This is a great point and an important lesson: part of what makes scams so appealing is that they stroke your ego. A lot of them rely on the mark believing they’re somehow better and different than all the people who got swindled, ignoring the fact that there is no correlation between all the victims besides “they all participated in this scam.”
For example, a lot of sleight-of-hand gamers will let other marks see the sleight of hand while someone is playing. This makes them feel like they’re in on the secret and can’t be fooled by the scammer. What they fail to realize is that the first mark was actually in on it, and the scam happens off the table when you get pickpocketed, or other plants in the crowd “accidentally” jostle you distracting you from the table, or the 6’8", 320 lbs guy named Tinkerbell with the brass knuckles is suddenly very insistent that you must be cheating to win so much and you owe homeboy his money back (and some crowd members are even saying they saw you cheat???)
Scams above all rely on controlling the environment. If you “see through it and know how to come out on top” no you don’t, and no you won’t; it’s almost certainly just another layer of the scam.
After having 3500 dollars worth of stuff stolen by my shit landlord. I went to court. Again And again And again And again.
Not accounting for my time, gas, parking, I spent over 5000.amd even after I “won” I still wound up goj back to court several times because this scum sucking asshole claims to be 100000 in debt to the government.
I hate the legal system more then I hate the guy who stole from me!
College only makes sense economically if you have a plan.
If you’re a naive, idealistic, scatterbrained, autistic, traumatized, brainiac redneck raised into terrible character by a spineless single parent who drove off the good one, like I was, then your best bet after high school is some entry level job, heath insurance, and therapy for a few years.
I was like “sweet! big journey!” and the kids from healthier backgrounds and I got along fine, and they got their shit done and I mostly tore my hair out and cried and took super long walks and experimented with drugs. I had been led to believe that the journey through life was like driving through a country. I didn’t realize that traveling in this journey meant transforming the self. I had no conception of self transformation as an aspect of life, of directed growth, of evolving consciously. All I had was this feeling that life was like a river and I was kayaking down it seeing new stuff.
I don’t really know how to say what the lesson was. It was the most expensive lesson I ever learned, because not only did it cost me a huge amount of money, it also cost me about twenty years of my life.
I have similar experience with you, and boy do I waste so much money on that. Wish I could afford therapy, because managing myself emotionally was a long, expensive and heartbreaking experience I wish I could skip over.
When buying a house people tell you to make sure the roof is in good condition because that’ll be expensive to replace. What they don’t tell you is that is all the other things that you may need to replace and how expensive they are. Fence, paint, siding, water heater, washer/dryer, AC, heater, kitchen appliances, etc. Some this might show up in the inspection report, but it’s hard to get a good idea of what it’ll cost beforehand. Also your realtor will have an incentive to downplay any problems to get the deal done.
Home warranties are universally a scam. It was talked about pretty much every week on the Reddit homeowners forum. Just week after week someone getting scammed.
For one, they’ll fight tooth and nail not replace things. When there is absolutely no way that heater can be patched up and run a little longer they’ll replace it with the cheapest heater possible using the cheapest HVAC guy possible.
Personally I disagree. They come with their own set of problems and admittedly probably require specific character traits on both sides, but they can be worth as much as any other relationship!
It really depends. I did long distance for years during college and we got a place together after college and have been happily together for a very long time now.
Art school isn’t worth it, period. I got a far better art education through my local community college by far, from instructors who weren’t incrediblely stuck up and full of themselves.
That was an 80k expense that I’m still paying off almost 20 years later, and I didn’t even finish my degree.
I went back to get my AS at a CC and took some art classes there. 10/10, far better instruction for a fraction of the price.
Years ago I tried my hand gambling on politics on PredictIt, and I didn’t lose all that much, but there were a couple bets I lost that seemed like sure things. Mostly the lesson I learned is that talk is cheap and there’s no real consequences for people saying one thing and doing the other.
