I'm fucking sick of him
apeloverage.
I feel ripped off by him. I (occasionally) put a bit of thought and effort into my posts but haven't, as of yet, been put on the 'best of' page. Obviously I wouldn't mind because most other stories are clearly better than mine, but I can't seem to get my head around the fact that apeloverage seems to get on the 'best of' page every week by writing a 2 line "story" that has fuck all to do with the question.

So please, for christs sake, stop clicking 'I like this' on his posts or, better yet, apeloverage, just stop posting.


Length? It was justified.
(littlenipple hate's bad grammar, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 21:35, Reply)

I hired Richard Branson to do a comedy routine

but it was just a load of lame puns.

In fact some of them were virgin on the ridiculous.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 21:22, Reply)

Not really very amusing.
But I've recently been ripped off to the tune of a hundred quid by some asshat on eBay (as have a hell of a lot of other people).

Would like to recommend b3tards avoid a seller trading under the name of Webstorez at all costs.

Hope he gets chilli on his cock or something. Twunt.
( Sylia Stingray is pilfering the biscuits on, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 20:45, Reply)

Ebay Bollocks
So, I managed to bag myself a pre-release dvd of charlies Angels. I imagined myself fwapping away over the glorious Cameron Diaz a whole week before everyone else. Get in!

Sadly, it was 2 weeks late due to the bloke "being ill". I finally got it seven days after the official release date.

Not only did I pay over the odds, but everyone had already corked one off before I could say "bristols".

Bristols!
(plant rolls out of bed like a fat wobbly tub of lard, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 20:37, Reply)

I bought this game for a tenner once...
Old Saturn game

Why didn't I keep it??!??!??!?

On a more positive note, I'm finding that alot of old retro gaming items/accessories are on the rise on ebay. Snes multitaps are £20-£30, Mariokart and Secret of Mana are always worth a small bit and that US Snes with Final Fantasy 6 (completely boxed and in storage) should in a few years allow me to settle down on my own beach in Haiti.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 20:12, Reply)

Blank CDs
I remember a few years back, my friend and I wanted a bit of money so we devised the highly original idea of copying computer games and selling them at a market well-known for this trade. However, we were lazy and decided in the end we couldn't be bothered copying one game onto 30-40 discs, it would simply take too long. So we just decided to sell blank discs and pretend they had games on them.

This also meant we could effectively sell games that didn't exist, or weren't out yet. So I scanned in some PS2 game covers (eg. GTA Vice City - long before it was relased on PC; and some other PS2 exclusive games) and I modified the covers to say "PC CD-Rom". Then we found an empty stall which a few hours later we got thrown off for not paying for and sold the games for £5 each, mainly to 10 year olds.

I like to think we made a lot of children cry that day.
(Cuthbert Annihilator, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 18:39, Reply)

Things can only get better.
Back in the late nineties a flash teeth and cufflinks merchant came to the attention of the British public. There were promises of better education, a better health service, lower taxes and only 16,000 Polish migrant workers.

What a fucking ripoff.

PS. Vote Tory.
(Mong The Merciless Older not wiser, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 18:05, Reply)

B3ta is shite
I logged on to the topical Internet hub B3ta.com expecting to see an amusing collection of web-based anecdotes.

Imagine my disgust when reading QOTW. It was just a load of old off-topic cock posted by apeloverage.

What a ripoff. Not even any pron from Frank.
(Mong The Merciless Older not wiser, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 17:59, Reply)

VIz
The old "monochrome" Viz's were great - "mickey's Monkey Spunk Moped", "nude motercycle girl" - but now its just a shite rip off. Good job one of my workmates buys it for me to read eh ?

There is no joke to see here, move along please.
(kitescreech still here, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 16:48, Reply)

B3ta...
.
Actually, when you think about it, B3ta's a bit of a rip-off. I mean it was Web 2.0 before Web 2.0 was invented. Almost everything on here is user generated content.

The QOTW week answers are supplied by us and Rob et al have even made a fucking book out of jokes sent in by us!

The boards are all the hard work of the graphic-typr people, the links are all supplied by other B3tans and the only thing the B3tan Elite have to do is suggest a new topic every week - and they can't even do that on time!!!

What a fucking rip-off!!

