Hey y'all, I'm Eddie Mechrase, host of This Is Uncomfortable, a podcast from Marketplace

that explores the thing that always seems to be on our minds, but we are absolutely

terrible at talking about.

I'm thinking about it all the time.

I always thought that getting more money would solve my problems.

It's hard because nobody likes to talk about money.

You're thinking it's almost taboo.

Really, money shapes so much of our identities, our relationships, our emotions.

In this season, we're going to dig into one very specific feeling, that nagging suspicion

that in some way or another, we're all kind of getting scammed.

And sure, there will be stories of literal scams, like a decades-long search to unmask

and identity beef.

I really want to know why.

Why would someone do this?

Who, what, and why?

I want to answer.

Or the alert of get-rich quick schemes.

It's wild that you found people to sell these products essentially across the globe.

And it was wild to me that at the age of 18 and 19, I'd reached a six-figure income fairly

quickly looking back.

No, it was like the perfect scheme to make money.

But when I say scams, what we're really going to look at is how our society is built in

...