Barcode madness
In order that I could buy the nice sandwiches as the price of the cheepo ones I carefully cut out the barcode from my previously purchased fare and would stick it over the barcode on a nicer one with pritstick. Result! I could then remove the crafty label for future use.

Appologies for length of prison sentence that may be incurred by acting this out ripoffery.
( Jimvin dropped plates on your arse at, Wed 21 Feb 2007, 8:38, Reply)

I like "trade-ins".
This fits here, I guess:

Found that a local store would give me a $100 discount on a new monitor if I brought in my old one.

I got an old monitor which barely worked. Traded in. The store didn't bother testing it.

$100 discount on a $500 new monitor.
(Dog with Lasers says bite, bite, bite, Wed 21 Feb 2007, 5:32, Reply)

Armed Robbery
Years ago, went to the local sporting goods dealer to purchase a pistol (because i'm a bad-ass!) Told the salesperson i was happy with a particular model, and he wrote up a receipt for me to take to the front register. I'm standing at the check-out with a handful of cash; the girl dutifully rings up the item as written and asks for X dollars. I pass her the requested amount, puzzled by the fist full of cash I still have. As I return the receipt to the salesman, i examine the paperwork ... in longhand the gentleman had marked down the correct prices but made a $300 error in the total. Being that there is a 14 day waiting period before i can actually pick up my new toy, i pocket the cash with the intent that if they can discover the discrepancy in 2 weeks I'll fork over my assumed windfall -- but 2 weeks later I've got the gun AND the money!
stick 'em up!
(spiderplex, Wed 21 Feb 2007, 2:35, Reply)

Bellydancers
Turkey: Aged 17 with some friends, go into a bar, bit over priced - fair enough - have a few drinks and get ready to move on and the owner comes over - "Boys boys where are you going? We got some belly dancers coming on soon"

Of course being 17, male, and sensible we all decide to stay. An hour goes by, complete with ridiculously over priced drinks. We're beginning to get a little narked but the owner keeps on telling us the belly dancers will come soon. Its a testiment to testosterone that we stayed as long as we did but, eventually, the belly dancers came out.

Two fat, mustachioed Turkish men.

Not really what we were hoping for.
(Zapiola zip-zap-zop, Wed 21 Feb 2007, 1:48, Reply)

I ripped off a butcher.
I bought a black pudding, cut it open, scraped out the insides and ate it (this was my pre-vegan days, obviously), then crapped in the skin. I took the pooey sausage-effect back to the butcher and claimed it smelled of shit. He agreed, and gave me my money back! Woo!

And now I've ripped you lot off by pea-roasting this from a previous qotw. But I felt ripped off because it didn't make it to the best page, even though it got more votes than some of my other answers that did.
( Bob Todd whee, Wed 21 Feb 2007, 0:21, Reply)

Roman Taxi Driver...
On arrival in Rome my friend and i had to find our own transport to hotel on the opposite side of the city to Ciampino airport. Ended up getting into an unmarked taxi with a very old very dodgy man who proceeded to drive at around 80mph through the city. Not that odd in Rome though I guess, seen as though cars don't stop unless you're blatantly in the middle of the road. And even then it's a close run thing. First mistake, that was. Second mistake was paying £60 for a taxi ride that should have cost £15 according to the hotel receptionist. I guess it was better than sexual assault though, eh? Was a good holiday apart from that.

Did get value for money on the bus back to the hotel on the night that Italy won the world cup though. Fun times!
(TruckfulsOfWoo, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 23:25, Reply)

Pawn Shop
I managed to rip off a shady pawn shop once. I was looking at some stereo equipment when I saw a like-new direct-drive Technics turntable, complete with 2 brand new cartridges with no price on the label. I haggled with one of the employees for a while and managed to talk them down to $35(CDN). About a week later, I saw the exact same turntable in Sears. Price? $289.99.
( Hosehead, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 22:26, Reply)

Ouch
Being male, and overloaded with testosterone, I've got fairly hairy (yet alluringly sexy) legs.

