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Volmarias posted:I'm amazed that this guy even got on Dragons' Den. The executive producer must have passed out from laughter. Maybe the executive producer wanted to show the show's loyal viewers how genuine wealthy entrepreneurs feel about get rich quick/MLM schemes, in hopes of dissuading anyone from ever doing it. Call it a public service.
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Jan 8, 2014 16:42
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The premise of Dragon's Den, Shark Tank etc is "People with bad business plans squirming under pressure" with a side order of underdogs with good plans succeeding. He's a perfect addition for the show in my opinion, the epitome of entrepreneur schadenfreude.
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Jan 8, 2014 18:01
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Foxhound posted:I know it's not strictly in line with the thread, but here's a video of some idiot who tries to push MLM on Dragon's Den. The interesting/horrible bit is how convinced he seems to be that it's a solid idea. Kevin O'Leary called this guy "distasteful." That alone should be enough to make him re-examine his life.
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Jan 8, 2014 18:53
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I'm disappointed I've reached the end of this thread, the daily dose of financial schadenfreude is intoxicating. I suppose I can contribute now with a story. A friend of mine named Richard bought a brand new Nissan Altima with his girlfriend a couple of years back. He was still in university and they both worked at Tim Hortons, a fast food chain. Now, these two were not the most stable of couples - less so as individuals - and I knew them jointly buying an asset of any kind was a mistake. Though he did get a good deal since she is Native-Canadian - no taxes on the purchase price. But fast forward a year or so and they unsurprisingly split. She got the car and I imagine he got screwed on any money he had put into it. Unfortunately the bad decisions don't end there! After they split, Richard quit Tim Hortons and decides to apply at a company that sells life insurance. From the details I got from him at the time, I could only conclude that it was an MLM company (how topical!); there were tons of training fees, "certification" fees and testing fees before he even got hired, which set off alarms in my head from the get-go. I'm not that close with him so it wasn't my business to tell him he was making a terrible mistake and to get out before he's in too deep. So he gets hired and proceeds to buy another brand new Nissan Altima before his first paycheque comes in, because well hey, he needs to be able to drive to client's houses to sell them insurance! He works there for 6 months and all of a sudden he's looking for a friend to be a cosigner on a line-of-credit. He claims he can't get one himself because the bank won't consider all of his amazing commissions as part of his income. He quit after he realized he wasn't making any money, and to make matters worse a couple weeks later they sent him a notice stating he owed them $2000 in advanced commissions that were no longer valid. He now delivers pizzas in his beloved Altima v2.0 and managed to lose the $1200 debit machine owned by the pizza joint he works for. But he's still way ahead of where he was working - from the bottom of a pyramid! Rick Rickshaw fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jan 8, 2014 |
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Jan 8, 2014 19:46
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I have a friend, Angela, who was living in downtown San Diego but working in San Clemente (so about an hour commute both ways) and was paying 900$ a month for rent, and complaining about it. As a person who grew up all eating-one-meal-a-day-clothes-made-out-of-potato-sacks poor, I can understand. Poor is a poo poo hand to be dealt in the poker game of life. I have a big place, more place than I ever need, about halfway between SD and San Clemente, and say she can have the top floor for half what she's paying for the downtown place. Plus, save on fuel, right? She shows up and I'm helping her move in: she has boxes upon boxes upon boxes of DVDs, most still in the original plastic. All in all, I'd say at least 1500 DVDs. She says she's going to head to the grocery to stock up. She buys everything from the organic-whole-food-single-leaf-of-kale-in-a-plastic-box store and lets all of it rot, a pattern that would repeat itself every Sunday. She's a great roommate because she's gone every weekend, but where is she going? Disneyland. Every. Weekend. I go out to check the mail for us both one day and there right on top is a big ol' scare letter the type my parents used to try to throw out before the kids would see them from a payday loan place. But it's tough, I know how it can be in California when you're not making enough. Cost of living is insane and I imagine maybe this was one bad loan decision she made once and it got away from her. Over the next week, I see more scare letters from about four different places. I figure she just doesn't make enough and she got into some bad places, but I'm not about to inquire because that's her business. Over the next couple of weeks she lets slip she's making 42,000 a year. For the record her rent living with me was 450$. And she actually asked if she could pay me double in October and miss September because she couldn't make ends meet. (Of course when October rolls around, she can only afford 350$). I know, I'm the one who's bad with money, but I also knew going in that we're friends and any money she gave me would be a bonus and not to count on it. I have plenty to get by on so there's no ill will from me; but how people can make that much money, pay so little in rent, and still fall short to the point where you have to take out payday loans to finance your weekly visits to Disneyland is beyond me. In case you're wondering, I am free of her now, hail Satan and praise Jesus.
