one day a woman was walking by our high school
and called us over - we were the only people who hung around this particular side of the school. Anyway she'd found a watch, which she gave to us to hand in as lost property, but we kept it. Anyway I offered to give my friend money so I could keep it. He wanted $10, but I knew he was hanging out for a smoke, and that cigarettes cost $5 a packet, so I offered him $5. Which he accepted. The watch lasted me several years after that. I used to tell everyone it was a Benneton watch, but it's just occured to me that it was probably a fake. So whoever lost the watch, the woman, my friend and me all got ripped off.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 10:07, Reply)

LOLerskates
75 cents a cup?? Thats about 38p!!!

I recently bought a small cup of coke for a whopping £1.75. Thats about $3.50!

The thirst overrode my indignation :(
(Mogg Questioned her own sanity on, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 9:20, Reply)

my car failed its m.o.t
so i bought a new fuel tank and asked my mechanic cousin to fit it. the job took 2 hours and i helped. he charged me 80 fucking quid. now it might be me but charging your own cousin 40 pound per hour when he had been out of work for two months and had fitted him a new bathroom suite for fucking pennies only a month before is classed as a rip off. it still boils my piss to think of this.
(studdley ruffrod no crack too slack, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 7:13, Reply)

LOLerskates
Re: www.b3ta.com/questions/rippedoff/post72356/

If our American friend LOLerskates feels ripped off by the prices (s)he pays then I can't help but feel that the whole of the United Kingdom is being ripped off because LOLerskates' school lunch menu seems very reasonable (when converted to £) compared to anywhere I've been here.

Bugger!
(wonderbrawl was pronounced dead on, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 4:14, Reply)

As below
i will never buy anything from Roadrunner Records again.

i got ripped off today, so we finished off a few IT installs at a 6th form in birmingham and on the way home i was dying for drink, bottle of coke £1.60 (average size 500ml) awful price at an awful garage!
((((InfraSound))) SUNN0))) > YOU!, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 1:47, Reply)

Strip Joint Moaners!
Hello gullible folk, who have been moaning about £10/pint lager, £45 "service fee" for the dubious pleasure of the deeply disinterested company of someone's booze-raddled old granny!

These are not "strip joints", rather "clip joints".

They are typified by:

a) Probably not having a booze license, therefore falling outside the normal regulatory oversight by selling alcohol free drinks. This is publicised in 3 point text on their drinks list, which you never get to see anyway.

b) Promising saucyness and possibly even sex, which never, ever materialises.

c) Using subtle and not so subtle threats of violence to persuade mugs, sorry, customers to pay their surprising and extortionate bills.

d) Relying on the mug's shame and / or transient presence (in the case of tourists) to avoid the involvement of the feds. Having said that, the utterly brazen operation of some of these joints may lead some to wonder if the forces of law and order aren't being subsidised in order that they chose to look the other way.
(apologies_for_length, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 1:13, Reply)

Murderdolls / Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 albums
Those ARE a rip off!

When the Murderdolls album came out, I did some research. And promptly discovered that in a fair quantity if the tracks were fact Murderdolls tracks were originally F.D.Q's.

Turns out Wednesday 13's first band was getting nowhere. So, "What a wizard wheeze" it was to get Joey Jordison and a guy from Static X to fool the entire world with a new band and *allegedly* new tracks.

Miss Pantenewoman couldn't care less, blindly defends them and purchased the re-issue with 5 "new bonus tracks". Again, they are F.D.Q. tracks.

The great rock swindle indeed.

Speaking of this, it seems to be Roadrunner Records favorite pass-time to re-release albums with killer bonus tracks and extra linage notes written by Blah Blah.

This said, the cynical / luddite could argue that DVD's are a swindle vs VHS. Complaining of paying an extra couple of quid for "Cool bonus features and out takes".

Which has now been restarted by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Great!
(Panteneman Isn't entirely sure why he bothered on, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 1:00, Reply)

born, work, die
i worked for about a week for south west water in 2003

they paid me £6.75 / hour

the bastard shareholders made £75 million profit that year, partly thank to me

i feel used
(globalloon, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 1:00, Reply)

They reel me in like flies to faecal matter...
Getting ripped off happens more times than what is deemed normal for me.