So when I ripped off the band-aid it hurt like a fucking bastard.
(David CopAFeel Used to be The_Elcat - Spouting crap since 1970., Tue 20 Feb 2007, 21:31, Reply)

weed
When we were all about 13 one of the lads at school wanted to buy some weed, he got in with the older lads who used to smoke fags at the bottom end of the playing fields in pursuit of getting hold of some. he went home ill one day after apparently been sold an oxo cube wrapped in cling film and smoking it
( You drive like a mong in a dodgem today is, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 21:09, Reply)

What did I expect?
Sick to death with other people using my mug to drink their coffee from at work, I invested in a vessel that no one would dare to borrow; an Official Church of Satan Coffee Mug. Black, with a red Baphomet tastefully stencilled on the front and "This Mug Belongs To Satan" on the back. Brought it off eBay, and it never arrived. Bloody Satanists...
(Julian Coped, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 20:55, Reply)

Stakis Hotels
once a poor young chap was offered the chance of working for double time on crimbo day. Me being a greedy little scrote jumped at the chance and i worked from 5 am to 5pm.

Cue me excitedly opening my next pay packet, dreaming of all the goodies i'd now be able to buy.

Imagine my surprise when i found i'd only been paid single time, some mistake shurly.

Oh no they'd sent out a memo at 6 pm on crimbo eve infoming all staff that they would not be honouring their promise.

which is fine i suppose untill you consider the fact that it was 4 hours into the staff christmas party and only the management were left running the hotel on a skeleton staff.

AND they made us wear a tartan uniform

Rio Stakis rot in hell!
(Batemonkey, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 20:33, Reply)

Nearly every day I receive emails from people offering V1ArrGRA and XArrNAX
But hey, who would trust a pharmacist called 'Jesus Hiedler' or 'Oral Wanke'?
(Le Man Marathon in English 'The Marathon Man', Tue 20 Feb 2007, 18:44, Reply)

An easy mistake to make
Being of a tender age i recently went to a club for the first time. Being of a tender age i didnt realise that the very nice man who sprays some soap on your hands and offers to dry them in the club toilets wasnt just in it for the karma. Yes he did me out of a one pound piece as i didnt want to get beaten up.

I showed him though, the other times i went to the toilets i used the sink next to him. So fuck you man in toilets of wild
(hunterhunterhunter, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 18:15, Reply)

british gas 2
so today the engineer did turn up. and he found the problem. it was caused by the pipes fitted incorrectly by british useless ass when they installed my boiler in the first place.

they rang me to explain. so far they've offered compensation of £10. you can all imagine what i made of that. and the promise of another appointment to fix it next week. so that'll be what, the third time i've stayed in to fix their mistake?

the biggest rip off of all is going to be the smile off the face of their chief exec when he gets my letter at his home address tomorrow...... i am actually mad enough to write it now!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 17:47, Reply)

Just Been Ripped Off
Here at work.

Some guy started rabbiting on about waht he was going to do tonight.

"I must try tossing tonight"

"Haven't done it in ages"

"Girfriend doesn't like me doing it - she says I'm too messy.."

"Last time I did it, it went all over the kitchen"



Then I realised that he was talking about pancakes. It's Shrove Tuesday....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 17:46, Reply)

It all goes wrong somewhere around "Q"...
English BA - £9,000
English MPhil - £13,000
English PhD - £20,000 (and counting)

Still not being 100% sure of the correct order of the letters of the alphabet?

Priceless.
(jennymnemonic, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 17:28, Reply)

China
One:
Went to visit some holy mountain (Tai'Shan, I think) and bought a new film for my camera from a gent selling films from a Kodak kiosk in the town square. Took loads of great pics and when I got back to my flat - a 24-hour bus ride away - I took them them to be processed. Only, there were no pics. The grinning fucktard at Tai'Shan had sold me a roll of previously exposed film that he'd just rolled into used canisters. Not a photo survives.