That said, B3ta brightens up my week. The stuff on the Front Page makes me giggle like a loon. The links provide me with endless amusement and the QOTW week was what started me writing. So if Rob and the mob can make a few quid off keeping B3ta free and then fair play to them. They could have easily gone down the route of the Something Awful forums where you have to pay a fucking membership fee in order to be able to post.

B3ta a rip-off? - Nah. Not when you think of those grasping bastards at Something Awful.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 15:04, Reply)

New Years Eve And Pubs..
.
I love my pubs. Wherever I live I always find a local that I like and that gets most of my, not inconsiderable, trade. I normally have a few pints - between three and four most nights. That’s about a tenner a night or £70 a week. £3500 a year.

And then new Years Eve rolls round and the bastards try to charge you. Yes - charge you anything up to £20 for the privilege of paying yet more money to drink in a hideously over-crowded pub. Now *that’s* a fucking rip-off.

It was tried a few years ago in my local in Manchester. We locals argued and argued with the landlord that we shouldn't have to pay - we supported the pub day-in, day-out unlike the hordes of once-a-year-piss-heads but he wouldn't budge. So we did. About 40 out of 60 locals decamped from the pub and moved a few yards up the street to a more reasonable pub with a decent landlord. Rip-off landlord had a good New Years Eve and then went bust three months later.

You can't run a pub if you piss your regulars off.

Pint Power!

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 14:49, Reply)

Useless Workshy Cunt of a Builder
A couple of years ago, I found myself ripped off by The Useless Workshy Cunt of a Builder Co Ltd, to the tune of some ten grand. I managed to find several other people who'd been ripped off by him, and after the usual discussion on the worthless legal actions we were all undertaking, talk turned to what we might do about him.

Jokingly, I suggested we might want to get him beaten up.

This was when the discussion took a disturbing turn, and I spent the next thirty minutes dissuading my new-found-friends from engaging their Mancunian cousin from coming down south to break his legs (A bargain at five hundred quid, it turned out).

In the end, living in a relatively small community as we do, we just went round and told everybody they were living with a crook, and he went out of business soon enough by word of mouth.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I have absolutely no idea who emptied an entire bottle of brake fluid over his brand new SUV, to hilarious car-melting effect. I might still think he's a cunt, but I'M still biding my time.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 14:37, Reply)

vista-pista
I've just sent off for a "free" upgrade to Windows Vista from the nice people who I recently bought a laptop off, only to find they're charging me £4.50 to post it to me! (and I might not install it anyway, I've gone all open source recently)
(amazingmikeyc internet ninja, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 14:35, Reply)

Starbucks
The worlds biggest rip off. I paid nearly a tenner for three drinks, one of which i had to wait nearly half hour for. This led to my "acquisition" of the largest mug they had. Plus a free coupon for any drink of any size. Bloody rip off merchants with their nice coffee.
(Seanus, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 13:58, Reply)

cars and just about everything at one stage
Lost a wing mirror in a scuffle with pheasant at 80mph, and the local Ford Dealer reapirs were quoting something like £150+ (near $300 for the US ppl) so i went to their service desk, bought a wing mirror for £20 as a spare part, took it to a local resprayers near home, they sprayed it for £20 and I went and fitted it in the car park.

Europe (as in not including the UK) is one big mass rip off since they converted to that monopoly money Euro, you get ripped off with near every purchase you make everywhere. But nothing compares to London, just don't bother.

Turned down a not unconsiderable pay rise (for any other town) to work in Holborn, C London (i'd be travelling from just east of Salisbury) because

1, The Annual ticket is £3800+ ($7600 odd, yes Americans, our railways would charge that for 365 days a year travel for an hours journey in cattle class, probably standing most days, almost certainly late, if at all some days, and many other problems many hear know about)

2, about £5 ($10) a day parking at a station i'm not guaranteed a place

3, for a car i shouldn't need with a train journey to work now (£100's for car insurance, 87p a litre ($1.74 per litre) £160 odd Tax, cost of repairs being high e.t.c., as theres no bus service to the station from where i am (but dont get me started on how scummy and expensive that would be)

Anyhoow, after all that lot, plus the fact the 40% tax bracket would have been breached too with that payrise, it worked out over 50% worse off than my current amount so told them no thanks i'll stick to the motorways (argh, if they even try to charge that...) and drive 70miles a day to Guildford
(1_not_so_careful_owner, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 13:39, Reply)

I was ripped off by Eddie Izzard

and he...wait, do I have that the right way round?
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 13:10, Reply)

I was ripped off by John Cleese

To make things worse, when I rang him to complain he was polite, accepted full responsibility and offered me a full refund. It was totally unlike something out of Fawlty Towers!
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 13:09, Reply)

My wing mirror glass got broken
So I phoned up a garage near work to get a quote for fixing it
"Well mate, [mate? I'm not your fucking mate thinks I, anywho] what with us having to order it from citroen, and installation, it will cost you about a hundred pounds"
"A hundred pounds?" I exclaim, "for a wing mirror? Up yours!"