(1)Frequent purchase of CD's and DVD’s that in a rival shop are invariably a couple of quid cheaper.

(2)The siren like allure of cheap booze. Some shady character came around flogging booze, and I purchased what appeared to be a cheap £10 bottle of JD. NOPE. It was in fact a bottle of JD filled with cold tea, very carefully sealed with black masking tape that to the casual glance perfectly replicated the seal. ANYTHING could have been in the bottle that could have fucking killed me!! Arse!!

(3)Purchasing a BT Hub Phone, for my newly acquired BT Home Hub DSL router (great connection speed, but the phone dock that you plug into the router makes it look like a Gnome's urinal). Bought one for £65, in a bid war on eBay. I could have bought it from BT themselves for £50, seeing as I am an existing customer with a BT Home Hub. Fuck socks!

Ripped someone else off because of eBay band-wagoning, unwittingly. I sold a radio alignment tool (frequency counter) for £67 at bid end, when you can clearly get the same item from Waters and Stanton for £49.99

It's cool when you reverse the situation and be the giver of ripping off, especially a shop or business. Panteneman SNR purchased a Electronic Organiser (those deely's that were around before PDA's were created) for £15, to be given a model that was two versions cooler than what he initially purchased (which was normally £40).

I could crash this website with occurrences of being ripped off....
(Panteneman Isn't entirely sure why he bothered on, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 0:51, Reply)

Haruki Murakami
I love the Japanese author Murakami Haruki. A lot of other people do. I lived in Japan for two years, and when I came back I brought back several copies of his first novel, only ever available in English in his native country, due to his being embarrassed by it and only wanting Japanese people to be able to buy it and use it to study English. It was about £3 to buy over there I was getting about three times that on eBay. Then one guy sent me a message asking what edition I was selling. I told him it was a first edition, not realising that it wasn't.

It went for thirty quid. It was printed last year. I felt very bad indeed.
(Fuiru Sting, where is thy death?, Sat 17 Feb 2007, 0:39, Reply)

My school is full of cheap imbeciles, evidently.
Why, you ask? Well...
Let me tell you some of the crazy things we spend our money on. Then, think as to whether or not the choices as to where my school spends taxpayers' money is absolutely bonkers.

SCHOOL BUILDING: $5.9 million (flooring, etc. included)

LOCKERS: $300,000 (too bad the 'tards bought the WRONG ONES--WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE FULL LOCKERS, NOT THE SHODDY TOP OR BOTTOM ONES!!! Go figure; this year I've got a bottom one... ::hates locker:: And NO, they didn't send the wrong lockers back; they just decided to keep them)

FOOTBALL STADIUM: $280,000 (it sucks anyways, and so does our football team... why I still root for them I'll never know)

FENCING AROUND FOOTBALL STADIUM: $100,000 (What the crap?!?!?!? People can still hop over it anyways--kinda reminds me of our national border with Mexico... lawlz...)

NEW CHEERLEADERS' UNIFORMS FOR 2006 - 2007 SCHOOLYEAR: $5,000 (No comment--would get too irate if I tried to justify that huge expense for a pretend sport {no offense if any of you were/are cheerleaders; our school's cheerleaders just sit around and do things like not eat, so I think they don't deserve any new uniforms})

NEW FOOTBALL PLAYERS' UNIFORMS FOR 2006 - 2007 SCHOOLYEAR: $20,000 (Our football season sucked. However, we sure did look suave, even while we sucked!)

ALSO...
Our school lunch menu is all a la carte--we don't get government funding because we have soda (and crappy soda at that). Therefore, our prices are gigundously inflated, like:

SODA: 75 cents a cup
CROISSANT SANDWICH: $1.50 each
FRENCH FRIES: 75 cents a bag
NACHOS: $1.25 (cheese is an extra 25 cents, if you can believe that)

Food may or may not be fresh; do a sniff-check before buying the overpriced item(s) and you should be fine.

That's all; sorry I don't know the UK conversions for the money. If you live in the US, you'll understand just how much they're milking me of my last pennies.
(Mademoiselle Dustman picked a bouquet of oopsie daisies for you on, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 23:26, Reply)

Ere Mate...Wanna Buy A Pair Of Speakers?


