Present Day RIP OFFS....

[SpeedoGuy]

* "Fuel" surcharges on airline tickets. What the hell was I paying for before being charged for the airplane's fuel? Same goes for "baggage" surcharges.

* Quick oil change places like JiffyLube and Oil Can Henry's. Service has gotten slower while the prices have risen far faster than inflation. And they always pressure the customer to buy overpriced extras during the oil change.

* Mandatory restaurant "gratuity" charges. Why call it a gratuity if its mandatory? Sorry, but I'll be the judge of what's an appropriate tip for wait service.

* Exta mortgage charges such as "loan orgination fee" and the like. Jesus. Aren't I already paying a huge fee to the lender for the next, say, 30 years?

* Basic home landline telephone taxes and surcharges. These actually outweigh the costs of my basic phone service subscription. No kidding.

* Car towing recovery fees. Anyone who has experienced it knows what legalized robbery and extortion is.

 

[cdarro]

What in your estimation are rip offs? Things that are not worth what you end up paying for them.


Here are my top 4...

1. Ticketmaster service charges - I recently bought concert tickets for about 40 bucks and there was a $12 service charge Ticket master tacked on. Where do they get off on charging over 25% for selling tickets?

2. Autobody/Repair Shop fees- I paid $800 bucks to get a bumper replaced- just under the $1000 deductible from my insurance so all out of my pocket. The fucking bumper they got from a junk yard which cost them about 20 bucks to pull off from some wreck.

3. Any hospital stay - NOTHING is worth $3000 for an overnight stay. I don't care how sick you are. Can you imagine spending $90,000 for a month's stay at a hospital? Basically if you don't have health insurance you're financial life is toast.

Yah, agree with the first 2, particularly the 2nd. Car was dinged in a parking lot, cost $600 to sand and paint an area the size of your hand.

Hospital stays are not a concern here, as provincial health plan pays.

Cable TV fees piss me off no end. Ridiculously expensive, but where I live they're a monopoly, so you have no choice.

 

[tray22nc]

I've heard other Jews say things like that just as I've heard black people refer to each other as, nigger, and Italians use, guinea, or, WOP. I even refer to my cheapness as being due to my Dutch or Scots ancestry.

This doesn't make it ok in any way shape or form.

New Yorkers are pretty used to comments like this. I think we're just less PC than some other places.

Location is no excuse for ignorance.

 

[earllogjam]

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* Car towing recovery fees. Anyone who has experienced it knows what legalized robbery and extortion is.

Yes sir, I forgot about this one. I had my car towed in LA once. Not only was it expensive to get my car out of hock but it was a pain in the ass trying to find out what tow truck company and lot my car was impounded in. Took half a day as no one, no one knew who towed what. It was like a money grabbing free for all for the towing companies. On top of the tow fee I had to go to the police station first to pay the parking ticket for them to release the car. It's a racket.

 

[Skull Mason]

$20 for unlimited text messges

 

[B_theOtherJJ]

Anyone take a cab lately ? $10 to go 3 blocks..

 

[B_theOtherJJ]

90,000 mile check-up at the Honda dealership - over $500. This was with a 10% coupon, and minus the tire rotation that I get done elsewhere. They said I would need new front disc brakes by the next oil change but another place said they were only half worn.

LOL - my car is a 98 Maxima, but only has 20,000 miles. They insisted I have the 100k checkup because of the cars age, and billed me $1200, for labor and parts (parts they said I needed, but I never saw the old parts they claim they replaced)...

1 week Hospital stay for kidney stones = $56,000

I needed a new fridge, and purchased it thru my apt complex. They added the cost as a monthly increase to my rent, but it never ends. It is a constant increase, seems some clause in my lease I was unaware of. that fridge will probably end up costing me $100,000

 

[B_theOtherJJ]

Cable tV bills ???? whats up with that .....

 

[cdarro]

Cable tV bills ???? whats up with that .....

Ridiculously expensive where I live, and only one company so no choice, frequent service interruptions, customer service a rumor at best...etc., etc.

