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> There is literally nothing worth deciding that can’t wait for a clearer head.

Not quite true: there are a number of decisions you have to make in life or death situations.

This is why getting basic first aid training is a really good idea: you are then trained to make those sorts of decisions and can decide if you’re being manipulated or have an actual emergency that needs a quick decision.

Also great advice.

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Perhaps no purchase/investment decision?

HURRY! DO YOU WANT THE TIME SHARE OR NOT?? WE’LL HAVE TO STAB THIS OLD MAN IF YOU DON’T DECIDE NOW!

I misread "stop, assess" as "stop, asses" and thought for a second you were dissing people 😂

I needed to hear this today. Thank you internet stranger!

I've audited a number of sales schools to decide where to send salespeople, and I will straight up walk out if they talk about creating a sense of urgency. Good salespeople are ones who know their shit and build relationships. Shitty salespeople will create an atmosphere of pressure.

The sad thing is that the salespeople who use pressure of time or inventory were trained that way. There are companies that want to make sales that way and don't give a shit whether they have the right product for their customer.

Stop, drop and roll saved my ass. It was so boring and, I thought at the time, dumb to go over it all the time. Then I accidently lit my coveralls on fire, being a dumb ass of course. My mind went blank with panic, but stop, drop and roll was so ingrained that I did it without thought.

So remember, if you find yourself on fire, stop, drop, roll.

Even outside of scams, creating a sense of urgency is a tactic often used in sales. You want the customer to feel like if they walk away now they'll miss out on a great deal.

When I worked in travel this might be literally true if there were only a few seats left on a longhaul flight or hotel nights on their dates. But it was always good to get them to commit there and then as you would do all the work setting the holiday up and a colleague might get all the commission if they came back in a few days. We didn't bully or pressure people but we had ways of encouraging them to book on the day.

In a scam, there is always an element of time pressure. It could be a guy selling something out of a van. "I'm about to drive away and you'll miss out on this deal". But more commonly nowadays it's "We're the bank and someone else is using your credit card right now. They need to be stopped immediately."

In this particular situation, the thing to train yourself and your elderly relatives to do is not to give out any information, hang up and call your own bank directly. Not using a number in a text message or given by the caller. The number from your bank's website. If the call is genuine, you'll still be able to deal with it. These it's way more likely that this type of call is a scam, so that should be your assumption from the get-go.

We don't get got. We go get.

Every time I hear that offer or discount is available only for today my reply is always no..

"Stop getting scammed you fecking rubes." lmao

Not to be morose, but this pressure can be especially difficult in the case of an unexpected death. Funeral homes can be very stressful when they show you different options for burial, service, limo, and so on, and you feel the need to decide now, and to get “the best” for your loved one. Depending on circumstances, there might not be a way to slow the increasingly expensive runaway train.

I’m not sure what the solution is in the case of unexpected funerals, but (for older people) preplanning and prepaying end-of-life rituals can be a last gift to those left behind.

I don't agree that you're differentiating sellers (who instill a false sense of urgency) from scam artists. They are the same people fundamentally, just one practice is socially accepted and one is not.

General rule of thumb. If someone offers you something, it's a scam.

Jeff Bezos could walk up to me in person and hand me a stack of cash and I would still hesitate to grab it because why would anyone ever give something away for free.

If someone really wants to give, they will donate to charity and claim it on tax like a normal human being.

Donkeys are notoriously bad at observing traffic signals.

Not just for older people:

Make a will, people. Even if you have no belongings worth speaking of, the simple act of putting down how you want to be interred could save your family thousands of dollars and a lot of extra grief during their time of grief.

That is ridiculous and overly reductive. Someone selling you the actual product you are looking for is not a scam artist. If someone walked in to my shop looking for a safari holiday, I offered them the best safari holiday within the budget they wanted. I would also make them aware of better options for more money, if they wanted that.

A scam artist is a thief. They are not the same.

>Someone selling you the actual product you are looking for is not a scam artist.

Except most salespeople aren't happy to just sell you what you are looking for. They will happily fool you into spending more than you desired to get extras or other products that you really don't want or need. They're marginally better in that they aren't outright stealing your money, but not by much. The incentives attract the worst kind of people, and there is no incentive for upper management to reel them in when they prey upon people vulnerable to their manipulation.

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Hello comatose1981, thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason:

Your post is not a life pro tip. Advice is any guidance or recommendation concerning prudent future action. An aphorism is a short clever saying that is intended to express a general truth or a concise statement of a principle.Try r/YouShouldKnow.

If you would like to appeal this decision please feel free to contact the moderators here. Do not repost without explicit permission from the moderators. Make sure you read the rules before submitting. Thank you!