scams Archives • Bitches Get Riches

Investing in Cryptocurrency is Bad and Stupid

February 15, 2022April 4, 2023 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 23 Comments

If you’ve been reading our blog for long, you probably could’ve guessed we think investing in cryptocurrency is bad and stupid.

And yeah, I considered using more expansive words like “unethical” and “speculative” instead of “bad and stupid.” Those words had precision, but lacked panache.

Our Patreon donors vote on potential article topics, and this month they wanted to read our thoughts on investing in cryptocurrency. So we get questions about it all the time! Which isn’t surprising. Relative to cash and traditional investment vehicles, crypto is new and confusing. To make matters worse, there’s so much hype surrounding it in the personal finance world that research feels like reading a data science textbook through a swarm of bees.

Mercifully, we’re not here to explain what crypto is, or how the mysterious blockchain technology works (others have done that intolerably boring work for us). Rather, we’re going to release you from caring about crypto in the first place!

So it’s our personal opinion that investing in cryptocurrency is bad and stupid, and you shouldn’t do it. Here’s why.

Why Are Influencers Using MLM To Sell Shady Financial Products on Instagram?

October 20, 2020December 20, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 14 Comments

I’m used to pretty Instagram people hawking all sorts of things that will never, ever make my face more symmetrical—but what’s the deal with the recent trend of influencers selling shady financial products?

This week’s question comes from Patreon Donor Mara. Their question prompted a lot of deep thought about the aspirational nature of wealth and our complicity in that paradigm. It’s self-recriminatory af. You’re gonna love it.

Mara writes…

I’m writing to ask if you guys had any thoughts on all these Personal Finance Flavored MLMs that are popping up like crazy on social media.
I work in the entertainment industry. Recently I’ve noticed that a lot of young actors are selling “classes” and the like on their Instagram pages. It seems like they really target young artists/musicians/models and tell them that selling Forex or Bitcoin is the key to intergenerational wealth and stability.
It seems super sketchy and predatory to me, but I would love y’alls thoughts.
– Patron Mara

The Magic of Unclaimed Property: How I Made $1,900 in 10 Minutes by Being a Disorganized Mess

August 11, 2020August 29, 2023 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 41 Comments

It’s hard to pinpoint which personal finance site I dislike the most. There are so many tone-deaf mansplainers and pyramid schemers to choose from!

… But The Penny Hoarder is way up there.

I see their ads everywhere. And I’ve read a few of their articles, thanks to their scientifically-engineered-for-maximum-clickbait titles. But they are so embarrassingly saturated with referral links promising “quick” and “easy” money that I feel the strong need to shower afterwards.

I just really hate that kind of crap.

Spoiler alert, kids: almost nothing worth doing can be done quickly or easily. By definition, people only seek quick and easy solutions to long and hard problems! “One cool trick” ads ain’t out there saving lives.

If there were miracle exercises that gave you Jason Momoa’s body with only ten minutes of weekly exercise, there would be no highly compensated personal trainers in LA, and everyone would look like Jason Momoa (and what a lovely planet that would be)!
If there were miracle diets or supplements that could change the shape of your body quickly and easily, we’d’ve discovered them millennia ago, because there is nothing on this earth a human being hasn’t shoved in their piehole. The only truly new food we have invented in the last ten thousand years is Velveeta, and in my hands-on experience, eating Velveeta initiates a slow process of becoming Velveeta.
If there were some miracle product that could eliminate acne, there wouldn’t be 2.5 aisles full of hundreds of skincare products at Target. We would just use The One!

The same is absolutely true for money too. If it grew on trees, there’d be a fuckton more arborists. Alas, currency is a scarce commodity that’s difficult and time-consuming to accumulate by its very nature.

I say all this so you understand how shocked I am to be writing an article with this headline… and meaning every word of it.

I just made $1,900 very quickly and very easily. And you may be able to make money in the same way—but it only works if you are as irresponsible and disorganized as I am.

Intrigued? Mwa ha ha! … good.

10 Questions You Should Never Be Asked in a Job Interview

February 25, 2020February 8, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 15 Comments

I got a call from a recruiter the other day. His offer wasn’t very exciting, but I told him to keep in touch. It would’ve been a forgettable call… except that he then asked a series of really unusual job interview questions.

“Can I ask a few more questions to complete your file?” he said.

“Sure.”

“You’re a U.S. citizen, right?”

I answered immediately, automatically. But as the “yep” escaped my mouth, a little warning light started flashing in the back of my brain.

“And your date of birth?”

I paused. There are some questions you should never be asked in an interview setting. Your nationality is one. Your age is another. He’d asked two of these questions in a row. What’s going on here?

I decided to give my birthdate, partially because I’m the exceedingly neutral age of 32, and partially because the truth is the easiest answer to give when caught off-guard. But then his last question was…

“Do you feel comfortable giving me the last four digits of your social security number?”

WOAH. What what whaaaat?! I didn’t know the dude from a hole in the ground! My birthdate and my social?! What’s he gonna want next—my credit card number? A copy of my house keys?? Shit no!

I thanked him for his time and asked him not to contact me again.

I knew the job offer was legit; I’d had other recruiters contact me about it as well. But the high number of sensitive questions betrayed a basic lack of training and discretion. It was just too many red flags.

Even though I know a lot of this stuff cold, I still wasn’t prepared for how to handle them when they came up in the moment. But you will do better than me! Today I’ll share with you ten bad job interview questions to watch out for. We want you to be ready to identify and avoid sketchy workplaces and scams. Luckily, many seem willing to make their sketchiness known before they even hire you!

How Do You Write and Cash Checks? Asking for a Friend.

January 28, 2019June 2, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 17 Comments

I grew up in an era where checks were a completely normal and necessary part of everyday life. I wrote and cashed them frequently when I was a little kid—especially around Girl Scout Cookie season, trying to square the orders of all my neighbors.

Because yes, I used to sell Girl Scout Cookies the old fashioned way. I’d leave my family home, on foot, in the dead of winter, to walk aimlessly around my neighborhood, alone and unsupervised, ringing random doorbells, initiating conversations with strangers, accepting their invitations to come inside. Might as well have been helping them move couches, and answering persistent questions about my dress size.

Now if I want my Thin Mint fix, I gotta go to the grocery store awning and talk to a bunch of moms because the eponymous Girls are sitting in the car because it’s too cold and they need to charge their phones. Oh the times, they are a’changing!

It says a lot about the pace of financial technology that now, checks have become a chore. When somebody hands me a paper check, I’m like, “Ugh, really? Shall I deposit this before or after I churn the day’s butter?” They’re dinosaurs barely holding on to relevance. Like Adam Sandler.

But they come up just enough that you need to know how they work.

Pet Insurance: Is It Worth It?

April 27, 2017August 14, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 7 Comments

As we’ve discussed, Piggy and I are pretty obsessed with our pets. I admire Piggy’s restraint in having but a single dog. My house currently contains four dogs, one cat, six chickens, and two clinically narcissistic garbage disposals guinea pigs. Friends who know me to be an IRL Pokemon Master often ask me what my pet insurance rates are like.

My pet insurance bill is approximately zero dollars. Same goes for Piggy.

Neither of us have pet insurance. And there’s a reason for that.