I wish to make a complaint


Slightly more than three short decades ago I took possession of a fine male body. I was assured by guy in the store that it had a lifetime guarantee. This is clearly not true.

Last week I was persuaded to play a game of squash, a thing I had not done for about two years. The day following, I could nearly not get out of bed and my girlfriend had to help me get my underpants and trousers on. Not only that, but when looking at photos of the young E-mail, I am surprised by the amount of thick wavy dark hair that he had.

Alas, I am becoming like my father. Where was the warning?? I was ripped off!!!
(E-mail Zola Son of Che, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:53, Reply)

When I was about 12 years old
One of my best mates lived next door to a really fit girl about 10 years older than us.
On a hot summer day he charged me and three other mates £3 each to watch her sunbathe nude in her back garden from his bedroom window. For nearly 2 hours we sat and watched her arse as she lay on her stomach until it went overcast and she covered up and went indoors.

Needless to say, none of us saw the fanny side
(brad83, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:45, Reply)

Once, when I was sexually inexperienced, my girlfriend made it quite clear that she was up for having me do minge based stuff with her minge.
So I ripped off her clitoris and licked the wound.
Needless to say, she saw the funny side.
( baldmonkey a frothy foul-smelling vaginal discharge, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:38, Reply)

My housemate and the Somalian prostitutes
My housemate went to Barcelona for a stag weekend, and while there met three ladies of the night. He arranged a fee of 70Euros for all three of them. In an alley way. Nice. He then proceded to, in his words "titting one up, mingeing the other and biffing the middle one". He thought he was doing really well with the one he was biffing as she wriggled and pulled down his trousers, didn't realise she was actually mugging him! And hes a copper!!!
(xlux, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:37, Reply)

Pay off?
I lent a friend of a friend £20 once. This friend of a friend gave me £10 of it back the following week, then f*cked off forever and I never saw him again. He was a bit of a knob though so I considered it money well spent.
(loismustdie, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:36, Reply)

Awful Romeo Part II
My post has generated quite a bit of sympathetic responses, even more so than my post about a demented ex-wife!

Fact is that there is something about my Awful 156. First off, it's genuinely beautiful with curves in the right places without being effete. The V6 engine has a drink problem unseen since Oliver Reid was taken from us but it does have one thing going for it. It sounds awesome.

Indeed, the designers actually parked a prototype in a recording studio so that they could get the noise tuned just right. The sound of six Italian cylinders barking away at 6,500rpm will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Guaranteed.

Jeremy Clarkson even claims that a female passenger of his acquaintence nearly achieved orgasm in an Awful being driven with gusto.

But then they insist on assembling it with all the due care and attention summoned by an ADHD afflicted eight year old with an plastic model kit. Indeed I would not be surprised to see "Airfix" stamped on the back of some of the plastics used in my car. Every car which rolls off the production line is a "Friday afternoon job", but I can't help but feel some affection for it.

I couldn't see it scrapped. I'd feel genuine sorrow if it were. I really would.

But I would willingly pay money to watch the people who build/sell Awful Romeos publically flogged before being burned at the stake.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:36, Reply)

6000 year old rip off
Egypt. I was staying in a hostel in Cairo and the receptionist asked me if I wanted to go on a tour of the pyramids for 5 Egyptian pounds (no idea how much that was in real money, but it seemed cheap). I said yes. He called someone and about two minutes later a taxi driver appeared. I was to be the only person on the 'tour' ... which should have been my tip off.

First off, he took the five pounds. No problem. Then he drove me to a papyrus 'museum' . I told him I wasn't interested, but he asked me just to have a look around and then we'd be on our way. I looked around and was called a choice selection of spit-flecked and abusive names when I didn't buy a £100 image of a pharoah rendered lovingly on papyrus.

Then I was taken to the pyramids ... or at least to a stinking stables within a stone's throw of them. Here, I was told by a James Bond villain that I was going to pay 200 Egyptiam pounds to ride a flea-bitten camel around the pyramids.

ME: But this is a five-pound tour.
THEM: [Much hilarious laughter]
ME: I'm not paying more than five pounds. I don't want a camel.
THEM: What about a donkey?
ME: No.
THEM: If you don't pay 200, we'll leave you here.
ME: [Worried]. I suppose I could give you another 5 pounds.
THEM: 100, or you walk back. Do you know the way?

In short, I paid 140 Egyptian pounds to allow a ten year-old boy lead me within ten metres of the pyramids on a thread-bare donkey, whereupon a guard stopped us for not paying official entrance and fined me a further 50 (which went in his pocket). Every moment of this brief and illegal trip was contaminated by brown-toothed beggars swearing at me beacuse I wouldn't buy their tacky shit. And flies buzzing round the donkey's soiled arse.