That was me for a bit, that was...
Apologies to anyone still labouring under the delusion that you can buy £1500 Studio Monitors from cockneys in unmarked Transit vans. Paid for a month in Ibiza...you fackin muppets.
( wotofco pissing in your swimming pool, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 23:15, Reply)

Car
I had a Fiat Uno once.

I would have been better off digging a hole, throwing in some money and setting fire to it.

Having an Italian car counts as being ripped off. Admittedly we're not in Alfa Romeo territory, but I was 19...

I'll post about the Punto later, but I'm tired, emotional and drunk.

Size. Meh.
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 23:07, Reply)

drinks
In a Thai restaurant in Manchester - 2 cocktails ordered.

Caipirhinia, a Brazilian drink made with a spirit called Cachaca (£5 a bottle), lime and ice - mainly ice.

£8 each!! EIGHT POUNDS!

Robbing bastards.
( scoshi pretending to diet since, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 22:51, Reply)

Stung By Toyota
Bought an Avensis recently which was just out of warranty. Driver's window switch won't work. No problem I think- one little switch must be cheap and easy to replace. WRONG! £98 quid and a complete door switch panel later (can't buy just one, have to buy the lot even though the rest worked no problem!)Took me 30 seconds to fit. Toyota wanted another £60 to do that ffs!

Great cars but parts are definitely a rip-off!
(CatPeeFactor, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 22:49, Reply)

Supermarkets
Every single last time I go to ASDA, Lidl (I'm a student, forgive me ;) it seems they always try and bill me twice for something. Twunts. Anyway I always give them what for and get my cash back, once when it happened at Tesco's the nice lady just handed me some pound coins for my trouble.

Yeah I don't lead the most interesting of lives :)
( theniwokeup has been awake since, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 22:46, Reply)

Particle Accelerators
Advertised in a school science equipment catalog for only a few dollars each. What could they possibly be? Sounded a bit cheap for nuclear work, but we have to stay on the cutting edge. So we ordered about 30.

Small plastic ramps for rolling marbles off of desktops....
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 22:30, Reply)

Burger King
Too many years ago when I was a student, the local Burger King very kindly gave out vouchers for a free whopper at one of the bars.

The vouchers didn't have any restrictions (non of this "only valid when Burger king is closed" rubbish) and best of all they where made using a photocopier.

There must have been about 20 people from my halls using the universitys photocopiers for this.

Lasted almost a month before Burger King refused to take them.
(Mookfish, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 22:18, Reply)

You're going to be severely pissed off at me.
And I can't believe I'm going to tell you this, for it would get me fired.

Let's just say I occasionally work in a pub. And let's just say we don't have Smirnoff in the Smirnoff bottles. We had cheap Vladivir Vodka. My boss kept the good stuff for himself. We also had a £4.99 70cl bottle of bourbon instead of Jack Daniels. And a lot of the time, we connected the Stella draft to a Carling pump.

Hey.. it was all my boss' idea. I was an innocent puppet. Made quite the profit though.

[This is how much I love b3ta. I'd rather post a QOTW answer than secure a nice high-paying job.]
(__, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 22:09, Reply)

I sortof rip off charities...
Ripping off, eh? Depends on how you look at it.
Because I have a hideous disease, I get some measly sick person's benefit, but it's paltry, so I have an ingenious way of boosting it.
See, being diseased means that you have a lot of free time to fill, so I go around all the charity shops looking at foul unwanted tat. Thing is, I know quite a bit about antiques, and as a result I buy things for bugger all from these charities, then roll in fat virtual profits when I sell them on Fleabay.
My god-bothering sister-in-law finds it uncomfortable, but as her god has chosen to inflict disease on me, they can both go swivel.
(Elizabeth Duke at Argos, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 20:39, Reply)

Cookies
I sold cookies at my school, exclusively to my class (because I couldn't be bothered to market them around school). I sold them at 30p a cookie, which was the same price as the cafe in the school, but mine were better/a shorter walk. Seems fair? Well, I was making 200% profit (20p of that 30p was pure money for me), and in 10 weeks, made 250 quid out of roughly 15 people, and each day was taking home 4 quid profit.
But that makes me think: How much money must bloody Starbucks be making at 1 quid a cookie? (a cookie with ingredients at trade price). Or Caffe Nero at 2.40 for a slice of cheesecake, with 16 slices in it, that costs about 10 quid (or less) to make and package?
We're all being swindled, make your own cheesecake and cookies! (Or buy them from me)
Bloody corporations and monopolies (even though I was one)

