35 Supposed “Luxuries” That Are One Big Giant Scam To Take Rich People’s Money

We often buy into the idea that paying a higher price guarantees a better product. Many of us assume that the more something costs, the better its quality or value. However, luxury industry insiders say this couldn’t be further from the truth.

#1

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Honestly the markup on wine at fine dining restaurants is insane. i worked as a hostess and watched people drop $300 on bottles we got wholesale for like $40 without even blinking.

#2

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Less common but the most vile scam I’ve seen.

I worked for a restaurant that wanted to be on a higher income shelf, in the middle of a white men in finance and gilets district. Very popular business breakfast spot.

They had a huge oven near the expo and you could see freshly baking sourdough bread. The oven was not actually “baking”, it was set on something like 40 C so the bread was kept nicely warm but definitely not freshly baked. We didn’t even bake it on site, it was delivered in the morning and put in the oven, as a display.

If someone ordered “bread and olives” or “charcuterie board” from the menu we would make a whole event of getting that bread out, slicing, arranging and serving. You would then expect any other order that had bread in there to get THIS bread.

Yeah, no. Any order, like things containing toast, full English, avo toasts etc had generic Warburtons used. FOH staff had to deal with complaints about it left right and centre.

I lasted 3 weeks, the restaurant about a year more after I left.

#3

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If you make your product rare. we are very small olive oil producers, we have all the machines to completely produce the oils ourselves. we work very clean and organic in a way that goes beyond any certificates, so we won’t fool anyone on this side. BUT there is certain special oils, ie. the very early harvest, or oil from wild olive trees. we have some wealthy customers, if we tell them we only have 10L of wild olive oil left, they want to buy it all… only to know that they have it and noone else. so we found ourselves lying sometimes about the amount of oil left, it makes certain rich people buy everything available just to have it 🤷🏻‍♂️.

#4

Medical woo. They will pay $200 to put their feet in a little tub of ionized water for 30 minutes while the metals in the water oxidize and turn it a color – THEN they find out which toxins they released based on the color (spoiler alert – it’s always brown/copper).

It’s complete and total nonsense and that’s the *cheapest* one I can think of. They’ll drop thousands on stuff like this without a second thought.

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#5

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My brother works fine dining as a manager. Someone once wanted a sparkler on top of a dessert and the restaurant didn’t want to do it. My brother said “sure we can do that. For $500.” And the person did it. Now they have a box of sparklers available in the kitchen for requests and the restaurant gets $500 a pop. And once one dessert gets the showy sparkler walked through the dining room, past all the other couples celebrating or bachelorette parties or people who won big (it’s at a casino), then EVERYONE wants to get a sparkler. Blows my mind.

#6

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I once DJ’d in a casino in Macau. The VIP tables would competitively send bottles of champagne to each other’s tables just to signal their wealth. It would be announced over the PA system, but nobody would get the champagne. The bottles never actually existed! It would be like
“Table 10 sends 5 bottles of champagne to Table 4”
“Table 4 is sending 15 bottles of champagne to Table 10”
“Table 10 is sending 30 bottles of champagne to Table 4”
Etc
Etc
This kept on going until they were up to like 200 bottles of champagne. They weren’t friends or anything – they were just showing their wealth off to this other table.
They got a few symbolic bottles with indoor fireworks taken to the table by girls, but that’s it.
I asked the owner what it was about and he said they can pick them up on another day if they want, but nobody ever does – it’s purely for show. Insane.

#7

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I do high end cocktail bartending. One of the rules I live by is that the difference in a $11 and a $30 drink is purely presentation. The glass needs to be immaculately polished, the ice needs to be in good condition, and the garnish needs to be skillfully prepared. Additionally, you need the right space to sell $30 drinks, you need clean surfaces and enough hands to ensure a consistently pre-bussed bar-top.

All of that has zilch to do with how good the drink actually tastes. It’s the real problem with most bartenders, I find. Making delicious drinks is important, but presentability is what sets the price tag and perceived value.

#8

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One of the more interesting ones is having expensive replicas made of priceless jewelry in case of theft. My surrogate dad in Nassau county, Long Island knows of people who spent thousands and thousands of dollars on “costume” dupes of their best jewelry so they can wear that out and leave the real stuff at home under lock and key.

Imagine a set of costume jewelry worth more than your vehicle. That sort of thing.

#9

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I work for a high-end plumbing company. We do some truly enormous new residential builds.