For example, in the 2016 election, there was a market on whether no-name Carly Fiona would qualify for the CNN debate, and by the rules they set she didn’t qualify, but there hadn’t been as many polls in the right timeframe as had been expected. Still, they released a statement days before the debate, saying “rules are rules,” so I took a bet at like 90% odds thinking it was completely safe - then they let her in at the last minute and I lost big. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but I think I lost a fair bit on a market about Trump meeting with Kim Jong Un, which was a pretty chaotic market. The most chaotic market I ever saw, which I avoided and wanted no part of, was whether Bernie would win Iowa in 2020, and watching it closely in real time made it very obvious that some really shady stuff was going on. Probably the most I ever lost was Biden winning the 2020 primary, which is about when I got out of it.
I would not recommend gambling like that because if you have money on the line there’s an incentive to be glued to the news in a way that can be really unhealthy. Honestly the stress was worse than the money I lost. It’s more trouble than it’s worth, the fees will get you, also it’s generally more about predicting what the market will think so you can profit off the swings, and personally I think it’s kind of a distasteful way to engage in politics. At the same time, it can be a learning experience - it definitely got me in the habit of asking “And what consequences will this person face if they’re lying off their ass?” every time I see a headline about someone saying something, and of not paying as much attention to statements in general.
Damn bunch cynical people saying don’t get married. Maybe don’t get married to someone unless you’re sure, and get a prenuptial. There are advantages, legal and financially, of being married.
Everyone tends to extrapolate from their own experiences. My wife and I got married about a month after we met, for complicated reasons. We’ve been married for just over 20 years now. Mostly very happily! I don’t recommend our path to anyone, but the fact is that you just never know.
Don’t buy salvaged vehicles unless you are dead sure you gonna keep it for life. And don’t cotumise it if you intend not loosing that money. I’ve bought my Harely salvaged 10 years ago, put a lot of work and money on that. Now I want to sell it and I just can’t, even taking a 20% loss on the market price. And that is without adding the parts money I’ve spent. Bike original goes for 40K. I’ve put around 12K on parts and upgrades. I’m asking 32K and can’t sell it. Furthermore, the dealership don’t accept that bike on a trade cause of the salvage mark it has.
The VIN is on the frame. If you swap it to a new frame that doesn’t have a salvage title, it’s not the same vehicle anymore. You need to make sure you get a clean title with the new frame, but that’s actually not as hard as it sounds.
There are also ways to launder rebuilt vehicles. Some states don’t track rebuilt title, and will give you a clean title (but a digital check will reveal that it’s rebuilt)
Whasing it is Highly illegal where I live. Furthermore, it’s extremely unethical. I’d not like to buy a vehicle that was salvage without knowing it previously.
Changing frames would be OK, but I’m pretty sure that a new legal frame in good shape plus documentation and labor swaping it would be more expensive than the amount of money I’d be able to recover upon selling.
Bought a car with a clean NY title a few years ago, drove it for 4 years. Wonderful car. Sold it because I was moving overseas, buyer did a vin check, and it was salvage but washed. Wound up selling for the same amount anyways, found a buyer who didn’t care.
Salvage vehicles are those that wore at some point Involved in some kind of accident that has inflicted considerable damage to it. It has different degrees of damage, going from minor to severe. Although the vehicles are able been repaired to it’s full functionality and safety, they’ll have it’s documentation marked as salvage forever. Mine was marked as minor damages, I got it already repaired, if one is curious.
Anything that’s been damaged past where insurance would pay to have it fixed. Water damaged/flooded vehicles, frame damage etc. Serious damage that was more costly than insurance wanted to deal with.
It’s pretty well known not to touch one. Which is why this person is having trouble unloading it.
The insurance will figure a value for your car if it’s been involved in an accident, stolen, or gets damaged by some crazy storm or something. They use the cars age and mileage to figure this out. If the appraiser looks at the damage and sees that fixing it (parts and labor and paint) is going to cost more than the value they gave it…well then it is totaled.
A totaled car will retained by the insurance company and they pay you out according to your policy.
Those totaled cars can be sold for a residual value (see copart.com). And be built back up and driven. But the title is now branded as a salvaged vehicle. Anyone who buys a totaled car will get a branded title either salvage, flood title, idk what all different states have for the name of it. That branded title is tied to the vehicle by its vin number forever. That’s why you see the commenters saying they should frame swap the motorcycle to get a different vin number on it.