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Jan 8, 2014 21:04
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pathetic little tramp posted:Disneyland. Every. Weekend.  I understand how people can be bad with money sometimes, but this is completely unfathomable to me. People choose to go to Disneyland more than once?
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Jan 8, 2014 21:30
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Bubbacub posted:
The thing is, she's not the only person out here who does Disneyland that often. I personally know some people who go once a month. I went once when a friend was visiting, a few times when I was dating a girl who worked at California Adventure, and once when some family members wanted to go. I was tired of it after the first time.
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Jan 8, 2014 21:35
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What the gently caress is there for an adult to do at Disneyland that's worth the crowd and costs?
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Jan 8, 2014 21:37
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You're telling me. The sheer amount of babies, too, makes it unbearable. And I swear to Christ people with those double strollers that take up a whole path are everywhere and they do not give a poo poo how slowly they move.
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Jan 8, 2014 21:48
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My first association with amusement parks will forever be that SA frontpage article about the fat guy dual wielding turkey legs.
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Jan 8, 2014 21:54
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A yearly Disneyland membership is fairly cheap - $669 for access all year. Still a totally bizarre way to spend your time on this planet, and the cost of food etc. makes it a bad financial decision too (probably).Jeffrey posted:My first association with amusement parks will forever be that SA frontpage article about the fat guy dual wielding turkey legs.
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Jan 8, 2014 21:58
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No Wave posted:A yearly Disneyland membership is fairly cheap - $669 for access all year. Still a totally bizarre way to spend your time on this planet, and the cost of food etc. makes it a bad financial decision too (probably). I spend 70 dollars for a zoo membership a year for me and my fiancee, which includes unlimited Imax movies and a drive thru safari park thing too. I couldn't fathom paying so much for an amusement park. At least the zoo is large and I can walk around in the nice outdoors and take little adorable photos like this. 
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Jan 8, 2014 22:29
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No Wave posted:A yearly Disneyland membership is fairly cheap - $669 for access all year. I don't know. $55 a month for something that's for children doesn't sound "cheap" to me.
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Jan 8, 2014 22:32
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Nail Rat posted:I don't know. $55 a month for something that's for children doesn't sound "cheap" to me.
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Jan 9, 2014 00:33
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Found this in a thread on reddit.quote:seriously, i just started using my credit card responsibly and i no longer go negative on my bank account. last year (2013) i only spent $3500 on overdraft fees. this year i calculate i'll be $3500 richer and hopefully will be able to save enough money that i won't need the credit card any longer. here's to a >600 credit score for once in my life! only spent $3500 on overdraft fees 
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Jan 9, 2014 02:15
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Jesus Christ how... just... the gently caress? And they are proud of it?
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Jan 9, 2014 02:17
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My friend's girlfriend started selling Kangen water iodizers - these things create some acid and alkaline water from your tap for the low, low price of $4k each. Apparently they hydrate you better than normal water, cure cancer, and can replace shampoo/soap/medicine. To start selling, she had to make an initial 'investment' of $1.2k, which she didn't have, so she borrowed it from her boyfriend, with everything she owned in their apartment as collateral (they live together). My conclusion is that she's bad with money and he's bad at breakups.
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Jan 9, 2014 02:19
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Nail Rat posted:What the gently caress is there for an adult to do at Disneyland that's worth the crowd and costs? I have a cousin who lives in Anaheim and buys SoCal annual passes with parking to Disneyland and California Adventure every year with her husband (like $850 total annually). They like going on the rides, seeing the fireworks shows, parades, holiday decorations, and even just walking around. Once you buy the pass and you live 10 minutes away, it doesn't cost any more than walking around the park near your house if you don't buy anything, which they don't. Except: my cousin claims that she makes up the price of the passes every year by buying limited edition stuff that you can only buy at the park and selling it on eBay for a marked up price. It wouldn't be worth it to me, but it doesn't seem to be setting them back. Yes, they are kind of weird... And for a story: I think I already told one about grad students but here's another. Today at work, one of the grad students told me she broke her computer, phone, and glasses over winter break (long story but three different accidents). She replaced them all with top of the line Apple products/designer glasses. Her boyfriend tried to persuade her to get the computer/phone repaired, but instead she took out another credit card because "I won't have to deal with that anytime soon!" Also she has over $50K in student loans and won't begin repaying them until she's at least 29.
