If you really want to piss people off, treat every individual with compassion and dignity. Even (especially) if they don’t treat themselves like that.
Also, corporations are not people, my friend. So use the above to help guide your social engineering tactics.
Not unethical or illegal, but avoiding a barrier, if you have a problem that a company won’t solve using regular customer service means, spend time to find their email formula (FnameLname or FLname or FnameL @company.com) do some online searching, and then email your unhelpful CSO person and start to CC senior people in the company “to bring this error to their attention.”
If the unhelpful CSO person hasn’t messed up, then it’s no heat on them and their supervisor will just say “ugh, just get rid of this guy,” and solve your problem. I’ve used this method a dozen or so times, works well.
When shopping, I like to make it seem extremely likely I am stealing to help poor people who actually need to steal to survive.
For example, when picking up a soda, I furtively look to my left and right to make sure no one is looking and crouch my head down. I pick up things and make it seem like I may be putting it in a pocket at times before putting it back. When security guards say hi, I don’t make eye contact or reply back and put my head down as if hiding.
I never actually steal and haven’t ever shoplifted anything.
I have been kicked out stores many times for abnormal behavior, but never while stealing.
…how does that help anyone at all?
Imagine if like 5% or so of people in a Grocery store acted like he does. Would be so much easier to actually steal something with security being busy all the time with the non-stealers
If you want a free quarter, make an online order at Aldi that is large enough for them to load into a cart and also justify you taking the cart out to your car. Return said cart to the cart line and boom free quarter.
Keep a reflective umbrella in the passenger seat. When an asshole with death beams tailgates you, have the passenger open it across the back seats
I would do this alone. I just don’t trust assholes not to shoot into my car and kill my family.
Get a bulletproof one like the Penguin.
I like this one
If you get junk mail with a return envelope, it’s automatically paid by whoever sent it, so you can mail back whatever you want, like vulgar imagery or blank forms
It’s paid by weight and thickness so fill it with trash like pieces of cardboard and sand.
Fuck, I’m gonna start doing this. I’ve tried to get the postal service to return to sender, but they never do.
Or bricks.
The post office got wise to that. Changed their regulations so that business reply mail cannot be used as a shipping label.
Not a lifehack, just a reminder that legality is not an indicator of whether something is ethical
Pirate everything, block ads, guillotine billionaires
Is that supposed to be unethical? Well I guess pirating everything includes things where paying would be fair.
I’m not sure about unethical, but blocking ads is a big one for me. The WWW is unusable without blocking ads.
For the US: The Supreme Court has ruled that flashing your lights to alert other drivers of an upcoming speed trap is protected by your First Amendment rights.
Flipping off a cop is also protected, but that’s less helpful to others.
Why would you help someone driving dangerously and putting others at risk?
Fuck tha police
I do get where you’re coming from, but there are a lot of roads where the speed limit is artificially low (or temporarily lowered for no legitimate reason) for the sole purpose of collecting income from speeding fines
They’re helping the other drivers, not the murderous Nazi pigs.
Going 5 over the limit and feeding money to pigs via ticket revenues is not “dangerous driving”
If someone’s doing 105 im not flashing them obviously
I guess it probably varies by location but 5 over the limit doesn’t usually result in anything either. It’s normally just people going significantly over that get fines.
Also it’s a limit, not a target. Plenty of roads have a limit that is too high to actually drive at safely too.
Something tells me you’re one of those who parks it in the passing lane going at or below the speed limit.
I don’t drive, it’s bad for the environment and costs loads of money.
How adorably naive.
Torrent everything. If it’s legal for a company to cancel my subscription then torrenting isn’t unethical.
Use the free tier if you are low-income. Privacy and security shouldn’t be for those with money.
If it’s legal for the Zuck to torrent all the books, it’s legal for me to torrent a few books.
Books are one of the few things I am more than willing to pay full price for.
Sure the publishers eat a lot of the money, but the authors don’t do too badly.
