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Probably most of us would be happy to find a cheat code that would help us to earn good money without doing too much work, right? Well, there are quite a few “opportunities”, but unfortunately, they won’t help you make a good career or positive change in the world and may not be really legal.

However, there are also other ‘side hustles’ that can help you make good money. But there is a catch - while they are legal, they are not really ethical. So while you may not have problems with breaking a law, it may make you feel a bit bad. 

Speaking of which, one Reddit user created a thread online asking people to share some unethical, but legal ways to make money. So sit back and scroll through them!

More info: Reddit 

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered My cousin came to me one Thursday saying he needed an extra $200 by Sunday. Told him good luck. He went out and bought 4 bottles of everclear, some jugs of Walmart apple cider, cinnamon sticks, and mason jars. Simmered it in a pot for like an hour and jarred them all and wrote $25 on top of each. Called his country friends and told them he made homemade apple spiced moonshine. 25 EA or two for 40. He had $400 the next day. Sometimes I hate him.

MasterBettyPain , Lintoe Report

Final score:
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#2

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Rapture pet insurance. For 300.00 per pet up front, I,a certified atheist will come to your home and care for your animals in the event you are raptured

cyrixlord , Helena Lopes Report

Final score:
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Donkey boi
Donkey boi
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As an atheist, if it turns out I was wrong, I'm just gonna go round collecting all the animals anyway. Create my own little garden of Eden.

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Bored Panda reached out to the original poster (OP) u/OneBadTomatoYT who created this thread and he kindly agreed to share the motivation behind it, if he believes there should be stricter regulations or oversight on these types of activities, and if fellow Redditors sparked new ideas.

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To begin with, the OP shared that he was interested in starting the thread after he watched the movie War Dogs.
#3

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Go to a rave and sell individually wrapped brownies for $20 each.

You never explicitly said they had weed in them but for $20 people assume..

best part is, youll be long gone before they even begin to suspect its not legit

Arendyl Report

Final score:
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Andres Tejeda
Andres Tejeda
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You can even call the special brownies. Since you don't need to specify why they are special.

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#4

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered A girl I knew put herself through college selling only pics of her feet to gross men with fetishes. I saw the pics and money transfers


Edit: One guy paid her nearly a grand to have pro pics taken of her stepping on food. Mashed potatoes, birthday cake. Suddenly I felt like a moron for going to my 9-5

mibonitaconejito , ROMAN ODINTSOV Report

Final score:
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ArodTheHorrible
ArodTheHorrible
Community Member
9 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

No kink shaming... liking feet, or feet with food, doesn't make you "gross" in and of itself. Edited for grammar.

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#5

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Get hired at a labor type job, and then report your employer the first time that you see any safety violations (which you will on your very first day most likely). Your boss will find out that you reported it, and will start treating you like s**t and eventually fire you. Now you sue your ex employer for "retaliation firing". You will win, for sure...you've got a paper trail with OSHA as the person who reported them etc...very easy to prove. And it's not illegal because your boss #1 should have followed safety protocol, and #2 shouldn't have retaliation fired you. I wouldn't even feel bad in the slightest

Due_Cap_9823 , Life Of Pix Report

Final score:
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Donkey boi
Donkey boi
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'd argue that this is slightly more ethical than you'd initially think.

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Now, discussing whether there should be stricter regulations on these ways to make good money, OP emphasized that he believes there shouldn't be. “Unethical doesn't mean illegal already. And it comes down to morals, and everyone's are different. Some things are already illegal, some people find moral, and vice versa.”
#6

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered My dad had this great idea to go door to door installing peep holes, and you can start your pitch with, “I bet you would have liked to know who was on the other side of this door” each cost like 5 bucks, install for 50 and be done in 5 minutes.

alanmichaels , John Kratz Report

Final score:
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#7

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Have a place to rent and charge $50 application fee. Keep accepting applications but don't approve anyone

rcuadro , Gustavo Fring Report

Final score:
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And finally, OP emphasized that the ideas to make money by doing drop-shipping were interesting. “I personally do not see how some would consider it ‘unethical’ or ‘immoral’, but maybe I am not fully educated on it,” OP noted.

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#8

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Selling things that cater to conspiracy theorists, as long as you're not trying to list it as an actual medicine and it has no negative effects you're good to go. You can sell all the anti 5G blinking diodes in a scifi looking piece of plastic, spiritually health bettering candles that are just wax with some lemon oil or vanilla, toxin removal pads for feet that turn black in contact with water, essential oils. The unethical part is catering to (and using for profit) gullible people that'd rather have their kid die in their arms from a preventable disease than take a mmr shot.

