proceeds but you get the money same day. You could just not do that and still have your refund in like a week. The APR is unconscionable given they did the taxes — they can be nearly certain your refund will arrive. But they just gloss over those details, probably by saying “Do you want your refund today, or wait on the IRS? With the Today option you can also just deduct your tax prep fee from the refund and not pay out of pocket.” I have a feeling they get a LOT of people with that scam.
Yup
I can never remember which option should I pick. And to be really honest I don't remember if I tried to see if it matched my bank's rate or not
Whenever I travel out of the country I always re-read my credit card policies on foreign currency conversion. Some cards are quite reasonable, some are ripoffs.
In 2025 it's decidedly old-fashioned to even think of interfering with the march of the orphan-crushing profit-maximising machine. Each quarter demands a fresh way to rip off people.
How quaint even the 90s seem today, and we though that was hyper capitalism!
You don't think people were ripping each other off in the '90s?
How old a saying is caveat emptor?
> How old a saying is caveat emptor?
Old enough to learn that it's a sociopathic stance that has no business in a well-functioning society.
You're arguing in favor of what's essentially a scam.
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