I said to the boy, "Do you know, I came across Europe to see this?" And he said, "Why?"

Fucking Egypt.
(frankspencer, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:32, Reply)

Sospiris in St Mark's Square
Jag We spent £72 on six hot chocolates in St Marks.. and I got my credit card copied at the same time - someone tried to use it in a petrol station (erm no cars, don't own my own riva).
Some things though, are worth it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, Quadri's sospiris are the best in the world, the view, and sunset, when sun hits St Marks, and it glows golden, when the day trippers and the pigins have left is sublime....
(Countryslicker, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:31, Reply)

Beans on fucking toast?
Little, almost pyrrhic victories are the best..

So.. at East Midlands Airport, red eye flight, looking for something to set me up for the journey, fancied beans on toast. Looked at the menu... beans on toast £2.95. Hmm a trifle expensive for 1/2 tin catering standard (i.e. microbeans, uberhard, brown not red tomato 'gravy', soggy white non descript bread).
Exploring other options I come across 'extras'..two pieces of toast 90p, beans 95p., net saving £1.10.
That'll do nicely.
"Beans and toast please" (employee makes to slop industrial beans on unbuttered toast)
"woah, hold on there fella, I want to butter my toast first, or your overly sloppy microbean juice will impregnate my bread, with soggy effect". (Employee growls, looks for bowl, slops beans contemptuously into bowl, flings toast onto plate)
Get to the till... "£2.95"
"What..why?"
"Beans on toast, £2.95"
"But the beans aren't on the toast, they're in a separate bowl, that's beans with toast, and that's two extras"
"Nope, that's beans on toast"
"In what way are my beans on my toast?" (Queue starting to build)..
"Oh, alright, £1.85 then"
So.... 'On' costs £2.95.. 'and' costs £1.85.

Top tip. I must get out more.
Beating the cheeky fucks at their own game is fun though..
(Countryslicker, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:21, Reply)

Thinking about it...
British Gas really are a bunch of c*nts!

Click "I like this" if you agree!
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:18, Reply)

The Prado gardens, (madrid)
Me n mrs mick had a wander round & sat at a table, outside caff.
Manuel ses: que?
we say Jamon, manuel he bring jamon + limon and a bill for twelve fucking quid, though the odious cunt'd waited until I'd eat teh fucken thing before he presented his mortgage bill. (this was 12 yrs ago and I'm still smartin like martin the smacked red headed stepchild)
I took great delight in telling another odious tnuc (that I worked with) that the food there was the best & it was a must do in madrid. so he did.
For some reason we're not talking anymore.
(mickturate if i could be arsed i'd be bored, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:18, Reply)

Iceland
Me and the missus went on holiday to Iceland. £10 a pint is not uncommon, £8 about average.

Worth it though, we got it on in the Blue Lagoon. Anyone been there? You were swimming in my population paste
(superfuzz56, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:09, Reply)

Even the air wasn't free …
I took the other half to Venice for a bit of romance.

We sat at a table in St Mark's Square and I had a coffee and she had a tea. It was quite pleasant and even the amateurish string quartet that was scraping away in front of another cafe didn't spoil the mood.

The bill for 18 euros, however, did.

€5 for 1 cup of coffee
€5 for 1 cup of tea
€5 for the live music
€3 for service at 20%

So, not only did they charge me for having to listen to music that I couldn't avoid listening to even though I didn't want to hear it and that seemingly had nothing to do with the cafe in the first place, they also charged me service on top!
(SpittyWoonerism, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:05, Reply)

Definitely not me. A mate...
This mate is an officer in the army. He was pretty depraved before he joined up...now he takes laminated porn on manoeuvres.

Anyway, for some reason the army saw fit to pay for him to go to Amsterdam. Predictably, he got shit-faced and fancied some action, so he went into one of the booths they (apparently) have over there with a lady of the night. He was far too drunk to perform, and started to fall asleep. She got annoyed at this (I guess because any other punters she picked up would be a bit put off by this snoring, drooling mess sharing the bed) and so she called some kind of security guard who kicked him out. After wandering the streets for hours he finally got back to his hotel. And found that the prostitute or the security guard had relieved him of his wallet, phone, keys and just about everything else he was carrying. He had been well and truly ripped off. I think he deserved it, and so did his girlfriend.

So, desperate for sleep he had to wake up one of his army buddies and confess all so they'd let him crash on their floor. As you can imagine, they were all very undertanding and the incident was never mentioned again.