PS: I have shares in British Gas, Centrica and National Grid, does that make me evil? I'm quite happy since they just gave me a 14 pound dividend.
(RooRooRasputin Lover of the Russian Queen, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 20:08, Reply)

ripped off (other people, not me)
I used to work at a local football club behind the bar in the early 90's. I occasionally worked with an old married couple called Rhoda and JIm. Rhoad was a bit of a battleaxe who wouldn't take shit from anyone, even though she was 2 foot nothing. Anyway on one occasion we ran out of the bottled minerla water. As they had screw tops she filled the bottles from the tap and put them back in the fridge. Even worse was during an evening wedding party when we ran out of sliced lemon. Rhoda went out collecting glasses, hooked out the used lemon slices and if they looked intact, run them under the tap and put them back in the tub. It was late by then so every one was pissed so I don't think anyone noticed.
( nikdude, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 20:02, Reply)

Bought a nice laptop from Currys
for my degree work.

After a couple of months the screen started flickering so one Friday I took it back and was told to ring early next week.

I rang on the Monday but nobody knew anything about it. Alarmed, I drove down there and demanded to know what was going on.

Turns out that instead of sending it off as agreed, the wankers had just left it open on a work surface 'to observe the fault'. They then swore that it had not gone wrong in that time and so was not eligible for repair under guarantee.

I was furious. I went home, rang the manufacturers, and had the laptop collected by courier and returned 5 days later with a new screen, all free under guarantee.

I wonder what they were really doing with it?
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 19:56, Reply)

One of those Quizcall lines
Last August there I was "volunteered" (ie do it or walk) to help out in a telephone repair department for a certain big UK residential company. We were very undertrained, but managed to pick up the role as we progressed. One issue that did crop up alot however, was this after-midnight Premium Line phone-in line called "Quizcall". Now at the time, this used the same Premium number as "Richard and Judy" did in the day. But what it also did was that it would randomly remember a number which dialled this (either Quizcall or Rich and Jude) and then repeatedly say that they called them about 100+ times and bill them about £60-£70 a night. This obviously didn't discriminate, and caused shedloads of elderly people who had called that twat couple to receive phonebills in excess of £300-£400 a time. A quick look on google and I was able to see that other companies were starting to get the same issue too. It took 3 to 4 months of sorting this out, partly by me nagging every one of them to contact ICSTIS (a Telephony governing body) and report the Quizcall cockup. What was bad though was that because it wasn't our company's cockup, alot of customers ended up paying the bill. Telling a granny that she has to pay a £100+ bill when she gets £40 pension a week is not nice (I managed to get most of the bills down for them though with some manager victimisation skills).

PS Medibot - thought so :) I spoke to a guy who worked for Brit Gas who rang in to fix his Broadband; he lived in a one bedroomer and only used a calor gas heater; got whacked himself for £450. Apparently he stood in the centre screaming at one of the managers who wouldn't initially take his word for it and continued until they adjusted it lol. If it takes that much effort for staff to sort out if it is a genuine fault, we (as in the public) are in the deep shit :(

PPS Legless; see? It changed the polarity of the telephone exchange :p
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 19:09, Reply)

Ripped off
I ordered some print cartridges from a company called esumables.com. I had to spend ages chasing up the order (receiving a load of abuse when I did so, it was like Fawlty Towers) and when the cartridges did finally arrive, they'd sent the wrong ones. I have been unable to make contact with them since.

Not funny I know, but if this warns B3tans off getting shafted by this company, it's worth it.
(eesnahk, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 18:53, Reply)

He was desperate...
Managed to sell someone about half a teenth of hash at the pub for £10, a pint, and some weed the next day.

Score.
(Hoad, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 18:29, Reply)

Gordon Brown - Robbing Bastard.
I've just been looking for a birthday present for my niece (am off sick, so can't make it to the shops). I'm on the website for a shop that sounds a bit like UperUg.

Turns out the govenment charges us tax on suncream, condoms and the morning after pill. Don't use 'em and let the NHS fund the cost?
(Lupetherabbit Went straight into smirk mode on, Fri 16 Feb 2007, 17:24, Reply)