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The Scam Is the Business Model
I got got by Temu.
Not in some embarrassing way that required me to hand over my bank account number to a Nigerian prince. I got got by a promotional offer that looked legitimate, felt legitimate, and turned out to be a roach motel: easy to enter, impossible to leave. By the time I realized the order could not be cancelled and the charge could not be reversed, I was already inside the trap. The door had closed behind me quietly, the way these things always do.
I want to be clear about something: this is not a story about Temu. Temu is just the latest practitioner of a very old American business tradition. Amazon does it. Ticketmaster does it. Every subscription service with a “free trial” that quietly converts to a paid plan does it. Airlines do it with fees that appear only at checkout. Hotels do it with resort charges disclosed nowhere until the final screen. Gyms do it with cancellation clauses written in a font size that requires a magnifying glass. The scam is not a bug in American commerce. The scam is the business model.
What makes this structurally interesting, and not merely personally annoying, is the question of why nothing changes. These practices are well documented. Consumer complaints are not scarce. The pattern is so consistent across so many industries that any honest observer has to conclude it is not…