That last sentence was a lie by the way.
(superfuzz56, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 15:03, Reply)

A tale of two cities...
Waaay back in the day, I was wondering round Nottm Victoria centre, with a mate, when this dodgy scouse geezer approaches us, and asks my mate if he'd like to buy some 'top quality skunk'.
Bears, woods, pope, hats, 10mins later he's ripped to the tits in this guy's car, does the classic 'ball in cup' scam and palms him off with £400 worth of a parsley homegrown combo...two years later, I'm in halls in Manc, and I get a knock on the (internal) door, one of my flat mates had met a very nice chap who just happened to have some rather nice weed, and would I be interested in buying some? Yep, you've guessed it...chap scarpers once rumbled Huzzah. Two adjacent questions of the week in one fell swoop....
(Countryslicker, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 14:59, Reply)

I hate rip offs
So when the garage tried to charge me something like £250 for changing a part that I knew only cost unde £50 and would take them an hour at most, warning bells rang. So I rang my dad and he rang them and told them to do it at actual cost price. I was always taking my car in there as well so shame on them for trying to rip me off. Although the garage man did have the grace to look a bit ashamed... and gave me a lovely courtesy car the next time I was in, I am not even sure he had to do that.

Oh, and I have been known to go and bring my own car parts for fixing my car to get it through the MOT (rather than the extortionate parts provided by garage).

Not bad for a girly.
(Clarabelle is reverting to type on, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 14:47, Reply)

Divorce Lawyers.....
I'm sure I can't be the only one with a story like this:

I'm in the midst of getting divorced. It's all amicable, we've agreed what we want to do, and all my solicitor has to do is draw up the financial agreement. Now, we've actually divided up almost everything in advance, all that's left is the house, so when the lawyer tells me "If it's straightforward, it'll cost around £1200", I assume that's about what I'll pay.

Some months later, no contest on anything from the ex-wife, (who hasn't even bothered with a solicitor), we haven't even got to sending the documents to court yet, and the cnut has already charged me more than £2400. I'm getting a bit tetchy, but I want the thing finished, so I put up with it. The judge calls myself and my wife into court to make sure everything is clear, and rejects my £2500 worth of financial agreement out of hand, as it's completely unsuitable. Now, of course, I'm trying to contest their charges and get them to put their mistakes right for no extra charge. In the process of this, I've requested a breakdown of their charges, which I've received. It made for extremely entertaining reading. Some of my favourite parts included:

A total of £80 or so, charged for drawing up my bills over the period. They are charging the time they spend charging me what they're charging me? Awesome!

After the court hearing, I instructed my solicitor not to take any further action, since I felt he wasn't handling the case competently, and to wait to hear from me. The bill includes a charge the next day for time spent having a meeting with his boss to say "Oh Shit, Sammy is really upset!" and to have her look over the file, and then a charge for her to write me an unsolicited letter saying, essentially, "Sorry you're pissed off, but we're not going to do anything about it".

Lots of charges for "Perusal and Preparation". I wondered why, in a 6 week period where, to my knowledge, he had done nothing, he managed to charge me £800. It appears that every few days, he got my file out, had a bit of a read through, and then put it away again, charging me between £16 and £80 for the privelege.

These last three belong together, and are my personal favourites in a bill that ought to be eligible for the Orange prize for fiction.

18th December - £16:50 for "receiving letter from court". This letter was six lines long, and said that my ex and I had to appear, and the date. By my reckoning, allowing for him to have a hard time opening the envelope, the 6 minutes he billed me gave him time to read that letter 25 times. Despite that, however, he didn't manage to understand the part where I was supposed to appear as well. So........

19th December - £16.50 for "letter to client". This was another 5 liner, telling me that there was a court date set, but that I didn't have to appear. Stapled to the back of it was the order from the court, saying that I DID have to appear.

20th December - £16.50 for "call from client". This was me phoning up to say "Your letter says I don't have to appear, but the court letter says I do. You've made a mistake, haven't you?". So, a total of £49.50 for misreading a letter, advising me wrong, and then taking a call confirming that he'd fucked up.


I can only conclude that I'm in completely the wrong job, and look on open mouthed as they try to charge me a further £450 for work undertaken, and estimate that the cost to bring the job to a close will probably be "less than £1000". Click "I like this" if you think I should go on a brief killing spree. Surely no court in the land would convict me?
(Sammyhaswoefullyneglectedyou, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 14:12, Reply)

Dodgy Scouse Conman
A few years back when I was studying for my A-levels I left college to wander home.

