Preying on the poor

As many of you may know, times are kind of tough right now financially, so I've been exploring all sorts of alternative methods of survival in hopes of increasing revenue (or starting some) in hopes of making it through the rest of this summer. It hasn't been easy, and I've not been extremely successful, but one thing that it has done is remind me of how vicious other people can be when it comes to taking advantage of those with little to no resources.

Let me move back a bit in the past to orchestrate an event that happened that opened my eyes to this sort of behavior. Years back, I was in really dire financial circumstances after having gotten out of the Army and unable to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. So, I ended up in San Francisco, and I lived in the impoverished area of the Tenderloin District. I was working security guard jobs for extremely limited income (I made too much to qualify for food stamps, but not enough to pay rent, let alone actually buy food). I had a dollar or so one day and decided my best bet was to buy a carton of milk (you could get a quart of milk for 99 cents back then, and that was overpriced). So I went to the normal corner convenient store that was owned by a Korean family. Their 18-19 year old kid was working that day, and I put the 99 cent quart of milk on the counter. The kid looked at this "tax chart" he had that covered the entire main counter and then said: "That will be $1.34." I almost paid it, but then it suddenly dawned on me that 35% is somewhat outrageous in an area that charges 8.5% sales tax. So I asked him why so much. He said "tax". I said that tax is 8.5, not 35 percent. His reaction was to remove the milk from the bag he had put it in, place it to the side and then order me out of his store or he would call the police. So I left.

Fast forward to today, and someone recommended online surveys as a possible way of making money. I suspected there was probably something suspicious about them, but I figured I really had nothing to lose, so I signed up for a few of the ones that appeared to be legit. Well, what I soon discovered is that by signing up for one, they really escalate this into signing you up for every one. Now, I'm probably a member of about every survey site you can possibly imagine.

Now, if you've never crossed into this world of surveys, you might get the mistaken impression (like I did) that these surveys are actually interested in your opinion on things, like products or maybe politics or trends, or whatever. They're not. What they're interested in doing is the infamous foot in the door technique and its many variations. Let me give you an example. Blockbuster Online Rentals is one of the ones that almost every one of these surveys has as one of its "surveys". What the survey will do is promise you anywhere from $15-30 for "completing" the survey on Blockbuster. But what the "survey" actually is has nothing to do with surveying. To complete the survey, you have to sign up for Blockbuster's Online service (the one that charges $9.99 + tax per month to have movies sent to you like the MUCH BETTER company Netflix). Having not completed this "survey" because I can see right through its game, I'm assuming that you would then get $15-30 from the survey company (which all tend to have a "you must earn $100 in surveys before we send you a check" clause to them, although that amount varies from $40 to undetermined amounts).

If you start going through more and more of these "surveys", what they are is an endless stream of "click yes or no" to get more information about more companies that want to separate you from your hard to come by dollars. They aren't really interested in your opinion, but in your business. And quite a few of them that I observed are really scary in what they do.

I'll give you an example from the "medical" surveys that I noticed. I know that our country talks about how we're over-medicated these days, but I went through a number of surveys that practically CREATE ailments within me, even when I'm feeling fine. I've had a headache a week ago, so having connected with that information, I'm put through a bunch of self-diagnosing (it diagnosis me, not the other way around) that eventually end up with some pharmaceutical company offering me a 7 day supply of a drug that they want me to take back to my doctor and TELL her this is what I need. If I have diabetes, they want to give me a free blood sugar monitor, but they can only give it to you if you're on medicare, but if you're not, they will walk you through the process of getting ONTO medicare so that they can run the charge through and "NO ONE" has to fork over any money. Yes, I'm sure it comes from nowhere as the government just has way too much money to shell out for these sorts of unnecessary things. I think you get the picture. In about one day, I had "coupons" for 7 or so day supplies of drugs to medicate my ADHD, which I don't have, my insomnia, which is really caused by the fact that my shoulder is injured, not because I need medication to sleep and suffer from ailments that I can't pronounce, all sorts of diabetic medication that is "ground-breaking" and so "ground-breaking" that no one else in the medical establishment appears to know what it is, and my favorite: I've "qualified for medical trials" on at least five different horrific ailments, which will require me to be put into test groups where I might or might not receive life-saving treatment in a ground breaking study. I think you get the idea.

The problem, for me, is that they are preying on people who generally are at wit's end and don't know where else to turn. Instead of helping them, as they are claiming to do, they are turning their lives into a living hell from which they will never escape. You don't help someone solve his financial burden by offering him ten different credit cards (the other thing these surveys have been doing nonstop) from "banks" I've never heard of before. I mean, come on, when I get a credit card offer from Fred's Bank, there's something really wrong here.

But like poverty itself, I don't expect anyone to care. The people who are targeted here are unimportant to the rest of American society. They are the losers in the game of capitalism, and as long as the fantasy of everyone having an equal chance in this country exists, they will continue to be victims, exploited by those who care only about their own wallets. It's like Hurricane Katrina when it happened. We all saw the pictures and wanted to do something. But no matter how many people DID go and help, there were so many people who saw it as an opportunity and swooped down, doing what they always do. And as we rarely hold them accountable (white collar crime never will be, no matter how much rhetoric we use), that's why it will only continue as perpetrators become more and more blatant in how they do it.

And I think that's sad. But what's that matter. It's not like anyone reads a blog like this anyway.

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