Need an episode to cover TV shopping channels like QVC

[u/hackopsv2]

TV shopping channels are extremely predatory towards older people. I see this first hand with people close to me spending money they don't have on garbage products they do not need. The only time I've ever seen anything brought up about these channels in media was when South Park made their Cash 4 Gold episode.

[u/candycoateddoom]

that episode of South Park is the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw this title

"hello? i'm calling about the peridot earrings. they'd look good on your dead body."

[u/hackopsv2 → u/candycoateddoom]

That was such a great episode. Unfortunately, I began to see how true it actually was years later when my grandma would just sit and watch QVC all day and would have orders coming in every single day pretty much up until she passed. She got my mom addicted to it too.

[u/candycoateddoom → u/hackopsv2]

it wouldn't be the first time LWT tackled a subject South Park already did. South Park made fun of John Edward way back in 2002, way before LWT did a story on psychics in 2019. and a lot of the commentary is very similar, with both shows talking about things like cold reading.

[u/aintnochallahbackgrl → u/hackopsv2]

Same with my mom. My brother had to go in and block it on her phone.

[u/annh53182]

When my MIL died after a long battle with cancer we found hundreds of packages from QVC and HSN, mostly unopened. She had 4 and 5 duplicates of the same things from cheap jewelry and clothes to home decor and kitchen gadgets. She also was signed up for at least 5 different lotion/makeup/soap subscriptions that were sending dozens of products a month. She also had two site specific credit cards with astronomical interest rates that were the hardest thing to cancel I have ever encountered. It took my SIL and I months to get everything cleaned up. We couldn’t get rid of the stuff on Facebook Marketplace, the local thrift store was tired of seeing us, I tried to spread it out across several, but there was JUST SO MUCH STUFF!

It was just heartbreaking, she spent thousands of dollars in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep. Then when it all arrived she was storing it in the spare bedroom where we never thought to go when we were with her.

The worst part was she had to call to place the orders. She didn’t know how to use the internet, so she would have spoken directly to someone. In the last six months it was obvious in her speech that there was something wrong and they could see her spending habits. They are absolutely predatory.

[u/hackopsv2 → u/annh53182]

That's the exact experience that I had with my grandma. We were finding so much junk from QVC all over the house. A lot of the stuff was still in boxes and she was just hoarding it. Many of the same things like you said too.

I can't speak on the credit card side of things because my uncle took care of that, but she was spending money on QVC garbage for well over 10 years and I'm willing to be she spent in the six figure range with all of the crap she had left behind.

[u/devil-wears-converse]

I worked as a call center supervisor for a credit card company. It was so sad seeing older people get so in debt for these companies. It was mostly just custom jewelry, too

[u/ilikeme1]

My Wife's aunt has this problem. She is on a fixed income, but constantly ordering junk off QVC late at night. She even orders in multiples and then gives this stuff out as Christmas gifts. We tell her no gifts, but she won't listen. Like others have mentioned about their relatives, her house is full of this crap.

[u/lostinthought15]

South Park basically covered it all. I don’t know what new ground there is to possibly cover.