The difference between regular and high end plumbing is purely aesthetic. All our pipes are meticulously organized and ran with non-flexible materials. We essentially do satisfying cable management but for pipes. It looks nice and wealthy customers like nice looking things. .

#10

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Dignity, as a valet at a billionaire hangout we had all sorts of regulars that would pay (to us) ridiculous amounts in an attempt to embarrass us. A notable one is the fellow who came in with a $100 bill about once a week and asked me to tie his shoes. He’d step out of his Rolls Royce Cullinan with one shoe untied and money in hand.

As best we could tell, it was to demean us into servants’ tasks or whatever, but really it’s a pittance to him but equal to 8 hours labor for me. So we always did it.

#11

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The “VIP Lounge access” in night clubs , it’s basically milking a person with low self esteem.

#12

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Gold flakes on things. My ex worked in the hotel industry. The rich would buy anything that sounded or presented itself as expensive.
Gold flakes are really cheap, they put that on/in anything and they can up the price 3x or more.

#13

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Private jet pilot here. Catering services. There’s companies that, for a lack of a better word, cater specifically to the corporate jet world to provide food for the aircraft that is delivered to the fixed base operators for the departure. This is stuff like Asian salads for like 150$ or a club sandwich for 80$. (these are rough estimates based on what our dispatch has told me I’ve never personally ordered them) Many of our part 91 (owner flights) the aircraft owners are watching their expenses closely and as such don’t order these because it’s a ridiculous waste of money to get Panera quality food for 150$ when they could just ask us pilots to pickup Panera for them on the way to the aircraft. The people who don’t realize this or care and will often run up over 1000$ for a handful of salads and sandwiches are those who charter the aircraft and get shafted by these companies or their broker.

#14

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Truffle oil.

I’ve worked at some crazy high end places, and they’ll often use the same stuff from Spectrum.. whis is not truffle oil as much as it is a gasoline byproduct 🤢

#15

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I worked construction for a couple years in my 20’s. I was the only white or college educated guy on the crew. It was a regular occurrence while working on wealthy people’s properties that they would request that I personally return for side projects, even though everyone else on the crew was much more skilled and harder working than me.

#16

My billionaire real estate client was having me go back and forth with the selling realtor on a property over a $10k difference in what he wanted to pay on a multi million dollar vacant lot. He made a point of telling me he and his wife were sipping a $10k bottle of port while having me work around over 10k on the property. Also the most unhappy client Ive ever had. Rich and unhappy ain’t no way to live.

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#17

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The mini bar. They’ll drink and eat everything in there without a second thought. $27 bottle of water? Well they’re rich and thirsty.

#18

I used to book hotel rooms for Disney. The El Capitan Suite at the Grand Californian Hotel runs about $10,000 a night.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an extremely beautiful suite with top-tier everything, but it will never be anything but crazy and wasteful to spend $10,000 for the privilege of sleeping in a room.

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#19

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The “exclusive” hotel car service is wild… it’s literally a regular suv with a logo and they upcharge like it’s a chauffeured spaceship.

#20

Turn-down service in ultra‑luxury hotels is one of the biggest ones. It’s basically someone folding the corner of your blanket, dimming a light, and leaving a chocolate, yet it gets bundled into rooms that cost hundreds more per night. People love it I guess because it feels exclusive, not because it actually does anything.

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#21

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Hotels

The difference between a $75 room and $150-200 room is usually massive

The difference between a $200 room and a $800+ room is a lot of small things that most people like, but wouldn’t spent $600+ on.

#22

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Catering that they don’t even eat. My wife works at an FBO at PBI. It’s where the Uber rich land their private jets. They order all this really good food that goes untouched. All in individual containers wrapped up. I’m talking thick cuts of prime rib, vegetables, mash potatoes all in one container. Lucky for me, the food that wasn’t opened gets split up with my wife and her coworkers. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff these rich people leave behind. Several months ago my wife came home with one of those big Yeti cooler bags, the thing is over $400, and it was left.

#23

I have worked in high end retail for a decade at several well known luxury companies. Most of the time, I will be honest with clients, but sometimes we make truly ugly items that rich people fawn over. If they’re in love with it, even though I think it’s ugly, I will talk it up. Afterwards, we’ll talk among ourselves and say rich people will buy anything.

Also employees in these luxury brands 99% of the time, never pay full price. We trade discounts with each other.