073068075 , Magda Ehlers Report

Final score:
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Astro
Astro
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There’s a surprising amount of money to be made in taking advantage of people’s paranoia and superstition. It’s pretty sad :(

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#9

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Lend money to people who have no other option so you can abusively charge overdraft fees, while your biggest clients get literally millions in tax cuts for literally no reason

entediado , Karolina Grabowska Report

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And what do you think about them? Would you like to make some money this way? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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#10

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Spells and curses on Etsy. There’s a seemingly large market for them. Some aren’t *that* unethical (e.g. “break up spell” - they’re the unethical ones for requesting it) whilst some are very very exploitative (e.g. “get pregnant spell”). They go for hundreds and you don’t need to send proof. Easy money 💰

caesiumbathbombs , Anete Lusina Report

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Lotekguy
Lotekguy
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How is that different than whatever people pay to an organized religion for the same range of blessings?

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#11

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Payday loans and Rent-To-Own schemes

Lallner , Karolina Grabowska Report

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#12

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Set up a negative option billing program - aka free trial offers.

1. Get some hot/popular vitamins from China in bulk - they will even ship in unlabeled containers.

2. Create a brand a label for your product.

3. Set up a basic ecomm website.

4. Create some basic social media ads.

5. Offer a subscription where you offer one container free and then start charging a monthly fee if they do not cancel within the first month.

6. Mark up the product 200-1000%.

7. Profit.

As long as you stay on top of customer complaints and offer refunds quickly, you can make a ton of money this way and it's not illegal, just shady.

PenislavVaginavich , Alesia Kozik Report

Final score:
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Sierra Tide
Sierra Tide
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

People have no idea just how often and how much of this is actually happening. A LOT a products are sold this way and not just products from China.

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#13

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Invest heavily in private prisons and weapons manufacturing.

Look into Sin Stocks as well.

ThatJankyDoll Report

Final score:
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A Hettinger
A Hettinger
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually private prison stocks haven't been doing particularly well lately.

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#14

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Well, I've been trying to get a screen protector for my phone. I've ordered several ones for under £5 on eBay, and even though I select the correct model they are always generic and wrong.

I mark as wanting to return, take a photo and write the truth, it doesn't fit despite me picking the right one

They refund and never ask for them back. Sell on.

Robestos86 , Buro Millennial Report

Final score:
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Agent of Karma
Agent of Karma
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't buy anything on ebay anymore. Most of the things I'm looking at have the most outrageous shipping fees.

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#15

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Pyramid Scheme, Selling stuff on the internet with misleading information, or become an internet guru about something and sell courses about nothing. (Tiktok has alot of these)

kronositself , PhotoMIX Company Report

Final score:
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Stephanie Did It
Stephanie Did It
Community Member
9 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Internet gurus" give online sales pitches (the ones where the Expert gives a tantalizing but small bit of information and then talks in circles for half an hour): The longer the sales pitch, the more expensive and shady the product will be.

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#16

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Learned about this one on the radio this morning. Obituary thieves. They will snipe trending names off of google and run fake obituaries with fake egregious information to drive up web traffic to advertised sites. The New York Post just did an article about it when a team from India ran a bunch of fake articles about a college kid who died.

fusionsplice , Pixabay Report

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You stole that from Robocop
You stole that from Robocop
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Dara O'Brien passed away in the early hours of this morning after the vehicle he was travelling with fell into a ravine along the Patrick Street in Dublin city centre after colliding with a government vehicle.

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#17

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Sue rich people over dumb s**t and hope for the best

If they settle out of court it can be very lucrative

Dahns , KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA Report

Final score:
26points
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Donkey boi
Donkey boi
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't know a lot about the legal process, but I imagine that you're gonna need some money upfront to to get the ball rolling on this.

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#18

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Use AI to start an onlyfans

T0mDeMwoan , ThisIsEngineering Report

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Astro
Astro
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I feel like that’s more complicated than it sounds

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#19

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Serious answer:

Buy something in bulk on AliExpress at a nice discount on top of the already cheap prices.

Saw the items on eBay for a lot more or open up a booth at the mall or flea market selling at a substantial markup.

AliExpress is filled with bootleg gaming systems that people will buy.

HumbleAd4170 , wiki commons Report

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#20

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Writing essays for college/uni students

girl212 , Lisa Fotios Report

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Hey!
Hey!
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My daughter wrote letters home from summer camp for anyone who would pay her $1.50 CAD - that's was at least 20 years ago. I had given her paper, envelopes, and stamps for HER to write ME home. LOL.

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#21

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Not 100% sure on legality (check with a lawyer) but I remember back over a decade ago when I was working in IT there was a somewhat common/uncommon scam where a business would receive a shipment of knockoff printer ink cartridges that they hadn't ordered. Then later, an invoice would arrive for them.


Now you didn't order them and no one ever asked for them back so you could just keep them or use them or throw them away. You'd never get sued for not paying the invoice because there's no contract to enforce. But many companies would assume they legitimately ordered something that they had received and pay the invoice.


I imagine it's hard to prosecute this as fraud because while it's certainly deceitful, the company payed of their own volition for goods they actually received even if they didn't initiate the transaction.


