As a woman, I have personally experienced salespeople trying to sell me unnecessary products or services because they assume I am naive.
This has mainly happened to me at the vehicle dealership.
I have noticed that when my spouse has been with me, the salespeople do not have the same conversations with me as they do when I am there alone. It is unfortunate that people try to take advantage of others to make more cash, however that is how the world works. This recently happened to a friend of mine. Instead of this happening at a vehicle dealership, this happened in her own home with an Heating plus Air Conditioning company. My friend bought her first home ever, so there was a learning curve when it came to services and products she needed. Her central air conditioning started giving her complications the first Summer that she lived in her house. Her control machine would learn one temperature, however moderate air was blowing out of the vents instead of cool air. She did some research and found a local Heating plus Air Conditioning company that seemed to be within her budget. The reviews were not as high as other local Heating plus Air Conditioning companies, however she had to go with what she could afford at the time. When the Heating plus Air Conditioning serviceman came out to maintenance the issue, he tried to convince her to buy hundreds of dollars of services that she genuinely did not need. Her gut was telling her that something was off, so she called her bestie. Her bestie has a good know-how of heating and cooling, and he instantaneously realized that she was being taken advantage of by her local Heating plus Air Conditioning company.