The very nature of a book (unless something is published as an e-book only) keeps it from being enshittfied like streaming audio and video services. If someone were to print an ad in the book, I could just rip it out and throw it away.
Books are one of the last places where you just will not see an ad or be tracked, or have popups, and other irritating “features”.
Books are good.
I’ve seen some children’s books with popups.
Slightly more seriously though, I do have some books that have an advertisement for something else from the author or publisher.
I feel like being I am pedantic on the points here so I will make a point of saying that I agree with the spirit of your comment.
Alternative option is not to pirate the books and instead read the public domain ones that are just free. Project Gutenberg is a good completely legit source of free books.
If libraries didn’t already exist and you tried to make one now, you would be arrested and likely get pretty hefty sentencing for copyright infringement.
When I wanted to start using contact lenses, they gave me a pair of those that last one month for free to try them out, I didn’t find them entirely comfortable so they gave another pair of another brand, and a third one. Then I started again on another place, and another, I think I went a full year without paying for contact lenses.
Worked as a lab manager for some of those one hour shops to pay for college. The drs would tell me horror stories where people would go to the strip malls and get these cheap “contact” lenses that had smiley faces or some shit on them. They wear them then swap them with friends. Basically not taking hygiene into account. They’d get some serious eye infections. Like nearly lose your sight serious eye infections.
you wouldn’t download contact lenses… /jk
The optometrists over here change an extra fee for lens fittings on top of the fee for an eye exam. I think it’s $80 for us after insurance.
This might be specific to Spain then. I don’t know how the shop that sells prescription glasses is called, here they are called óptica. Their margins are big enough that they don’t charge you for the eye exam, the fitting or the test contacts.
Watch youtube through other apps like Grayjoy If people are having a conversation in a dumb spot, walk through the middle of them
Use Morphe
Is grayjay any better than newpipe
None, I strongly advocate for ethics in all things.
Now if we want to talk about illegal lifehacks, that’s a different ballgame.
do you have any ethical but illegal life hacks in mind?
other than Internet piracy
Throwing away junk mail that isn’t addressed to you is a felony in the United States
but throwing it into the street is only a misdemeanor for littering.
What is your best illegal lifehack?
If you’re ever in charge of a young child with a stroller, it’s the ultimate shoplifting tool. You can cram all sorts of things under or behind it under the guise of fussing with the baby, and just walk out afterwards, no one wants to stop a fussy baby from leaving a store. Use this to harm predatory corporations that you can’t ethically give money to.
That’s true, but when you work checkout, you’re told to look there, specifically. And cameras, so be careful. If you steal meat, for instance, move to a non monitored isle, something cheap they don’t care about you stealing, so they don’t monitor it, and stash the meat there. But also Buy one of whatever you steal. They see you pick stuff up, but they can’t really tell you picked up 2 of the same slab of meat, they see you pay for one, they think all is good. Be super friendly and nice to all the staff. It’s not them you’re stealing from, they hate the system as much as you. Wear glasses, and mildly but not flashy upmarket clothing. Don’t wear hoodies or sunnies or nondescript clothing. And then you’re magically invisible. After working in a supermarket for multiple years, I can tell you exactly who they watch, and who they don’t.
Oh, also, watch out for security disgused as shoppers, they’ll walk around with a basket without any refrigerated items, just weird random junk, and they look at the people more than the shelves, walk too slow, and they’ll randomly follow you, so go in weird directions so you can spot them, act like you gotta double back to a few different weird isles, out of order, then it’s too obvious for them to follow you. Then If you see them try to follow you, but get frustrated, you definitely know to steal away from them. Or come back another day, they’re not there every day, or all day.
Storytime, I had a lady with a stroller come through, saw her all the time. She never looked me in the eyes, never bought much, was always a little off, avoidant to the point of rude. I always knew something was off, but i never check prams, because f that. One day I see a line of big burly blokes lined up at the exit to my register, I was running, “what’s up fellas?” “Here to catch a thief, don’t worry about it” they apprehend her, she had been loading her pram, chockas full, with meat slabs, they tell me later, they watched her put them all in her stroller. They watch the expensive stuff like a hawk.