Two:
Visiting a friend in the north of China, I arrived and took a taxi. Despite my fears, I was taken directly to the right address in about ten minutes and charged only double what the ride was worth. On the way back, I told a different taxi driver to go to the station and he proceeded to take me on a magical mystery tour round the outskirts of the city. We were driving for 40 minutes and I knew he was ripping me off. But I had a train to catch and he didn't speak a word of English. As I swore fluently and red-faced at him, he just laughed hysterically to himself and kept on driving until he'd explored every road in town. When he asked me for the cost of a new house, I refused. Cue the usual Chinese taxi driver trick: screaming and crying until a dozen other people come screaming and crying and you're forced to pay up by the mob.

Three:
In Shanghai, I went into a street noodle bar and pointed to the cheapest dish on the menu - just vegetable noodles. The rat-faced streak of jizz then threw every exotic meat he could find into the bowl and charged me double the cost of his most expensive meal on the menu. By this stage, I just couldn't be bothered arguing and paid. Thereafter, I only ate at KFC.

Four:
When I mercifully left the country, they informed me that I had to pay a departure tax. About ten quid in cash, or you stay in China and get thrown in jail because your visa has expired (and they make you pay for your own incarceration, too.)

Fucking China.
(frankspencer, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 17:26, Reply)

TRAIN TICKETS!!!
I wanted to get to birmingham one day... cost bout £8/9... then another day i wanted to go before 9am... FUCKING NEARLY £20!!! They make no sense... you have to pay more so you can stand up in a crowded train.... and when singles cost more than returns?! WTF!! what fuckin jokers made up the price lists?
(amy_metc4lf, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 17:11, Reply)

Twunting Uni Canteens
In my first year at Uni the canteen on our campus served rough food but at a reasonable price, say £2.50 ($5) for burger, chips and beans. Not too bad. This year the prices all look the same, quality thought I piling on the chips and beans next to my burger. Turns out they now charge for each individual item. £1.80 for the buger, 90p for chips and 70p for beans, £3.40! Ripping off arse bandits.
(Unauthorised Titbeak Length? Oh, erm.... a Country Mile?, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 16:47, Reply)

Anyway there I was in kuta wich is basically magaluf for the southern hemisphere
Aussies are lovely folks, mostly. All the wankers in oz go to kuta for their holidays.
I needed to escape
I slung my bag on and due to me getting confused with the local currency again (20,000 to the pound, easy to get mixed up) paid over the odds for a taxi to the bus station.
At the station I have to pay to get in, and I'm pretty sure I got charged more than the locals.
I'm running around trying to find a bus to kedisan and it turns out there isn't one but I can get a bus to bangli and get another one from there.
So this chubby curly haired local looking a bit like a dark skinned jeremy beadle offers to take me to bangli. The price is a little over the odds but that's expected as I'm a forgeinger and it's not too bad.
So I hop in to his blue minibus and he makes several stops to litterally fill the van with coconut halves, leaving room for maybe three passengers.
It's at this point I realise I'm not going to make it to kedisan today so I look through the guidebook for a guesthouse in Bangli
After driving for an age, he stopd. At last I'm at Bangli, I give him the money and zoooooooom he's off like a coconut filled rocket.
I then look about for the guesthouse that's reccomended in the book, the taxi drivers I ask haven't heard of it but in this country you doubt the word of a taxi driver if he tells you water is wet, so I ask in a couple of shops and it takes a while for me to make myself understood but eventually I find out I'm not in Bangli at all, I'm only halfway fucking there.
So now I have to pay way over the odds just to get to bangli as there's no guesthouse in whatever godforsaken hole the busman dropped me off at.

length? it took me three fucking days in the end
( VampireMonkeyOnSpeed a super sexy sexual sex terrorist sex, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 16:36, Reply)

O Dear O Dear O Dear,

So you had to pay too much for a beer in la belle France did you?

When I went to England in those early 1990s and settled into my college room in West Hampstead, I decided to cook myself some food and of course, wash it all downwards with a nice bottle of vin rouge.