A rather dubious looking bloke wanders across the road and asks if I'd like to buy a CD player (this was about 14 years ago). I declined the offer but he then produces a catalogue of musical equipment and tells me that he has a bit to shift and doesn't know where to get rid of it.

Starting to suspect that he was a rip-off merchant I declined and said I was new to the area.

He then pulls out some PC components from his rather old and tattered bag and asks if I wanted to buy some PC's. The guy wasn't at all clued up on the parlence and we got chatting.

He tells me that his 'mate' is in a van and they can bring me a couple of these nicked PC's to a pub of my choice for £80.

I agree to take a look at them and tell him if they are shit he's going to be short of a sale.

We retire the to the nearest pub where he buys me a pint and he goes to the phone to call his mate. He returned shaking his head saying that his mate was worried as he'd seen a lot of old bill around and wanted to wait half hour or so.

Fine, the bloke buys me a couple more pints and heads off to the phone again. This time he comes back saying that we should go and meet the van around the back of the industrial estate and that I should have the cash on me incase I want to buy stuff.

Alarm bells start ringing, he tells me that he needs the toilet and wanders off.

I grabbed his bag of stuff and promptly fucked off at high speed. The entire electrical contents upon closer inspection were worth fuck all - but it did include his clothes, wash bag (unused) and 200 smokes.

Gave the clothes and the bag to a charity shop on the way home and kept the cigarettes.

The following week there was an article in the local rag about some Scouse conman who had ripped off 3 students in a neighbouring town. He fitted the description perfectly.

Never seen or heard of again.
(Avalanche - Purveyor of sexual deviancy since 1976, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 14:09, Reply)

Tripple rip-off...
A few years ago at Fabric (club in London) I managed to sell a pill to someone for £50. I'm not a drug dealer mind, I just had a spare one and the guy was so desperate he kept offering me more and more money until I relented. Bit of a rip off but the guy was happy with his pill and I was happy with my £50 note!

Next day I realised that the £50 note he had given me was a fake!!! The bastard ripped me off! How ironical... Oh well, karma always cathes up eventually and I kind of diserved it.

However the story doesn't end here... Oh, no. I took the dodgy £50 note to an off licence and bought a big bottle of vodka and kept the £35 change woo!

So I managed to rip off the shop owner which makes this a tripple rip-off... I like to think that the shopkeeper used the dodgy £50 to rip off someone else (a prostitute maybe, a supplier or perhaps even a police mans bribe, who knows) and that the note is still in circulation happily ripping people off in a kind of nu-commerce kind of way.

Happy days...
(aroe_m0rre, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 14:01, Reply)

Penis enlargement
Length? It was small.

I saw an ad in the paper (this was the pre-spam days) for a penis enlargement clinic. I decided to give it a try. I paid my money, and was told to wait in the waiting-room and read the magazines. Guess what, the magazines were all jazz-mags. From then on, I was always careful whenever I read "enlargement guaranteed".
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:38, Reply)

Credit Card late payments
Got a credit card from Sainsbury's cos they offered 12 months interest free at a time when I was trying to clear my University debts. At the end of the 12 months there was something piddling like £35 on it which I duly forgot about.

A couple of months later I got a letter from them saying that I had failed to pay 2 months' late fees and they were dropping my credit limit from £4k to £1.5k. I looked it up online and indeed, they had charged me two consecutive months late payment fees at £25 a pop. Don't get me wrong, I know its my responsibility to clear my debts and suffer the consequences if I don't, but I found it a little annoying that they tried (and failed) for two months to take the minimum payment without checking with me. You know, "Sorry to bother you sir, but did you realise that we're unable to take money from your account and we'll have to charge you a penalty?". Turns out having spoken to them that despite me thinking to the contrary, they didn't have my Direct Debit details, hence the problem. However, in the midst of this paper trail I got another letter saying I still hadn't paid up (lots of inter-departmental communication there) so they'd reduce my credit rating to £100. Well, cheers. Its really worth having a credit card with a ton on it, isn't it?

Long story short, I paid up, told them to get f**ked and moved to a different company. Beware, Sainsbury's bankers, they'll take your money without checking, the cheeky bastards...
(titusyouclown, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:32, Reply)

PeeCee World
that reminds me actually, I went to Peecee World with mrs adamshappy because she wanted to purchase a new laptop to run world of warcaft. she simply told them she wanted a laptop that could run WOW for about £500, should be easy peasy. The moron who spoke to her told her that none of the laptops under £1200 would be powerful enough to run it. aaarg
( HelloIamAdam and Adam is my name, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:28, Reply)

Dodgy Merc
Double ripped off!! If you disconnect the battery for a couple of hours and reconnect the light goes off and the fault gets ignored!
(morrigan456 made sex wee on, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:28, Reply)

Dodgy Merc
My last car was a nice little Mercedes, kitted out with all the trimings. You'd think that Good old German engineering would mean that it held together well.