Don’t feel bad stealing from corporations, they don’t feel bad stealing from you.
Many places punish employees for excessive “loss” in their departments. Sometimes explicitly.
Even ignoring that places will price “loss” into their products, I think it’s important to consider that this can affect “the little guy” too. Disproportionately at times, imo
Pricing in the loss only makes sense if it recovered any of the losses. And if it did, I’m pretty sure they would’ve already done it regardless of whether there’s any loss since it would just be pure profit in its absence.
Every year, call your insurance/internet/phone/TV etc. provider and tell them one of their competitors gave you a lower quote and you want them to match it or come close.
They will often give you a better rate just for asking. It’s easier if you do have an actual quote to compare it against but you don’t need one. Everything is made up. Just ask to pay less and threaten to stop paying them and they’ll often just give it to you.
Even if they refuse, just say, “Okay. I need some time to think about whether or not I want to continue our relationship or switch.” Hang up and do nothing.
USA centric.
This is known as policy walking and has been banned in the UK by the FCA.
(edit - specifically for insurance)
——
Why the downvote with zero engagement?
Wait what??
The consumer is barred from swapping providers annually to get better rates? Or are they barred from lying about fake quotes to get a better rate from their current provider?
Edit: By chance did you mean “price walking”? I did some searching online and I couldn’t find anything about the UK forbidding consumers from changing insurance companies to seek lower prices by searching for “policy walking” but I did find something about insurers slowly increasing prices on customers (thus creating the need for the behavior I suggested) called “price walking”, though I didn’t see anything about it’s legality. Admittedly, I’m just skimming while working.
A new customer and a renewing customer should get the same price.
If you go to an insurance company to get a quote, as a brand new customer or a renewal, the price should be the same.
Historically, its to prevent companies giving lower prices for the first year and then raising it for the second year.
Youre not allowed to increase the price just because its not a new customer.
Its nothing to do with regulating the customer - its regulating how insurance companies price their products for new vs existing customers.
I said policy walking, but price walking might be the more accurate term
Oooooooh that makes sense! Thanks for explaining. Yeah I wish we had legislation around it here, it’s stupid that I have to play games to get lower prices on things.
Wish that were the case where I live. Still I’ve noticed that what they’re now doing is offering the same price to everyone, but then giving the option of free Netflix for 1 year as a sign up bonus or the equivalent credit towards your service for that year, which effectively is the same practice.
To me the it sounds a bit more likely that they’re regulating insurance companies and not the customers.
insane, huh?
Not USA centric.
It is also solid advice here in Germany and probably many other countries.
Your comment might be UK centric…
You may notice I specifically called out my comment as UK centric.
You monster.
Removed by mod
It was a question. I do not recall you at all. Why do you care enough to follow me around and downvote?
what “dumb shit” have I said today? Would you like to correct me on UK insurance law? How did that “make you feel dumber”?
edit - and thats all of our interaction in the last year. Youre this upset cause I didnt like a game you like?
Removed by mod
I gave specific, UK advice, in a thread that isnt country specific, since the comment I replied to was defaulting to USA centric. Not sure why youre so upset about that? At least I clarified the exact country Im talking about, rather than assuming everyone is from the same place.
You’re the one thats upset here lmfao
Youre the one following me around arbitrarily downvoting.
I looked back at our last interaction. I actually said something positive. I was sincere about you enjoying starfield. Why is that “making you feel dumber”?
If you are working as a contractor and make above a certain wage it can be worth it to setup your own LLC/S-corp. I did it one year at the advice of my CPA and it immediately knocked off 30% of my AGI. Lowered my pass thru income and tax liability. Saved me many thousands over 20 years. Its what every corporation in America does.
What did you do just pay yourself in options and drive the stock price up with buy backs? I guess you could buy your competition and load them up with all of your debt while paying you and your friends bonuses.
I’m pretty sure that doesn’t work for small corporations where no one else even knows you exist. The share value is likely just going to be the company’s net asset value.