It wasn't a special meal, just some bread and cheese, some salami and an exotic dish from my new adopted home...a Pot Noodle. So, then I proceeded to find a cheap wine...I seriously thought I was doing my mathematics wrong. How could the very cheapest of cheap wines cost £4.99 - that was ff50.00 which would have bought the kind of wine you would take to a meal with your new girlfriends family - if you wanted to impress! Not the stinking weasel juice that I nearly couldn't force down and would not have paid 2 francs for at home, never mind 50.

I was almost crying that night. Luckily it did not take me long to be introduced to the wonderful produce of the Fuller, Smith & Turner brewery of Chiswick. Ah, what would I give for a pint of London Pride right now? Well, not €5.50 like they charge in the English Deli in Nice. Well, OK then, I did at Christmas, but that was special. And Brannigan's crisps €2.75 - the swine, the swine.

E-Z
(E-mail Zola Son of Che, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 16:18, Reply)

Telewest are hopeless
Along the lines of the NTL ripoff, however I am blighted with a Telewest rip off. Let this be a warning to you all. If you move into a soap dodging tax evader high-density population area for the love of all that is Holy do not, under ANY circumstances buy the cheapest internet/tv/phone package out there, which for me happened to be Telewest because every aforementioned soap dodger will probably have the same deal. And Telewest will hide behind their small print and fob you off with patronising bullshit. Useless twunting helpless bastards.

6 months of frustratingly slow internet. Even an upgrade from 4 meg to 10 meg part way to silence my complaints. Did it work? Did it fuck. So a 9 page complaint letter to their head office, followed shortly by a call back from the dizzying heights of the MD’s office in Manchester. A full refund for the cost of the broadband services for the 6 months (£260 and they’ve charged me for VAT again! - not entirely sure how they reached that figure anyway) thus far and free broadband for the remainder of the year’s contract.

So I’m being ripped off for free internet! Curses! Not technically being ripped off if it’s free am I? Well anyway it’s still shit (makes dial up look like El Speedy Gonzalez himself) and I want some recompense for the countless hours I’ve spent being transferred back and forth form one technical idiot (sorry, Technical Support Operative) to another and they still refuse to fix it, saying they haven’t had sufficient volume of complaints yet. Damn lazy students, happy to rinse broadband for more pron and torrented movies than you can shake a stick at whilst not complaining about getting sub standard internet. Damn you all!
(Stanlington Jobsworthy Smythe Last skived off work on, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 16:16, Reply)

Not me, but my daughter.
Since she's half my DNA, though, I can use her story.

There is a girl she dislikes intensely (as one would expect with 13-year-old girls), and at school they do their best to make each other miserable.

So one day my daughter pays a friend five dollars to steal the other girl's clothes while she's in gym class, and hides the clothes in an obscure corner of the locker room. Result: the enemy girl had to wear her gym clothes for the rest of the day.

The next day there's an announcement over the loudspeakers that a ten dollar reward is being offered for information as to where the girl's clothes are. My daughter marches to the office and reports that she saw some clothes in an obscure corner of the locker room. She's given the reward, and goes back to her class.

In other words, she humiliated the girl and made five dollars profit in the process. And made her enemy pay it to her. Devious and vicious, and I pity whoever else she decides to take a disliking to.

I know I shouldn't be as proud of her for that as I am, but what can I say? She takes after her dad...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 20 Feb 2007, 16:06, Reply)

FCUKING RIP OFF MERCHANTS!
Opened a bank account a while ago with natwest as my boyfriend didn't have ID to do so... he used it for a few months and then managed to open his own account and it was left open with a balance of £0.00p.

About 8 months later I get a statement for this account telling me I've gone overdrawn and I'm getting charged £38 because I don't
have an over draft set up! A cheque for the value of £6.50 had been paid out. Explanation? I got pissed one night and used the wrong cheque book for a take-away. So for using £6.50 I get charged £38! Fucking heartless rip off bastards.