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Jan 9, 2014 03:03
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I guess this is the best place to ask this: is it really possible to be a compulsive spender? Is that a thing you can be and not realize it, if you always have the need to blow through whatever meager cash you have? What resources are open to me if so and my parents don't believe me? I suspect I have an actual problem and I don't know that anyone will listen.
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Jan 9, 2014 03:59
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Tomfoolery posted:My friend's girlfriend started selling Kangen water iodizers Or perhaps not surprising at all after reading this thread. Uneducated Pseudo-Science thread. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3100175
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Jan 9, 2014 04:04
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Captain Walker posted:I guess this is the best place to ask this: is it really possible to be a compulsive spender? Is that a thing you can be and not realize it, if you always have the need to blow through whatever meager cash you have? What resources are open to me if so and my parents don't believe me? I suspect I have an actual problem and I don't know that anyone will listen. Yeah, I know lots of people who feel very compulsive about spending their bank balances to 0, if they have money they feel like they need to spend it. Other people compulsively buy "gazingus pins", like little cheap items that they already own dozens of. Stuff like little screwdrivers or USB drives or whatever.
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Jan 9, 2014 04:13
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I did shady consumer financing for a while and one of the most productive merchants I worked with was at or near the top of one of those Kangan pyramid schemes. I had a lot of old people on fixed incomes applying for these at roughly $5,000 principal for 18 to 36 month terms with 13.99% to 18.99% APR depending on credit. Whenever I had to call one of the customers to follow up on paper chasing I desperately wanted to explain homeostasis to them, but figured it wasn't worth the effort or getting fired over it. I did a little research and started looking up model numbers after sales went up. They're all a bit larger than the type of water filter you'd attach to the pipes under your sink. Except all it does is shock your water without even filtering it. schemie posted:only spent $3500 on overdraft fees At that same job, we'd sometimes require customers to provide a single monthly bank statement to gauge their risk. I saw a bunch of people who would regularly rack up $700 in overdrafts per month, then get it credited back through some overdraft protection. Overdrafts were just normal operating procedure for them. Average overdraft is $35.00, so that's 100 in a year for that guy. He probably didn't get his credited back, but I'm guessing a few of the people I dealt with were getting roughly 240 in a year.
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Jan 9, 2014 04:37
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Baja Mofufu posted:...top of the line designer glasses... Fun fact: almost all of the "designer" brands are made by a company called Luxottica and are just licensed collections and aren't designed by the brands. The markup is INSANE and they aren't any different than any other glasses. It's ridiculous and you don't even get the benefit of having much better quality for the higher price.
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Jan 9, 2014 05:47
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http://news.msn.com/in-depth/colonel-now-living-out-of-his-van A retired colonel with 30 years service, who receives a yearly pension of 40k and worked as defence contractor for 5 years afterwards is homeless and living in his van. The story tries to spin it as a 'poor troops' story, but there's no comparing your typical homeless vet with a goddamned full bird. vvvv I would empirically try to find the lethal dose of marijuana 
Guest2553 fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 06:48
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If I had a minivan, no wife, and 40k/year for life I would be homeless too. Except the headline would read: "Man and Cat Live Life of Ease in Glorious Retirement." Edit: Somewhat related - "War for Profit: The Contractor Megathread" is a glorious collective tale that descends from "If you're not making $300,000 by pointing guns at brown people you're doing it wrong" to "omg how do i found job" MrKatharsis fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 06:54
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Guest2553 posted:http://news.msn.com/in-depth/colonel-now-living-out-of-his-van What the gently caress is this poo poo? quote:Between spells on the couches of friends in multiple states, he sleeps occasionally in motels and other times in the dented blue van. Because I mean all homeless people stay in motels when they can't find a couch to sleep on right? They also can afford to travel around multiple states to find that couch too.
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Jan 9, 2014 08:09
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Rick Rickshaw posted:So he gets hired and proceeds to buy another brand new Nissan Altima before his first paycheque comes in, because well hey, he needs to be able to drive to client's houses to sell them insurance! "Because I have to visit clients!" And then they finance 100% of the entire purchase.  Foxhound posted:I know it's not strictly in line with the thread, but here's a video of some idiot who tries to push MLM on Dragon's Den. The interesting/horrible bit is how convinced he seems to be that it's a solid idea. melon cat fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 08:20
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Rudager posted:Because I mean all homeless people stay in motels when they can't find a couch to sleep on right? A lot of homeless people actually sleep in motels when they have money for as many nights as they have money (usually not many). Then they go back to loving on the street/wherever. Obviously, he's still bad with money...
