As a woman, I have personally experienced salespeople trying to sell me unnecessary products or services because they feel I am naive.
This has mainly happened to me at the car dealership, however I have observed that when my husband 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 money, however that is how the world works. This recently happened to a friend of mine. Instead of this happening at a car dealership, this happened in her own home with a heating and cooling system, but 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 conditioner started giving her problems the first Summer that she lived in her house. Her control component would study one temperature, however hot air was blowing out of the vents instead of cool air, and she did some research and found a local heating and a/c corporation that seemed to be within her budget. The reviews were not as high as other local heating and a/c companies, even though she had to go with what she could afford at the time. When the heating and a/c serviceman came out to repair the issue, she tried to convince her to buy hundreds of dollars of services that she truly did not need. Her gut was telling her that something was off, so she called her friend. Her friend has a good knowledge of heating and cooling, and she immediately realized that she was being taken advantage of by her local heating and cooling.