I sorta forget about this matter for a month and get another statement... i have been charged two more times and my account is now overdrawn by £115! So I go to the bank and ask if there's any way to get the second lot of charges taken off and I'll pay the original amount... "no, sorry miss Metcalf, we're a bunch of RIP OFF MERCHANT BASTARDS and will not take them off, Also the bank is shit. (last sentence may not be true but is along the lines of what the bitch said)

So I pay off the £115 and decide to write to the bank to get this money back... as you've all heard its illegal for them to charge so much money when you go overdrawn. I then discover there are more fees to come! Complete Cuntas!

Went into the bank at lunch time today and managed to get them to close my account and wave the fees that haven't been taken yet.

THEY ARE THE BIGGEST RIP OFF MERCHANTS EVER! I HATE BANKS ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

I'm going to put a length/girth joke in cause thats what everyone seems to do...

Length? reflects the length of my boyfriends, Girth? how do i compare girth to a piece of writing...unless you put the whole of my post on one line :-P
(amy_metc4lf, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 15:45, Reply)

No payrise for 3 years...
Only the sub-standard 2% which apparently is cost of living ?!?!
Oh what fun the Christmas party was. £12 a ticket for a buffet and free bar. Taking Mrs Squeaky was a good plan too. She drank a fair share and had words with my soon to be ex-boss. I think I ripped off the company with my double JD Single Barrell everytime I visited the bar. At £8 for a single measure the free bar did not last long.
Nice one.
(SqueakyRat, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 13:50, Reply)

Ripped off to the max
In Camden at 3am in the morning feeling very drunk but still wanted to carry on, we went in search of some pills (e's if you're wondering)
Found a very reasonable guy, that for a reasonable price, would get us some reasonable pills. 5 for £15, brilliant I thought.
Only possesing a £20 note in my pocket, I asked for change. Instead we went over to the nearest open corner shop to break it. I bought some chewing gum in antisapation for the amount of face churning I was about to experience.
I handed over the cash and waved a cheery good by to our new friend (what a lovely guy we thought)
Unwrapping the plastic we pulled out what looked like suspiciously like smints. I gave a lick AND GUESS WHAT...
they were smints!
It wasn't like I needed the minty freshness in only 2calories as I had just bought the chewing gum...
what are the chances?!
(pretty large buying drugs in Camden!)
(kintore_homeboy tenuous links since 1986!, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 13:46, Reply)

Used car dealers are scum
A friend of mine bought a used car a couple of years ago from a dealer. They also sold him a 3-year, 90000km warranty for about $1500. Problem was, the 90000km wasn't 90000km from when he bought the thing, but the odometer reading, which incidently was over 92000 when he bought the car.
(ieatcrayons, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 13:36, Reply)

Car Insurance
Moved from Warwickshire to Worcestershire - extra premium payable = £80, apparently due to the area, rate of crashes etc.
Split from boyfriend - time to head home.
Moved from Worcestershire to Warwickshire - 'goodie!' thought I, calling my insurers this morning - rebate due to me surely? Extra premium payable = £70, apparently due to the area, rate of crashes etc. Grrr!
(NJ, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 13:27, Reply)

BB guns
I once bought a BB gun from a shady shop for a fiver.
I got it back home and it was less powerful than one i bought for a quid!
Bloody shady shops.

And it broke after about 5 minutes :(
(LiL_Arsewipe licked your face on, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 13:17, Reply)

sucker
a friend of mine went to Ireland to visit relatives when he was about 16. he bumped into some local youths who offered to sell him some weed, so he forked over the coins in his pocket (about £4 or something) and was told to meet them in an hour just round the corner.

feeling a bit nervous about it he brought his cousin along, and when he got there he saw the three lads were now carrying a bottle of cider and a stick. they said something along the lines of "we used your money to buy this cider and if you complain we'll hit you with this stick". he couldn't really argue with that.
( yes yes yes man oi mate, someone's writtten 'bum' on your neck, Tue 20 Feb 2007, 13:15, Reply)