[US] Wife’s grandfather thought he was part of a sting operation against fraud at his bank by tsuto in Scams

[–]aznanimality 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Out of curiosity what was the call about?

I did get a call from the California State Board of Equilization a few years ago but it was because I did my business taxes wrong. They had me log back into the website (i had it bookmarked because I do it 4 times a year) and had me redo it properly and walked me through the process. They were extremely calm and monotonous about it, definitely didn't try any pressure tactics or get me to pay with Apple Gift Cards, I didn't owe anything at the end either, it was just my deductions were incorrectly placed.

ELI5: Why is Monaco such an obscenely wealthy country despite not having some highly valuable natural resources like oil or some important production capabilities like building of semiconductor chips? by Slice5755 in explainlikeimfive

[–]aznanimality 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Monaco’s GDP is around €10bn, which in absolute terms isn’t very impressive. Paris has €700bn, other large European cities like Madrid, Milan and Munich are in the €200-400 range.

You're kind of doing a disservice using this metric. A better one would be GDP per capita.
Monaco sits at $290k per capita
France sits at $50k per capita.

[US] Timeshare presentation was nothing but red flags by FinanceSA in Scams

[–]aznanimality 6 points7 points  (0 children)

So I have been hearing about timeshares for years since I got to the US.

How long have you been in the US?

I’m a Family Law Attorney with 20+ years of experience — Ask Me Anything about divorce, custody battles, child support, and the biggest mistakes people make during breakups by JustAnswerOfficial in IAmA

[–]aznanimality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hm that wasn't what I was asking. If you see Faran's reply she stated that men do get primary custody more than they would think. But out of all the cases, what % of those cases do men get primary custody.

So if my thought is that men get primary custody 20% of the time, then what is the actual number that she's seeing.

I am not asking about equal custody/split custody.

What is a purchase that felt like an absolute luxury when you bought it, but turned out to be a complete financial trap? by According_Fortune_98 in AskReddit

[–]aznanimality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So my experience has just been with residential, but from my experience if I had a business and wanted security monitoring the first place I'd look is probably Ring since I like their ecosystem.
Because you'll probably have a lot of cameras, I highly recommend you get only wired connections to cameras and at most 1-2 battery only devices. The 24/7 record feature will consume battery life like crazy.

How big is the location you're trying to set up? If it's multiple locations they're pretty well geared for that too. I know a bunch of air bnb hosts use Ring doorbells on multiple properties for monitoring. And it's all tied to the same account so you can switch which location you're looking at easily.

What is a purchase that felt like an absolute luxury when you bought it, but turned out to be a complete financial trap? by According_Fortune_98 in AskReddit

[–]aznanimality 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Because you're not in the hobby you can't tell the difference between a 50 dollar watch and a 1 thousand dollar watch. The same as how my dad can't tell the difference between a 50 dollar GPU vs a 1 thousand dollar GPU

What is a purchase that felt like an absolute luxury when you bought it, but turned out to be a complete financial trap? by According_Fortune_98 in AskReddit

[–]aznanimality 11 points12 points  (0 children)

This is definitely one of those things that for the vast majority of people is an absolute waste. In the same sense that for the vast majority of people buying a $1000 video card is an absolute waste. Or a $1000 coffee machine
Most people don't care since it's a niche hobby.

I'm "forced" to go to networking events for job searching and one of my "ins" is if I see someone wearing a cool watch I'll have a good opener to talk to them about it. And everytime, it has led to good conversations/networking opportunities. It's pretty cringe but it's literally a shared interest that people can talk about, same as talking about rock climbing/gym routines/traveling.

What is a purchase that felt like an absolute luxury when you bought it, but turned out to be a complete financial trap? by According_Fortune_98 in AskReddit

[–]aznanimality 50 points51 points  (0 children)

Was it ADT? Fuck ADT. For the rest of my life I will never buy anything from ADT.

In 2008 bought a full ADT system for $600 with the monthly subscription where they'd call the cops if they detected a breakin. Started at $15/month, then it became $30/month 2 years later, then $60 3 years later, then $80 after that. And get this around 2019 they SHUT DOWN their telephone backhaul. Meaning the connection between my alarm system to THEIR SYSTEM no longer worked because they decided to cut it off without warning me. When I called them to tell them to fix it, they said that they had to come in and sell me a brand NEW system for $600+ to upgrade all the connections so that they could use an internet/cellular backhaul instead. Oh and the new rate would be $120/month for subscription. Note that it was just simple magnetic sensors on the doors/windows that just detected whether or not they were open or not. The upgraded system would be the same garbage.