I bought a wing mirror for 20 quid off ebay, and put it on myself. Took me about a minute from opening the package it was in, to putting it on the car!
(tarbin tarbis, tarbit, tarbamus, tarbimus, tarbant, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 12:56, Reply)

chicago rock cafe in fareham
ended up there on a pub crawl last week. was too drunk to argue.

£5 entry to what is essentialy a pub.

then, after waiting ages to get a drink...

was royally raped £7.30 for a double vodka redbull.

ONE drink?!?!?

i think i'll stick with going to weatherspoons where a pitcher of the same is £6.95

its allways worth the look on the guy's face when you ask for a straw with your pitcher.
( The Flaming Ibanez Awww, c'mon, Japanese girls do it!, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 12:17, Reply)

Mesh Computers PLC.
At the End of 2004 I had a bit of money spare for the first time in years and thought I'd buy myself my first laptop. Looking on the net I quickly found out that the best value computers were from a company called Mesh. They even had a sparkling array of awards from the usual computer magazines. In short, they looked like a sure bet. I picked their "power laptop" which was just on the wrong side of a thousand quid.
A month after I put in the order my notebook finally turned up, but proved unable to stay turned on for more than 30 seconds. After three lunchtimes waiting on their phone system I finally managed to get them to take it back and send me a replacement.
Nearly two months of phonecalls (and a day off work as they didn't deliver after 5pm) later I received the replacement. The DVD drive was jammed closed, it overheated and switched off every few hours and it made a noise like a broken lawnmower, but rather than wait for two more months for another one I opened the drive with a screwdriver and put it on bricks so some air could get into the fan.
Two months later it broke completely but fortunately this time I could fix it by reconfiguring the bios, though it took me about three hours of phonecalls to find this out.
Two months after that the DVD drive broke completely. Another good week of phonecalls later I managed to get a new one sent to me, but with no instructions and no help whatsoever.
Through this period I was working at a callcentre myself, so having to spend a fair amount of my free time on the other end of the line was little annoying. The queue to speak to anyone was 30 minutes at the very least, so I'd estimate I spent over a hundred quid calling them. I sent five or so e-mails through their website before realising nobody was reading tem and giving up.
After about ten months of stress the notebook fell about an inch onto a desk and broke completely. The motherboard was unrecoverably blown. Unfortunately for me I'd lost the piece of paper with the order number on it. Without this, it transpired, nobody at the company was willing to speak to me at all.
The next step would probably have been the small claims court if it hadn't been for the fact that I had recently moved to China. A month ago I finally got around to selling the laptop-millstone for scrap and got about 40 quid for the few usable parts.
The only satisfaction I can get out of this whole fiaso is if someone reads this and decides not to buy a computer from this appalling company. If I'd done my research properly before buying I'd have found many other account like mine, see here, for example.
( Zuowan, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 12:03, Reply)

Every single week....
i post n post on this site n get nothing in return for the hard work my fingers put in... so go on make me feel unripped just the once
(Fluent In Bentish Living in Scatman's World, tis being fun!, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 10:32, Reply)

Re: brotagaia's post below
that happened to me with some games, i told the guy that it was illegal (and by that i mean im not paying £10 for something i can do with azureus and some dvd+r from poundland)

demanded a refund or i would report him, he agreed to give me a refund and i reported him anyway

the thing was this bastard had 100% feedback, it was about 2 pages of people saying they werent expecting copied games but thanks for posting it so quick, so the moral of the story is always read the feed back and look at what the other sales are dont just look at what % positive the guy has
( Reme Philips laid an epic dump on, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 10:02, Reply)

There's a poster on qotw
called "apeoloverage" I believe, every time I bother to scan his frequent posts on any subject, expecting to see a made up hilarious story, a re organised urban myth or (shock horror) the rarity that is a true answer, my eyes and brain then instead receive a cut price "hilarious random" answer thus leaving me feelin dejected and totally ripped off


click "I like this" - you know you want to
( SickRik float like a camembert sting like a brie, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 9:38, Reply)

"Star Trekkin', across the universe..."
Why, that's quite a catchy little song isn't it?