Almost the instant that its warranty ran out, it all started falling apart.

2, yes 2, new roofs (it had a glass roof that squeaked like a bastard), wonky sat nav and to top it all off the day before the chap who I had just sold it to was coming to pick it up, a little orange light appeared on the dash board. The car seemed fine but, looking it up in the manual, this light was an engine management warning light, or something like that.

Took it off to the garage and the bill came back for £2000!!! It wasn't even a major problem but as it made the light come on I had no choice.

The muppets then delivered the wrong car back to me.
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:26, Reply)

I voted Labour in 1997
talk about ripped off...
( barryheadwound Mul-ti-pass? Multipass!, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:19, Reply)

Garden wall
Shortly after my dad passed away, a gang of lads ran up our road and saw fit to push our garden wall over.

Now, it's fairly common that in circumstances like the above, friends and family have a tendency to profer what ever help they can. We were a bit broke and Mum was pleased when one of our neighbours, long standing friends of the family, and renowned stone mason offered to do our garden wall for us.

It took 3 weeks to complete. He used the old bricks from the wall. Where Mum thought it would be nice to have some stone's along the top of the wall, these were taken from the border of the garden, destroying it and strangely, the height of the wall was a lot lower than it was in the first place, but there were no left over bricks to be found. In short the cowboy provided labour and concrete and a crappy looking wall.
He charged Mum £500.

Nice bloke.

One of their daughters, my then best friend, used to discuss my teenage sexploits over their dinner table too, I found out, because her Mum worked with my neighbour at the local off-license and was openly telling her what a slapper I was.
( 99redbuffoons Reversed the polarity of the neutron flow at, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:11, Reply)

Audio equipment.
A while back I was looking for a 3.5mm to 3.5mm extention cord.

Dixons 2.4m cable 20QUID!!!!, local cheapo elctronics place, 5m cable £2.50

Bastards!!
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:10, Reply)

Turkey in Turkey
On holiday to Turkey my hapless father ended up paying the equivalent of £17 in Turkish Lira for some raw Turkey and a bottle of Coke. The trick is the shopkeeper pretends they can't speak English, so they type out the price on a calculator and show you the display.
They assume you cough up. However, should you point out that the decimal place seems to be a digit further right than it should be they say "Oh, sorry sorry sorry, here, please." and show you the ACTUAL price.

Fucking rip-off merchants praying on tourists!

Also at Reading festival I ended up paying £7 for a plate of noodles and a bottle of Fanta.
Disgruntled, I went to get myself a Mr. Whippy.

The bloke asked me for £3.50 for ONE Mr. Whippy sans-flake.

I told him to shove his Whippy up his expleative.
(Dooley, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:07, Reply)

Oooh, I'm right ranty today...
As a dyed in the wool Northerner living in that London, it’s my God given right to complain about being ripped off on an hourly basis.

But not for much longer, as I’m sodding off across the pond (*) as I’ve got a nice shiny new job there (well, for at least 12 months). So I’m looking at booking a flight and I thought I’d check out Bastard Airways (sorry, British Airways) prices.

1. A return ticket is about £520. Problem is I have no intention of coming back till at least January, so I looked at single tickets. £550. Why? WHY?

2. On the website BA states that sporting equipment is flown for free and lists all the types of stuff it includes - golf clubs, scuba gear, bike parts or sporting guns. I (to my eternal shame) partake in the most pretentious of all sports, Fencing. So I rang the call centre to ask if they could check whether my kit bag would count as sporting equipment, what with it being equipment used for a sport. No. £120 excess bag charge. So I waved my lavender scented hanky at them in disgust. I’d fly Branson’s Ginger Airlines, but they’re even more expensive. Bah.

(*) If there’s any Chicago based b3tards out there who want to be my friend, I’ll be moving to Hyde Park in July. Gaz me, I’m dead nice, honest. Well, quite nice. Okay, I’m a misanthropic old bitch, but hey, I like kittens, so I can’t be all bad.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:07, Reply)

How Much?!!!!!!
Zero Degrees in Bristol once tried to charge me £1.80 for a pint of tap water.

I "accidentally" knocked it over as I was going into my bag to get my money. Then I decided I didn't want it anymore.

That showed them, didn't it boys and girls...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 13:06, Reply)