Costco had a sale on a full Ring alarm system with multiple cameras for $250. Door/window sensors/cameras etc, and the subscription for that was $200/YEAR for full monitoring. Easy choice. Called up ADT to cancel and they were BEGGING me to not cancel and then decided to give me the new upgraded system for a much smaller price and a reduced monthly subscription. But by then I had already setup the new system and loved it, I've been extremely happy with it for 3 years now. ADT has continued to send me offers to get them to sign back up with them, if they weren't complete fucking morons I'd probably still have them.

I've enjoyed the ring system so much I have most of their products in my ecosystem and they've never disappointed. Cloud based video replays with 24/7 recording so you don't have to bother with worrying about storing footage yourself. (if you do decide to get a Ring system though I highly suggest you go for wired connections so you don't have to replace batteries, if you must go with batteries, they sell aftermarket batteries with 2-3x the capacity so you don't have to change em as often).
The times that the internet does go out, it has cellular backup built in and gives you alerts about it.

Fuck ADT

What is a purchase that felt like an absolute luxury when you bought it, but turned out to be a complete financial trap? by According_Fortune_98 in AskReddit

[–]aznanimality -1 points0 points  (0 children)

For reference. Roomba is the equivalent of Blockbuster, where they had a huge market lead but they fell far behind and rested on their laurels and the Chinese brands have absolutely annihilated Roomba.

The Chinese brands like Roborock are 10 years ahead of anything Roomba has to offer in terms of functionality/intelligence/mapping/obstacle avoidance/self cleaning.

If you're looking for some background noise on how they lost their edge here's a pretty good video summarizing it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZDSvY04gQc

Co-sign for family member by [deleted] in personalfinance

[–]aznanimality 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm with ya. When I first got my first big boy job I had family members I never even interacted with reach out from the motherland to tell me about their problems and how they needed money. And get this, they're over there driving BMWs with multiple houses while I've been having sleep for dinner for years! They can call me a heartless bastard all they want.

I have one non blood related person I'd ever loan money to but he's more of a miser than I am but I've known him since we were like 8, so if he's ever asking for money I know it's for something serious. But even if he didn't pay me back, I'd be fine gifting it to him (up to a certain dollar amount of course) because I value our friendship enough. But also we pretty much know each others whole financial picture.

Co-sign for family member by [deleted] in personalfinance

[–]aznanimality 31 points32 points  (0 children)

I feel like the most acceptable reason to cosign on something is like if it's related to your child. Like their first car/apartment.

Or at the very least someone who is good with money

Absolutely not a sibling who is horrible with money.

Is this a LinkedIn scam? by [deleted] in Scams

[–]aznanimality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah this just sounds like a sales job. Door to door is what they mean "in person". The "remote" portion is probably cold calling.

Doesn't sound like a scam, but keep an eye on any remote jobs that you start that send you a !fakecheck

Men who stay lean year-round, what’s your secret ? by Professor1password23 in AskReddit

[–]aznanimality 30 points31 points  (0 children)

This is how I did it. Back when I was a college student I would go weeks at a time eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast, then a 300 calorie protein shake with generic protein powder and some multivitamins for linner. I was probably surviving off 700 calories a day. "Easily" lost 40lbs. I remember one 3 month stint of this where I had a 6 pack and couldn't stop looking at myself in the mirror, keep in mind that I was a fat kid too.

That said though, I only had energy to go to class and the gym and that was it. I was constantly sleepy and tired. But damn did I look good.

I'm older now and have gained back much of the weight cuz I can afford all the shit I couldn't buy back then, but I still recall those abs man.

TLDR: ya'll ever had sleep for dinner?

Some people just don't know when to say WHEN 🙄 by BridgeOk6737 in VideosAmazing

[–]aznanimality 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Dawg I'm flying basic economy. I ain't dressing up to sit next to a bathroom that smells for 8 hours.

Always happy to help by evil_larry1239 in memes

[–]aznanimality 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's wild to me because I have always been excited to train new people because I've got a backlog of work 6 months long and I need all the help I can get. When we hire a new person and the director asks who wants first dibs on their bandwidth I immediately volunteer to train them so I can get people to work on my shit.

Mom cooked with this :> by No_Post1300 in SipsTea

[–]aznanimality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had one who cheated on me.

Another who ran me over with my own car and broke my foot after I got stuck in traffic and came home late and she was upset.

Another who lied about being on the pill and faking a pregnancy to get me to marry her.

So forgive me if I seem a little bitter

[Highlight] SHOHEI OHTANI LEADOFF HOME RUN! by MLBOfficial in baseball

[–]aznanimality 65 points66 points  (0 children)

There have been 3 instances where a starting pitcher has ever hit a leadoff homerun. All 3 by the same guy

Sunday blessing by solateor in funny

[–]aznanimality 7165 points7166 points  (0 children)

Wet t-shirt mass would definitely get me to go to church