Would this qualify for whistleblowing?

Jurisdiction
Nevada
I live in the United States, Nevada to be specific.

I work for a multi billion dollar company that sells a product that a large percentage of the USA uses. This company makes over a hundred million a year selling extra things with the product. The company has a very unethical and possibly illegal way of selling these extras.

Many of our sales are from clients going online and filling out an application and then calling in. When customers call in, we are expected to pull their application and add on any extra things they declined or removed online. We are then expected to give the updated price without telling them what we added and only talk about it if they realize the price we are giving is different than what they got online and object to it.

Assuming they don't object, we move on with the sales process. Right before we process the payment, we must disclose everything included with the product and this is where it goes from shady to down right unethical. We are told to disclose the extra things we added in the middle of the list of things which are included that we are disclosing. We are told to do this because the customer will hear the first and last things we list but most won't hear the middle of the list (we rapidly list everything off) and that will lead to less objections for the extra things included because the customer is literally unaware of them.

This has always been the practice for the past decade I have worked at this company but was always an open secret that no one talked about. The company recently had people go through updated training in regards to this process. During that training, we had to sit through a power point which specifically says to list these things in the middle so the customer is less likely to think they are extras since they aren't listed at the end. The companies trainer then further elaborated why this is effective and specifically said "the customer is less likely to realize these things are included which means your numbers will be better". He of course forgot to mention the boat load of money the company will make because people don't realize we are tricking them to buy things they don't need to. The fact that the company has finally acknowledged that we are doing this in this way for what I believe is clearly an unethical and immoral reason has me at a breaking point and I can't continue to sell this stuff in good conscious.

Is this illegal? Does it qualify for whistleblower status? If so what should I do to make sure something is done about this?

Thanks for reading.
 
You are explaining everything to the customer and the customer is agreeing to those things. It seems to me that, legally, the process is very transparent.

I would use the word "slimy" as opposed to "shady" - much like car salespeople can be "slimy", while still following the law.
 
You are explaining everything to the customer and the customer is agreeing to those things. It seems to me that, legally, the process is very transparent.


I don't disagree with your explanation.

It makes sense.
 
I think you mean would you be protected if you reported the scheme to appropriate government agencies and got fired for doing so.

I would guess, yes, under existing whistleblowing laws.

As for whether the scheme is illegal or not, take a look at what happened to Wells Fargo a few years ago for similar shenanigans.

Wells Fargo account fraud scandal - Wikipedia

This isn't really like that. These folks are explaining very clearly what they are selling and getting the consent of their customers.
 
The hand is quicker than the eye.
For that game (3 Card Monte), assuming the dealer is only working with sleight of hand and not actual "cheating",then it seems to me that the best odds would be to watch closely, see which card that you're absolutely sure is the right card, then choose a different card. As long as the dealer doesn't catch on, you've actually got 50/50 odds.
 
I'll rephrase:

The hand is quicker than the brain's ability to analyze the image received by the eye.

This is why we can watch a continuous motion picture without seeing it frame by frame. And why we can be fooled by magicians, unscrupulous businesses, and three card monte.

:D
 
If that were true, human hand movement would be faster than the speed of light.

For that statement to be literally true the eye must work at the speed of light. But it doesn't. The human eye, according to MIT research in 2014, can discern images that it sees for a little as 13 milliseconds, in ideal lab conditions. The speed of light is, of course, much faster.

The human hand is not so fast, as you correctly imply, but the con artist knows how to move the hand fast enough, and with sufficient distraction, that the mark doesn't see the con taking place.
 
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