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As consumers, we’re all just trying to do our best. Buy what you need but not too much. Support small businesses, but don’t break the bank. Stop supporting fast fashion and animal cruelty, and make sure that bag didn’t come from a factory where workers are exploited. Trying to be an ethical consumer can be confusing and exhausting.
But if we can’t be perfect consumers, thanks to the landscape provided for us by massive corporations, we can at least try to avoid the brands that are the worst of the worst. Reddit users have recently been calling out the most “evil [companies] not enough people talk about,” so you’ll find some of their thoughts down below. From huge pharmaceutical distributors to fruit producers, you may already be aware of some of these unethical companies, but feel free to upvote the ones you’d like others to stop supporting as well!
This post may include affiliate links.
#2
Any for-profit health insurance company has plenty of blood on its hands. Charging people out the a*s only for non-doctors to decide what care is or isn’t medically necessary to cover.
Tracy Wallick 1 year ago
People were clutching their pearls over "death panels"... we already had them. They're the people who deny insurance coverage with completely arbitrary and unqualified decisions.
To learn more about how this conversation started, we reached out to the Reddit user who posed the question, "What’s an evil company not enough people talk about?" And lucky for us, they were kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda. "I hear a lot of ‘so and so company is bad’, for example Nestle ([screw] Nestle)," the OP shared. "There are so many it is hard to keep track of and there are so many terrible ones that go unseen. Reddit seemed an interesting place to ask that, as users often have weird and interesting information regarding there kinda topics."
"Some of the most unethical companies I have heard of, which are commonly consumed/bought from/used is Nestle, and there’s even a dedicated subreddit called [screw] Nestle, which really opened my eyes. There are countless others, unfortunately," the OP added.
#3
De Beers - the largest diamond company in the world - has been exploiting workers in the world's poorest nations for 135 years.
ninjaTrashPandaBoom 1 year ago
They have vaults full of diamonds, held in reserve, to keep prices up and insure their monopoly. Diamonds are literally just pretty rocks.
#4
The Christian broadcasting network. Pat Robertson was one of the biggest pushers of anti-lgbt propaganda to Christians everywhere, going as far In the 80s to say that gay men wore rings with a spike so when they shake someone's hand they'll infect that person with HIV. May he rest in p**s
Michael Largey 1 year ago (edited)
He said that the 9-11 attack was God's punishment on America for tolerating gay people.
#5
The Susan G Komen Foundation (The reason pink is everywhere for breast cancer awareness) is a crooked organization that not only pockets the majority of the incoming donations, but actively restricts other cancer research fundraising ventures.
Taibhse Sealgair 1 year ago
While it may have been true that breast cancer research comprised only a 21% share of Komen's program expenses (Charity Navigator puts the figure at 28.8% as of March 2018), citing that figure as a criticism of the organization reflects a common misbelief that groups dedicated to addressing particular diseases (e.g., the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the ALS Association) exist solely or primarily to fund and direct research into curing and/or preventing those diseases. This perception is inaccurate: Komen and other groups like it have goals that include delivering a wide array of services to the communities they support beyond the funding of research, such as funding educational awareness and outreach programs, providing screening and diagnostic procedures, and arranging medical treatment and home care for persons currently living with those diseases.
We were also curious what the OP thought of their post's replies. "Most [of them] did not surprise me, many were about Nestle, naturally," they told Bored Panda. "But others were about different insurers, healthcare companies, and fast fashion brands. Otherwise, there were responses from people affected by unethical retirement and nursing companies, and surprisingly many about ‘fake’ charities, that act as tax breaks and legally pay almost nothing to their workers."
#6
Johnson and Johnson knew they had asbestos in their baby powder and still sold their products, causing countless cases of ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.
WindySwede 1 year ago
that is why I stay away from them, also Nestle I put in the same place "But i'm a nice company!"-box...
#7
Herbalife. Absolute trash scam ruining people’s lives.
ninjaTrashPandaBoom 1 year ago
All MLM (MultiLevel Marketing) companies are scams...they are just pyramid schemes, except with a product or service.
#8
Ticketmaster.
I don't care that people do talk about how predatory and outright evil Ticketmaster is, it's not talked about ENOUGH.
The FTC wants to block Microsoft buying Activision for no particular reason, but Ticketmaster...the very definition of a predatory monopoly gets a free pass. WTF is going on here?
WonderWoman 1 year ago
Lobbyists - the true purveyor of evil in the USA - money buys the politician, and the politician is a puppet - putting their desire for $$ ahead of the well being of the country.