 

[FuzzyKen]

Fuzzy Ken's List of Rip-Off's

Any of the Following Infomercials: Klee Irwins Colon cleansers and the statement of 47 pounds of fecal matter in John Wayne's Colon. (Sorry, I come from a medical family, that is physically impossible). Any Infomercial with the words. "That they don't want you to know....." Any Infomercial implying the availability of tax lein properties for $100 that are not the equivalent of swamp land in Florida. Any commercial that says their device or additive will greatly boost the fuel mileage of my vehicle. Any infomercial that implies that you can make $100,000 in the stock market with no money invested.

Penis Enlargement based on herbal preparations

Diesel Fuel higher than Gasoline when diesel is a byproduct of gasoline production.

Oil Companies deliberately reformulating fuel to decrease vehicle fuel mileage and increase the consumption

Tiered electric Bills where nobody can ever reach the low levels because a 100 watt lightbulb would be too much usage.

Credit Card Company Policies in General

Automobile Manufacturers who pay more attention to the Accounting Department than the engineering Department.

Microsoft and the never ending patches for "Windows".

The United States Post Office

Any and all Medical Insurance Providers

Automobile Insurance Companies that do not base rates on a driving record.

Any Attorney that says I will fix any of the above and it won't cost you!

 

[lucky8]

American cell phone service

cable tv

car insurance

text books (I spent $900 on 5 books at the university bookstore. Then I realized I could get each one for at least 50% less online, so I returned them...ridiculous profit margin considering students are usually poor)

a bottle of pop (you wish I'd pay $2 for a 2 liter...)

pretty much all food, as most items have been downsized in quantity and increased in price

come to think of it, most things in America have been way overvalued the last few years in my opinion...

 

[lucky8]

.

Penis Enlargement based on herbal preparations

I wouldn't be so quick on that one. When I was a freshman in college, I was at a friend's apartment, went to take a piss, and saw a big bottle of herbal enlargement pills in her cousin's bathroom. Naturally, I took a handful to see what would happen. I took 1 a day for about 2 weeks (these pills were fuckin enormous), and after 2-3 days, I literally had stretch marks...and definitely had a noticable gain in girth after only 2 weeks. Granted, after I ran out of pills that was that, but I still wonder that if I took those things for like 3-4 months if they'd keep doing what they did. But I suppose that's how they get ya...

 

[D_Relentless Original]

Car Insurance.
Extended warranties.
Credit card interest.
IKEA - where you buy a blind and have to buy the fittings then the screws seperate.

 

[Meniscus]

My personal pet peeve when it comes to rip-offs is the cost of replacement cartridges for razors. Before Gillette came out with the Mach 3, I used to pay about $6 for a pack of 5 replacement cartridges, so that's a little more than $1 each. Now, it costs about $13 for a 5-pack of Mach 3 cartridges (that's $2.60 each), $15 for a 5-pack of Mach 3 Turbo cartridges ($3 each), $15 for a 4-pack of Fusion cartridges ($3.75 each).

I agree with almost everything else other people said. I'm going to comment of just a few of them.

What in your estimation are rip offs? Things that are not worth what you end up paying for them.

Here are my top 4...

...3. Any hospital stay - NOTHING is worth $3000 for an overnight stay...

I've never had to stay overnight, but I have had to pay hundreds of dollars for an emergency room visit. Even with insurance, there's often a co-pay (mine is $75) and/or a deductible (mine is $100), then you get billed by the hospital, by the doctor, and by the lab and/or radiology. As far as I'm concerned, not only are they charging you 3 times for the same service, but they are overcharging each time.

90,000 mile check-up at the Honda dealership - over $500...

Huh, my 30,000 mile check-up cost over $600. Now I feel even more ripped off than I already did.

Cable TV fees piss me off no end. Ridiculously expensive, but where I live they're a monopoly, so you have no choice.

Fewer than 10 years ago, "standard" cable cost less than $30 a month. Comcast doesn't offer standard cable in my area anymore--you have to get a digital package. I've still got the standard package because I've been grandfathered in, but a lot of the channels I used to get are now only available in a digital package, so I'm now paying over $60 a month for fewer channels.

The simplest digital package only costs about $5 more per month than what I'm paying now, but that's not including the rental fees for the cable box, the remote, and whatever other miscellaneous fees they charge. This is one industry that desperately needs competition.