There's also a related scam that is for sure illegal where you skip the cheap goods part and just spam companies with invoices to see who pays. People have definitely been prosecuted and jailed for that but iirc the dollar figures they got were eye opening.

mintpepper , IT services EU Report

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Angrykitten
Angrykitten
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Cities have fallen for this scam. I believe Facebook did too not that long ago

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#22

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Oh god I have a good one, and it’s technically CATCHING people doing something illegal, but the way my dad’s old boss operated, it just felt awful to watch.

So when a bar shows, say, a boxing match, apparently they are supposed to buy the match separately on each TV. So for a big sports bar with 75 TVs, it can be pricey. Some bars will just buy a couple, or even one license and broadcast them on all of the TVs.

The boss would buy the rights to pursue the offenders (IIRC the process) and then sue the bar owners per tv that the fight was shown on, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars.

The part that felt unethical was that he didn’t do this full time, as his main gig. He kept all of these “fight rights” on deck, and whenever he needed money to put in a pool, or invest in something new, he’d pick one of his files that hadn’t expired yet, sue the bar owner into oblivion, sometimes years after the fight, and then move on to whatever the new opportunity was.

I know for a fact it led to multiple establishments having to close their doors.

dowhatchafeel , Thom Gonzalez Report

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ginshun
ginshun
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's not exactly how it works. When a commercial business buys, say a UFC PPV to show to patrons, they have a corporate price for it. It's based on the legal occupancy of the business, not the number of TV's. So even if you only have 1 or 2 TV's, it could still cost you thousands to buy that PPV, not $80 per TV. Friend of mine who owned a bar got in trouble for this.

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#23

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Look for used cars being sold on FB marketplace, Craigslist, etc. usually can get the VIN, if not go check out the car and get the VIN, plug that into carvana, vroom, etc. if listing is cheaper than what carvana is buying for, buy it and sell it off to carvana. Boom, profit.

xkcdismyjam , Pixabay Report

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Astro
Astro
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What about the tax you pay when you buy it?

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#24

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Hold a raffle for a gold fish. £1 a ticket… sell 500 tickets.

Draw a winner. Everyone else takes the L and moves on with their lives.

Contact the winner and say the fish died. Give them a refund.

They are happy.

You walk away with £499…. Rinse and repeat.

spudd3rs , imsogabriel Stock Report

Final score:
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#25

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Taking Free and Open Source Software that performs niche tasks, slapping a basic Python/JS/$PopularLanguage API around it, making the vaguest and least binding promises of service & support, and selling it as a subscription service for hundreds or thousands of dollars a year per user.

There's an awful lot of s**t that's only one step away from being accessible to the ordinary tech user, and there's QUITE A LOT of money in closing that gap for those who don't feel like hammering out shell scripts or setting configs.

Looking at y'all, PDF conversion services. Lookin' *right* at y'all.

TenthSpeedWriter , Lukas Report

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Astro
Astro
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oh yeah the fact that anything to do with PDFs beyond signing and printing costs money drives me nuts. I have a full Adobe subscription but I keep having to lend it to my coworkers because we don’t want to pay an extra $17USD per user per month just so people can edit PDFs

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#26

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Selling diet plans to 50+ divorced women, not really unethical but they can find that information with a simple search

NinaQuincyy , Yaroslav Shuraev Report

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Captain McSmoot
Captain McSmoot
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This shouldn't be here. A huge chunk of information like this can be sold because they are paying for the service of not having to search and balance the information. It's a service.

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#27

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Sell your e-girl persona bath water

DatDenis , RDNE Stock project Report

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Did I say that out loud? (he/him)cis/het
Did I say that out loud? (he/him)cis/het
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I know just how old this is going to make me sound, but what is an e-girl persona?

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Sierra Tide
Sierra Tide
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had to look this up too. So basically it sounds like become an e-girl & get sponsorships, etc. Here's a definition I found. "… to describe a specific persona or aesthetic adopted by individuals, typically young women, who engage in online platforms, social media, and gaming" what is an egirl - VLR.gg

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Jaya
Jaya
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not unethical or immoral, just weird in a lot of people's eyes. But if you feel comfortable selling it and the buyers feel happy buying it, then there is absolutely northing wrong with this.

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Lindy Mac
Lindy Mac
Community Member
9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well, after seeing the post about the photos of feet in cake for sale I believe there are people who would go for this. There were stories on the net ( and denials that it ever happened) that there are vending machines in Japan selling used women's underwear.

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#28

Someone Wanted To Know Immoral But Legal Ways To Make Money And 28 People Delivered Be a chiropractor.

CaptainAwesome06 , Karolina Grabowska Report

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Astro
Astro
Community Member
9 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Chiropractors really intrigue me. There’s very little evidence out there to show that they’re actually doing anything, but so many people swear by them. 🤔 I wonder what’s up with that?

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