We also asked the OP if they believe there is such thing as an ethical company nowadays. "Companies can be ethical, but the moment they become a household name, for example, Apple, they have gone too far," they shared. "In order to get there, they must have put profits ahead of people, their egotism ahead of ethics. I’m sure there are many brilliant, morally uncorrupted companies, but unfortunately, it simply isn’t an effective way of making money nowadays."
#9
Nestle, bought some aquafers in Florida and could only legally take x amount a year. They'd just drain them and pay the fines. Also mansanto, but I think people talk about them a decent amount, but some people have never heard of them
Geoffrey Scott 1 year ago
The most chilling thing I experienced working at Nestle Waters? The CEO quoted as saying "water is a commodity, NOT a right".
#10
Goodwill. They are non-profit in name only and pay disabled people sub-minimum wage under the guise of helping them. They also put literal garbage on the shelves and sell things higher than they were new. Some are worse than others.
Biana Weatherford 1 year ago
Goodwill is in my town, it's convenient to drop off my items there. Until I saw my shirt being resold at $9.99. I bought it new for 5. No more, I will drive to the next town over to donate my items.
#12
Bayer knowingly sold blood-clotting
agents infected with HIV to Asia
and Latin America months after
withdrawing them from Europe
and the US.
#13
Knoa Pharma, formerly known as Purdue Pharma. They are the main character of the opioid crisis.
#14
Monsanto???
#15
TurboTax has been lobbying the US government not to tell taxpayers how much they owe. So that they can make money doing that.
#16
PG&E. They've burned down California several times, [unaliving] a number of our citizens here. Then having the audacity to play money games with the families of the deceased or those who've lost homes. F**k Em.
#17
Sallie Mae, really any private student loan lender. Provides predatory student loans with outrageous interest rates that seem to never approach the level of being feasibly paid off. You also end up paying nearly double, sometimes triple the loan by the time you are able to pay it off.
#18
Tyson Foods, Cargill, National Beef Packing Company, and JBS.
Even if you dgaf about animals, they are pretty awful to the people who work at their slaughterhouses, and those four are like 85% of the market, so they also greatly exploit the farmers who raise animals for them.
Geoffrey Scott 1 year ago
"60 Minutes" segment on underage immigrants on overnight sanitation (cleaning) crews at some of these places. "We(JBS) had no idea the subs were hiring underage people". Yeah, right, I'm quite sure a rep from these companies have someone there to oversee overnight ops.
#20
Brookdale, the senior care/assisted living megacorp.
Senior care in the US is f*****g terrifying, and they’re at the center of it. Abuse, neglect, grifting survivors into estate-locking deals… Brookdale is evil. And most of us will have to deal with them or someone like them as we’re entering our most vulnerable adult years.
Tamra 1 year ago (edited)
There's not NEARLY enough oversight into elder care in my country (US). In the short time my mom was in a nursing home (just two weeks), I saw a woman with Alzheimer's wandering around the parking lot in her wheelchair - she just wheeled herself out the door and was a few feet away from the busy road. My mom was there for hospice care at the end of her life. She was at the end stage of COPD, and had a buzzer that she could press when things were really bad, and they'd administer morphine. On two separate occasions, the buzzer was completely disconnected from the power source.
#21
This is probably a personal bias, but United Healthcare.
Any health insurance company really....but this all stems from the United States health care system
Norah Reilly 1 year ago
As a recent retiree I can attest to the deplorable, nay, sh!tty healthcare system in the U.S.
#22
HCA - Healthcare Corp of America
The largest, for-profit hospital system in the country (world probably).
Imagine if Walmart owned your hospital... that would be an improvement over HCA.
#23
Blackstone. It's on more people's radars nowadays but still not enough. The biggest landlord of them all; you wonder why your once affordable suburb now has half-million starter homes that virtually nobody can afford on the average local salary? Blame these guys.
In fact, I'd say Air BnB, VRBO, RedFin, Zillow, every company that adds nothing of value to the economy except artificially pumping up numbers on houses that the supermajority of Americans have been taught to think of as a riskless get-rich scheme, instead of a basic human need.
Greyson Christmas 1 year ago
Pretty sure OP meant "Black Rock" instead of "Blackstone." Blackstone is a BBQ grilling company that produces outdoor items and Griddles.
#24
Starbucks. It’s not as “liberal” a company as people think. They essentially gain a lot of their coffee through slave labor in other countries like Brazil, and they treat their Baristas like s**t. There’s a reason many stores are unionizing.