Considering how infrequently I watch TV, I am in no way, shape, or form getting my money's worth.

Basic home landline telephone taxes and surcharges. These actually outweigh the costs of my basic phone service subscription. No kidding.

I feel essentially the same way about this as I do about the cost of cable TV. I remember when basic phone service was about $20 a month. Now I'm paying about $60 a month, and I hardly ever use the phone. If I paid $1 a minute it would probably cost me less.

 

[DiscoBoy]

"Batteries not included..."

pretty much all food, as most items have been downsized in quantity and increased in price

Although a rip off, I think it's for the best. Obesity rates are way too high.

 

[B_Hung Jon]

To me the biggest rip off is for people who have poor or no credit. In order for them to get a credit card, they have to pay a series of "fees". There's a yearly fee of $69; a one time set-up fee of $59; and a monthly service fee of $19.95. By the time it's all said and done, you get $200 worth of credit on a card for nearly that much in fees. What a scam.

 

[midlifebear]

*

* Basic home landline telephone taxes and surcharges. These actually outweigh the costs of my basic phone service subscription. No kidding.

* Car towing recovery fees. Anyone who has experienced it knows what legalized robbery and extortion is.

SpeedoGuy: You may be even more pissed to know that hidden in the basic landline telephone tax is about a 60 cent tax that was implemented back in 1969 to continue to subsidize the Viet Nam War. Seems both Democrats and Republicans liked that tax so much they failed to repeal it after the military ran like rats leaving Saigon like a sinking ship back in 1975. Yup, you´re still paying for what was originally a ``temporary´´war tax.

From my far-away perspective, the two biggest rip offs in the USA are health care and pharmaceuticals (medicine). My cousin was complaining to me that she had just be diagnosed as having acid reflux and that Nexium (which her doctor had written a prescription) cost her U$S60+ for 30 capsules. The same drug manufactured by the same drug company can be bought over-the-counter in Spain, France, México, Central and South America for approximately 3€ (or 15 Pesos in Argentina -- about U$S5).

However, she insists she has the best medical care in the world. :tongue:

 

[D_Portelay Porquesword]

Anything realted to medical needs.
Interest rates on credit cards.

 

[blg3floor3]

What's not a ripoff these days?

My biggest annoyances though are car dealership service department labor rates and body shop labor rates. You see people all the time that need thousands of dollars in repairs of some kind, then you look at the invoice and there's only like $30 in parts and the rest is labor.

Yup, you´re still paying for what was originally a ``temporary´´war tax.

That's the story of our economic life though. Whenever the price for shit goes up for some temporary reason, it never goes back down. If it does, it's not by much. Temporary tax this, temporary toll that, temporary price hike this, temporary price hike that - they're always permanent. I think they use words like "temporary" and "short term" as some kind of effort to pacify people and get them to accept it. It seems that the excuse a lot of the time is "well now that your bitching has died down and you've gotten used to paying the tax/toll/higher-price, why should we lower it?"

 

[SpeedoGuy]

text books (I spent $900 on 5 books at the university bookstore. Then I realized I could get each one for at least 50% less online, so I returned them...ridiculous profit margin considering students are usually poor)

Yah. I forgot to mention that textbook racket.

I feel essentially the same way about this as I do about the cost of cable TV. I remember when basic phone service was about $20 a month.

My basic landline fee is $13 a month. Taxes, surcharges and other niggling fees add another $14 to the bill. Amazing.

Yes sir, I forgot about this one. I had my car towed in LA once. Not only was it expensive to get my car out of hock but it was a pain in the ass trying to find out what tow truck company and lot my car was impounded in.

I recall one very bad experience I had with a car tow in college.

I spent a similar amount of time just locating my car (and it was well past midnight before I finally did). In order to get my car released from the tow company's fortress, er, I mean, storage compound, I had to negotiate my way via intercoms through code-locked doors in twin 20 foot high chain link fences topped with razor sharp concertina wire (and guarded by snarling dogs who seemed capable of jumping that fence). Then I had to open my wallet and visibly display $150 cash in my hand and advance slowly under floodlights to a bulletproof door at the office and hand the money in through a small metal window before I was buzzed inside so I could recover my car.

It was infuriating to be treated as, well, a San Quentin inmate.