You’re probably aware of some of the more well-known “evil” companies out there, like Nestle (for example).

That said, there are unsurprisingly quite a few that continue to fly under the radar – at least, they did until now.

Banana republics.

Chiquita.

The name “banana republic” is literally named after the coups that Chiquita enacted in South and Central America – great book!

Fun fact, Chiquita caused the Bay of Pigs invasion! The brother of the Chiquita company’s founder was head of the CIA at the time, and they’d toppled enough governments that they felt confident to expand to Cuba. Whoops!

My simple Goodreads review: “A fascinating history lesson about the rise and tyrannical practices of the now-Chiquita Banana company. What began as an entrepreneur building railroads through Central America slowly evolved into massive land and government control, and finally to CIA-backed coups and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion!

From innocuous beginnings to fearsome global influence, Chapman weaves a tale that is never dull and reveals the terrifying power of a banana company to overthrow multiple governments. With historical glimpses into periods such as McCarthyism, the building of the Panama Canal, Watergate, Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba, and war in the Middle East, we can see how the tendrils of “The Octopus” stretch far wider than one would expect of a simple yellow fruit.”

Terrifying.

Brookdale, the senior care/assisted living megacorp.

Senior care in the US is f**king 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.

Killing California.

PG&E.

They’ve burned down California several times, killing 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.

The Wonderful Company is also killing California, and nobody talks about it at all.

Nobody should drink Fiji water, Pom juice, California pistachios, etc.

There’s a great Dollop about the whole situation for anyone who likes podcasts.

Just a scam.

Lending Tree and Angie’s list are simply aggregators of personal data and have barely helped anyone find a cheaper loan or handyman.

One thing that sucks about Angie’s list is how they operate. When a potential customer sends an inquiry, a number of contractors or companies or whatever are pinged, letting them know there is a potential customer for them. And they have to pay $100 to get that potential customers information to get the chance to bid to the customer for their business.

Thing is, all the businesses that were pinged have to pay that as well for a shot, even though 2 of the 3 businesses that were alerted will not get business at all, and potentially the 3rd either. And when I google something like “how much does it cost to paint a 2000 sq ft house” or whatever, Angie’s list is the first thing to pop up or in the top few listings.

They say free quotes! So even if I’m doing it to satisfy my insomnia-tic mind at 2 am or I’m having a discussion with a friend who wants to have her house done within the next year but wants to know how much to save… whatever stupid reason it may be where I have no actual intention of using their services, those dudes still get charged even though there is no way they’ll be getting business from it. And there is nothing they can do except to get off Angie’s list.

Anyone can fill out the form and get a quote from three companies through Angie’s list for whatever even if they’re just goofing around and it cuts into the pockets of those family run businesses that are just trying to find a relevant way to advertise.

Of course they knew.

Johnson and Johnson knew they had asbestos in their baby powder and still sold their products, causing countless cases of ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.

And has fought tooth and nail to not pay out by putting its asbestos liabilities in a new subsidiary and promptly declaring it bankrupt, despite J&J being a hugely profitable company. Thankfully, that flagrant abuse of the bankruptcy system just got rejected by the courts

A money pit.

Pearson Vue – Did none of you go to college and shell out way too much money? Or take a standardized test?

All the stories of people taking exams at home and the proctor canceling for stupid reasons, then people not being able to get their money back.

Those exams are expen$ive!

A paywall on research.

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.

We’re already aware.

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.

A laundry list of crimes.

Bayer knowingly sold blood-clotting agents infected with HIV to Asia and Latin America months after withdrawing them from Europe and the US.

The HIV tainted hemophilia meds thing was absolutely vile, but far from the only thing they’ve done. They also:

Lobbied the German government for the use of chemical weapons during WWI, which they then produced. They’ve continued deadly gasses under the guise of “pesticide development” long after the world wars. In the ’80s, it was discovered they hold a patent for their own version of VX nerve gas.

Committed crimes against humanity during The Holocaust. They conducted human experiments where prisoners were deliberately infected with diseases like typhus, diphtheria, and tuberculosis in order to test new drugs.

Bayer also oversaw the chemical factory at Auschwitz. In the 1950s and 60s, Bayer’s chairman of the board was Dr. Fritz ter Meer, a Nazi who was convicted of war crimes during the Nuremberg Trials, including one count of “Mass Murder and Slavery” (Don’t get me started on how that fucker didn’t die in prison).

Invented, trademarked, mass produced, and heavily promoted the use of a drug called diacetylmorphine. Better known by its brand name, Heroin.

They’re repeatedly been caught bribing doctors to prescribe their dugs off-label, or downplay safety risks. Same goes for politicians.

They’ve repeatedly been caught perpetrating medicare/medicaid fraud in the US, and are the defendants in the largest medicaid fraud settlement in US history.

They wanted to lower the price of Cipro when selling to Kaiser Permanente to avoid getting undercut by a competitor (GSK). However, if you lower the price you charge a private insurer, you must offer that lower price to medicare/medicaid as well.

To avoid that, Bayer sold Cipro to KP under a phony new label. They also have a long standing pattern of inflating the costs of prescription drugs in general.

Different name, same crooks.

Knoa Pharma, formerly known as Purdue Pharma.

They are the main character of the opioid crisis.

No good for humans or animals.

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.

Walmart would be an improvement.

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.

Scam.

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.

Honestly chilling.

Herbalife. Absolute trash scam ruining people’s lives.

I worked as a labor and delivery nurse for 16 years. Had a young couple who swore Herbalife was the reason she got pregnant because it made her so healthy. She thought she was getting strong abdominal muscles from the supplements but turned out that was a baby bump instead.

I wish it stopped there but it gets worse: after a day of attempting to breastfeed her newborn she decided it wasn’t working. ok, no big deal- we discussed formula options. Upon their own review of the infant formula ingredients, they decided Herbalife shakes contained much better ingredients and nutritional value for their one day old.

Everyone on staff including their obstetrician and 2 separate pediatricians told them ABSOLUTELY DO NOT feed these to you infant. It was like talking to a brick wall.

I am certain after they were discharged that poor baby was given Herbalife shakes and got horribly ill. I still think about those dumba$$es almost 10 years later.

It’s all fake.

De Beers – the largest diamond company in the world – has been exploiting workers in the world’s poorest nations for 135 years.

They also control diamond prices.

Stop buying diamonds people! It’s literally just carbon. Pick a different stone.

Sincerely, someone who worked with gemstones.

Not a value.

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.

Blood on its hands.

Any for-profit health insurance company has plenty of blood on its hands.

Charging people out the ass only for non-doctors to decide what care is or isn’t medically necessary to cover.

Horrible.

DuPont.

Watched Dark Waters yesterday…wtf???

Their controversies section in Wikipedia is long enough to be a novel.

Wow, some of these I really had no idea.

Then again, if we avoided them all, we’d have to make all of our own stuff and grow all of our own food. Ugh.