#25
Uline. It’s a privately owned business run by the extreme right-wing, conservative Uihlein family. They pump millions into efforts to remove voting rights, especially in Wisconsin and are funders of the election denying lie of 2020. So many businesses get their supplies from this company without looking at their politics. It’s really common that I buy something from a business that has its own brand identity focused on environmental or social activism only to have their product show up in a Uline box. I feel like a pedantic Karen but I usually shoot these companies an email to bring their attention to the politics of Uline and suggest some alternatives like Global Industrial, Grainger, etc. In their response they always say they have no clue. At my own company I worked to get them removed from our internal operations which given the size of the business is not insignificant. Made me proud to see the corporate statement removing them from our supply chain.
wowbagger 1 year ago
I didn't know that. The last Uline catalog I got had a page of political stuff in the back, and it was very measured and positive, talking about how we're not as divided as it sometimes seems. I thought it was weird to include a political statement at all, but I liked the statement. I'll do more research before purchasing from them.
#26
Coca Cola produces 3 million tonnes of plastic packaging a year. That's an estimated 108 billion plastic bottles a year.
Margrete Sonnenberg 1 year ago
If coca cola produces a lot of plastic bottles then Pepsi and other drink companies do too.
#27
Blackrock, Koch industries, Sinclair Broadcasting, Sysco, McKesson
#28
Wells Fargo's pretty shady. I've never worked for or banked with them, but they're pretty shady.
Michelle C 1 year ago
I have a co-worker who is receiving settlement payments from them...years ago Wells Fargo got indicted for seriously over charging their customers fee and interest on their checking accounts...to this day they are still repaying him...with interest...so far he's gotten back about $9000...another one I heard was a friend who had a car financed with them and when he paid it off and deactivated the automatic payments, three months after he found out they were still withdrawing money from his account for the vehicle. When he asked why and how because he ended the automatic payment and the loan is closed they told he that their system must've done it and had to refund it.
#30
Elsevier.
Established a near monopoly of academic journals. Charge scientists to publish in them (in the thousands) also charge the public to read them (subscription also in the thousands). Convince other scientists to review the scientific content for free (exploiting younger scientists who need to build their CV).
Basically putting a pay wall on the results of government tax dollar funded research.
Don’t get me started on how major Universities deal with STEM PhD students. Bringing people in as “students”, make them work 40+ hours a week in lab, purposefully misclassify them as students when really they’re workers, apply for large government grants using data generated by these students, make them do all the grading for the undergrad classes, and then complain when the students are begging for 40k/year. Instead tell them they’re lucky that as “students” they don’t have to pay tuition to be there. At the end of 5-7 years of this treatment they’ll give you a PhD. SCAM.
#31
UPS. I have seen decisions made that have [unalived] employees and then the supervisor responsible get promoted. I have seen managers get fired for removing time worked from time cards only to be hired back a month later. I have saw intentional OSHA violations on a nightly basis for years. I see supervisors relentlessly harass employees. Horrible company in every way imaginable.
#32
Value Village. They trick people into thinking they are a nonprofit, take donations that could be going to people who need them, and charge insane prices.
#33
Pfizer Not trying to sound like an anti Vaxer but they’ve always been a pretty shady company
Wintermute 1 year ago
You don't have to be antivax to hate pharma companies. They're one of the biggest examples of Wall Street corruption.
#34
Pearson Vue - Did none of you go to college and shell out way too much money? Or take a standardized test?
ninjaTrashPandaBoom 1 year ago
The textbook industry as well...way overpriced. Change a few minor things and put out another edition every couple years, making the old editions obsolete...just to maximize profits without making any significant changes. Did a lot of photocopying at the library while in university.
#35
Luxottica.Pretty much a monopoly on the vision care and product market.They own just about ALL fashion Eyewear and eye care outlets.Hence the ridiculous prices.
What do you think ?
Rostit . 1 year ago
it comes from reddit. so take it all with a about 10 grains of salt. There are some awful companies listed but some of them are a stretch.
Load More Replies...
Josh 1 year ago
The amount of power major companies have and how they choose to misuse and abuse said power is so f*****g depressing.
Rostit . 1 year ago
it comes from reddit. so take it all with a about 10 grains of salt. There are some awful companies listed but some of them are a stretch.
Load More Replies... Josh 1 year ago
The amount of power major companies have and how they choose to misuse and abuse said power is so f*****g depressing.
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