A personal opinion of mine is that Louis Vuitton is over hyped and not worth the money. You can get something more unique at another brand. They also pay their employees the lowest of any high end brand. I struggle to even call them a luxury brand with how completely oversaturated their market is, and also the fact that their most popular canvas bags are actually just plastic (looking at you, Never Full tote).

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#24

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Clothing industry here.

People will blindly play a premium for items made in certain countries because they believe anything made in _______ is so much better than anywhere else

Truth is country of manufacture means very little compared to what factory/workshop it’s made in

Portugal, Turkey, Bosnia, Romania and Moldova are generally considered countries with high quality control standards, good wages and actually having talented craftsmen

Truth is that Portugal and Turkey are significantly cheaper to manufacture a tee shirt/hoodie than Italy, Spain, France or UK because they produce so many plus they have lower taxes for corporations.

As for Bosnia, Romania and Moldova (in a lot of cases Turkey too) this is where the “sweatshops” of Europe operate. Their labour is significantly cheaper than other European countries and theres less things they are legally required to provide to workers so they can get away paying someone half or less than they’d get in Italy or UK. Because of this you also see way less skilled workers and it’s more like an assembly line that you’d find in an Asian or Latin American country.

Also it’s not as expensive as people think to even produce in the good countries. Zara, Topman and many other mall brands have lines made in Turkey, Portugal or Peru (all countries known for really good cotton). Truth is the cost to make a tee there ranges from $3.50-20 generally depending how many you make and choice of material + print process. It’s nothing crazy and the rest is markup. Whether you want to pay the premium for the look or brand is up to you but for example Pangaia and Givenchy tee/hoodies are produced in the same Portuguese workshop. Pangaia averages around $50usd a tee while Givenchy is $700usd. While Givenchy does use nicer fabric and a more luxurious finishing overall you’re really looking at a tee that costs $8 to make vs one that costs probably $14. The Givenchy markup is all because it’s luxury/exclusive and they market as that

Tied into this, some countries that get a bad wrap (China, India and Mexico mainly) aren’t always bad. China for example is really good at technical clothing like windbreakers and sportswear + plastic and acetate eyewear. Mexico makes really good leather shoes and boots. India is great at intricate woven fabrics. A lot of companies will produce in these countries because they have the set up to do these things on a large scale and would be significantly cheaper + faster to produce than to do the same thing in a more “reputable” place like the USA, would be equal or better quality too

Judge every product/brand on a case by case basis and don’t generalize anything just because of the country it’s made in.

#25

I worked in a five star hotel and the biggest rip off was bottled water service. We would charge absurd amounts for a brand you could get at any store. Guests acted like it tasted different because it came with a cold towel and a smile lol.

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#26

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Work in fine dining as a cook. Sure the $80 steaks are a thing and so is a $20 creme brulee. But probably the thing that’s the biggest ripoff that sells like gangbusters is the up to $180 charcuterie board. Yes it looks pretty and has very expensive meat and cheese on it but it’s mostly filled out with nuts pickled veg and crustini and a few dips. In all on that board there’s maybe $15 or $20 worth of product and it takes me 5 to 7 minutes to assemble each (after the meats are sliced but that’s all done in prep in the afternoon.) The margins on that are better than even most alcohol save perhaps nice wine. People love their chart ( pronunciation shart) and just pay out the nose for it. Fours sharts coming right up. .

#27

Former luxury hotel room service coordinator (answered phones, did office work) here.

All the food, but particularly booze. The markup is INSANE. Pro baseball players like (lots and lots of) cheap beer and will pay 3x for it after we basically grab it from the grocery store down the block to emergency restock after they drink it all.

Don’t even get me started on the liquor – absolutely eye watering price-per-shot even for the crappy stuff (and we could tell who knew what they were doing vs. who was ordering what they thought was fancy, but they all overpaid).

But the worst is honestly what people *didn’t* pay for. There’s something so odious about giving super rich people free stuff. I’m sitting there barely able to afford to eat, working 40+ hours per week, comping drinks and sending out elaborate free amenities to people who are spending more for their stay than I make in month.

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#28

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I worked in luxury fashion . Not sure if this is relevant but I’ve seen hundreds of thousands in actual cash spent on purses.

I worked at Celine and was even offered a job in France at one point.

We had an alligator purse that at the time was priced at 35k $ . Had two in stock. Sold one to a Saudi Royal family member . They came in and shut the store down. We were all called to the floor . The Saudi family had a black truck deliver two gym bags full of American cash . Hundreds of thousands.