Logically, then, one would expect the album to feature many songs of a high quality, and be well worth the purchase price.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 5:14, Reply)

A friend of mine had a proper scam going once...
He once "acquired" a box of those surge protector strips. Big ol' box too, had loads of them in. He tried to shift 'em on the market, but they weren't going for much and weren't selling well.

So he had a top class idea.

He started selling 'em door to door.

But not as surge protector strips. He was selling them as electricity purifiers.

He even bought a label maker and added a fake brand onto each one.

Instead of selling 'em 50p a throw on the Market, he was getting twenty five quid each for 'em because he claimed:

"This device is designed to use electrostatic super conduction to strip away impure electrons from your electrical current. The large volume of impure electrons delivered by the power company is the primary cause of appliance and device failure and degradation in the UK. These electricity purifiers are guaranteed to double the life expectancy of your electrical equipment while having no affect on their daily performance."

Most people laughed in his face and told him to fuck off, but the law of averages stated that he would find plenty of idiots just by walking down a few streets and knocking on a few doors.

He had 'em all flogged in three days and ended up with nearly a grand in his pocket.
( MarkyH feels like the H in Bob Hoskins' name, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 5:00, Reply)

I bought some acid off a guy
who told me it was the good sh1t - in fact he said I'd 'see God'.

I took it, and sure enough I did see God.

I was talking away to Him, and after a while I noticed he had kind of a strange accent - sort of Indian-sounding.

Suddenly I realised it wasn't God at all - it was Ganesha dressed up as God!

Fucking rip-off acid.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 3:13, Reply)

eBay
There are a few things you can do:

Leave bad feedback - which you seem to have done.

Don't buy off someone with less than about 96% good feedback. People leave good feedback and comments as a general rule, so having 95% good feedback and a page full of 'excellent seller - 100%!' isn't nearly as good as it sounds.

Report them to eBay for selling banned items.

Put in a dispute with eBay for the item - also mention that they asked for more postage than they put in their ad - and with PayPal if you paid by PayPal.

Don't pay charges that aren't in the ad.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 2:57, Reply)

Jumping on the LOLerskates bandwagon
Sandstone university in Australia (one of the Group of 8)

Coffee: $2.60 to $2.90
Focaccia (fancy-arsed toasted sanger): $6.50-$8.50
Ham & Cheese Croissant: $4.50
Nori rolls: $2.20 (they're worth it, they're big and fishy)

Like any decent university we have a vegan cafe run by hippies which offers virtuous slops for $3 a plate, but thanks to "voluntary" student unionism (ie conservatives' revenge for hot feral chicks not being interested in them) this may end up costing first-born children, hymens, foreskins etc.
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 2:49, Reply)

stupid ebay!
i bought a burnt cd off ebay for $20US!!

after the auction finished, the dude said to me "i will require an additional $5US for postage" no problem thinks i.

the product wasn't advertised as bootleg, and when the cd came in the mail, it was in an envelope - no, no case or anything, just a plain envelope, wrapped in 2 pieces of plain white paper!!

stupid ebay!! beware of those purchasing products off allisonsypien
(brotagaia, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 2:42, Reply)

Mags
Once bought a celophane wrapped porno mag in a Manchester sex shop for a tenner - a lot of cash for a jazz mag, but the sleaze merchant assured me it was the HARD stuff that would make my eyes water. Strolling through the Arndale Centre I ripped the celophane off to have a look at the premium filth; and it was pretty dirty... except someone had put little blue dots over the squelchy bits. Tried scratching the dots off but the mag was printed with them on. Crazy, but I actually thought someone had the job of going through a stack of mags sticking little blue dots over the engorged genetalia. Not a bad ay to do a 9 to 5, I suppose.

Thank god some clever bugger invented the internet, everybodys favorite free hardcore emporium. Donkey shagging anyone?
( SpankyHanky, Sun 18 Feb 2007, 2:05, Reply)