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Jan 9, 2014 09:01
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There's an older retired military guy by me that lives in an RV over in a camping area. Since hookups are only like 5 dollars a day.
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Jan 9, 2014 11:02
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melon cat posted:When I saw the cards with one person under the other, I just knew the way we were heading into pyramid scheme territory. Good grief, that was painful to watch.
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Jan 9, 2014 11:14
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Cranbe posted:A lot of homeless people actually sleep in motels when they have money for as many nights as they have money (usually not many). Then they go back to loving on the street/wherever. This is actually a major problem. Even if a homeless person gets a job, a lot of cities have a serious shortage of affordable housing, especially if you have to be near public transportation and don't have a car. Someone who has little work history and lists a shelter as a previous address isn't exactly going to have a competitive rental application when housing does become available, so you end up with a lot of people going to lovely motels, living out of vehicles, or staying in shelters even after they have found employment and can actually afford reasonable rents.
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Jan 9, 2014 12:30
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Where the hell are those 40k going?
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Jan 9, 2014 12:59
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Lord Tywin posted:Where the hell are those 40k going? Whores and Ale!
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Jan 9, 2014 13:44
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Lord Tywin posted:Where the hell are those 40k going? Paying for his ex wifes house and lifestyle among other things.
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Jan 9, 2014 14:22
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Although it's a tenuous connection, that reminds me of something I saw on TV. I was watching Hoarders some time ago so I could get motivation to clean up my house, and I ran into this woman's episode: http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/high-end-hoarder-buried-home-500-000-shopping-121500569.html Divorced in 2002. Son is 20. She declared bankruptcy 2 years ago, so about when the son would have turned 18. I guess we know where the child support went.
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Jan 9, 2014 14:51
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Konstantin posted:This is actually a major problem. Even if a homeless person gets a job, a lot of cities have a serious shortage of affordable housing, especially if you have to be near public transportation and don't have a car. Someone who has little work history and lists a shelter as a previous address isn't exactly going to have a competitive rental application when housing does become available, so you end up with a lot of people going to lovely motels, living out of vehicles, or staying in shelters even after they have found employment and can actually afford reasonable rents. Even here in Australia there have been cases of people who have had to bounce between friends and family's houses and shelters because while they had steady jobs, they weren't earning enough to support themselves because of situations such as earning minimum wage in small mining communities where rental accommodation is now extremely unaffordable unless you're working in the mines. While I'm not in a small mining community, I admit that if it weren't for my partner I my options for housing would be extremely limited simply because housing is extremely unaffordable. The median wage can no longer afford the median house and more and more people are being pushed to the fringes. And a story for the thread: I have a friend who is a really smart person, just that she seems to be a bit shakey when comes to money. Her parents gave her a car, nothing fancy, but it did the job and if I remember rightly the mileage wasn't too bad. She sold the car about a year ago and got a loan for a car alarmingly similar to Cornholio's albatross of a vehicle. It costs about USD$80 to fill the tank as it needs special fuel, the services are really expensive so she didn't take it in for services and about a year after buying, it broke down. Then she finds the car needs new tyres ($250 per tyre), so even if the engine was functioning she might not be able to drive it. 
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Jan 9, 2014 15:43
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melon cat posted:
I'm sure it gets used as a rationalization, too, but it's actually pretty common for employers to lay out minimum car standards for people whose jobs have lots of client interaction away from their office. I know our sales reps are required to have large-ish 4-door cars, maximum of 5 years old and 100K miles. So unsurprisingly, to stay compliant most sales reps simply buy a new car every 5 years or lease a new one every 3/4 years.
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Jan 9, 2014 16:27
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SlapActionJackson posted:I'm sure it gets used as a rationalization, too, but it's actually pretty common for employers to lay out minimum car standards for people whose jobs have lots of client interaction away from their office. I know our sales reps are required to have large-ish 4-door cars, maximum of 5 years old and 100K miles. So unsurprisingly, to stay compliant most sales reps simply buy a new car every 5 years or lease a new one every 3/4 years. Isn't that one of the few cases where it makes sense to lease a car?
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Jan 9, 2014 16:33
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But guys, your clients will be super impressed when you take them to your business meeting at an IHOP and see that you're driving a Bentley! Look, here's video evidence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ler-4LwiaWk&t=156s
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Jan 9, 2014 16:34
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pathetic little tramp posted:But guys, your clients will be super impressed when you take them to your business meeting at an IHOP and see that you're driving a Bentley! Look, here's video evidence. I have no clue what I just watched.
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