My store manager and her assistant were busy running bills through the counter . Family left spending nearly a quarter million on purses and jackets from Celine.

#29

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Caskets and urns, I work in a fancier funeral home as support staff (not a director). We literally sell $80 urns imported from India for $600+. A $2000 casket goes for $8000.

Remember that you are allowed under federal law to bring your own urn or casket. Sometimes I feel like there is more financial flexing at funerals than at weddings.

#30

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Travelling during peak season. That $1800 room sells for $400 in the fall.

I want to say room service, but it’s a pure lazy tax. You pay that same lazy tax when you use Uber Eats.

IME, you get what you pay for. Certain properties in certain markets might have a specific thing that gets you, but generally you can get what you’re paying for.

#31

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Clothing.

The average rich person is not buying Bespoke clothes. They are paying $300 for a hoodie that costs $7 to produce. Often in the same factory that produces clothing for mass market retailers.

I know someone who owns (family) a small factory who has had a Canada Goose contract for well over a decade.

Even an extremely complex and complicated jacket like those from Canada Goose, which are some of the most complicated garments produced on a large scale. Costs around $95 each, even accounting for Canadian wages.

#32

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I’m a high end AV Engineer, think 150k+ speakers and home theaters/smart house stuff. People will pay THOUSANDS of dollars for speaker wire that is twisted a certain number of times in a certain configuration that’s supposed to prevent EMI and improve sound quality. It’s all BS to a degree, the human ear can’t hear the differences.

#33

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Cook here! I’ve worked fine dining exclusively, for over a decade. Mostly country clubs, currently at a high end hotel chain with locations in multiple countries.

Everything on the menu. It’s everything. We mark up everything to such an insane degree that the kitchen staff alone account for half the luxury vehicles in the front lot. You paid 176 (ish) USD over wholesale for that caviar, so the dishwasher can drive a G Wagon.

We can charge 6 dollars for a fried egg because we say so. You could buy a dozen eggs for the price of one fried egg at a luxury hotel. Its not a special egg. It’s the same brand as the diner down the street. I’ve been there. I’ve seen the eggs they use. You could probably get 3 eggs there, for the same price as the one egg I will make you. I will make you a 47 dollar burger that uses the same beef and the same buns as a sit down burger place. Our food is not priced to be reasonable. It’s priced the way it is, *exclusively because we can*. Some of the people I serve are so wealthy that they don’t even ask for a bill. They just charge it to their room, with no concern for how much they’ve spent. We had a lady a couple days ago, who ordered a gorgeous tomahawk ribeye for her dogs to share. They didn’t like it. She threw it away, and just shook her head at her dogs. I know because I asked like I cared about her dogs preference.

We have a once a year regular. Pretty sure homie is one of those people who is so wealthy that he doesn’t exist in our mortal realm, like his world is his own, and his alone. He comes in like he is a regular dude with disposable income. Wears New Balance sneakers, Kirkland khakis, and a polo. Single suitcase, no fanfare. He orders all of his food basically free style. Nothing is ever *off* the menu to him. 4 egg whites (6 dollars each), fine herbs (I think we charge like 5 bucks), brie (depends on what we have on hand, but let’s say 10 bucks a serving), braised beef cheek (a dinner item we always have. He pays full price of 62.99), and a side of fruit (10 bucks). This is what he eats both mornings he is here, every single summer, like clockwork. He drinks two double Kettle One Caesars, sometimes a Latte, and leaves a generous tip. Usually his breakfast comes out to a couple hundred dollars, more if he has company. Its all really worth maybe 50 bucks. At absolute best. Our food is very good, but we are catering to people who don’t just have disposable income, they have incomparable amounts of income, and we take full advantage of that. We feel no guilt for this, because they never ever ever complain.

#34

Bottle service at a nightclub. Imagine paying a 1000% markup on a bottle of Grey Goose that typically costs $50.

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#35

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The high-end restaurants in 5-star resorts and hotels use a lot of pre-packaged frozen foods. They dress it up with sauce and fancy presentation, but just know that your Chicken Cordon Bleu came from a box. Same with your fancy dessert UNLESS the 5-star has a designated pastry chef. Many don’t. It’s all in the name of lowering Food Cost.

(disclosure: I’ve worked as an accountant in resort hospitality for over 20 yrs. We know what gets purchased and carried in inventory.)