Present Day RIP OFFS....

[jason_els]

Location is no excuse for ignorance.

Nor is it an excuse for intellectual censorship disguised by moral indignation.

 

[B_theOtherJJ]

EYEGLASSES ????? $400+ bucks for a piece of plastic with a designer name on it...

The ultimate rip-off, YET, people are gobbling them up like they are becoming extinct. AH, the price of fashion....!

 

[Pye]

Nor is it an excuse for intellectual censorship disguised by moral indignation.

Sweet!

 

[Pye]

how about places advertising special prices "with card"
I'm in your store...have a single price on an item...don't make me jump through hoops

 

[TurkeyWithaSunburn]

EYEGLASSES ????? $400+ bucks for a piece of plastic with a designer name on it...

The ultimate rip-off, YET, people are gobbling them up like they are becoming extinct. AH, the price of fashion....!

How about $1 a pair and adjustable?
Designer Focuses on Marketing Adjustable Eyeglasses at $1 a Pair: Scientific American

Not fashionable but the ULTIMATE in affordability :biggrin1:

 

[hud01]

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).

About forty years ago the razor companies realized that the money was in the blades, not in the razors which is why the razors themselves are so cheap. They get you hooked. Honestly, I use an electric unless I really want to have a good shave. So one pack of blades lasts me close to a year.

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



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.

You do realize that the other side of that bill is thousands. Hospitals are very expensive.

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

Honda?

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.

Then get a dish and get the lowest package. I find it hard to believe that there isn't a lower package available.

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.

I don't think you are trying hard enough. For about the same amount of money I have unlimited local and long distance, call waiting and voice mail. There must be a better package out there. If there isn't buy one of those pay as you go cell phones and drop the landline.

 

[deleted213967]

I was gonna say I hope to G-D that your are a Jew, but then I thought, it's even worse if you are one, and are using a derogatory slur against yourself!!! Where do people get off insulting others like that? As a Jew I am highly offended and ashamed for you! Just call yourself what you really are, a cheapskate, and stop hiding behind labels!!! Would it be any different if I used the word faggot or nigger in a slur just because everybody else uses it? People make me sick! Give people their respect and you might get some in return...

Did you mutilate God's name intentionally? I am highly offended by your blasphemous behavior and ashamed for you.

About the OP, I just got hit with a bumper repair too; same astronomical markup. The shop blamed it mostly on the labor involved in exactly matching the paint.

I think that whole integrated bumper look trend was a vast vertical auto industry conspiracy.

 

[tray22nc]

Did you mutilate God's name intentionally? I am highly offended by your blasphemous behavior and ashamed for you.

What? Mutilate? Jews typically do not write out GOD. We write it as G-D, so that we don't actually "destroy" or "erase" the name of G-D.
Not sure if you didn't know this or if you were just being a smart ass...lol

 

[tray22nc]

Nor is it an excuse for intellectual censorship disguised by moral indignation.

This is completely irrelevent to my comment. Simply because one may live in New York, he/she does not have carte blanche to be disrespectful to others. How does your reply relate to my comment?

 

[deleted213967]

What? Mutilate? Jews typically do not write out GOD. We write it as G-D, so that we don't actually "destroy" or "erase" the name of G-D.
Not sure if you didn't know this or if you were just being a smart ass...lol

I sit corrected...

As a nice segue, my late grandmother, who always claimed to be Jewish (yet never set foot in a synagogue), gave my parents instructions to arrange for a proper Jewish funeral, shortly before her death. My folks were shocked to find out what a rabbi would charge to officiate, compared to, say, a Catholic priest. Speaking of respect, the man didn't even have the decency to arrive on-time for the service.

Now, that's a rip-off.

 

[tray22nc]

I sit corrected...

As a nice segue, my late grandmother, who always claimed to be Jewish (yet never set foot in a synagogue), gave my parents instructions to arrange for a proper Jewish funeral, shortly before her death. My folks were shocked to find out what a rabbi would charge to officiate, compared to, say, a Catholic priest. Speaking of respect, the man didn't even have the decency to arrive on-time for the service.

Now, that's a rip-off.

WOW....that is HORRIBLE!
BUT, just as an aside, depending on which grandmother she was (maternal or paternal, YOU may be Jew-ish yourself! lol Atleast through your bloodline. )

 

[earllogjam]

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.

The real rip off with text books is selling them back. You get $0.10 on the dollar - even for a pristine copy with no yellow highlight marks. Even a GM car right off the lot doesn't depreciate that much after one semester.

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.

Was this place under the 280 freeway? They tag your car windshield with a big fat grease pen that takes about 3 months to wear off with constant rubbing. Also, the people who work at these tow yards are one step back on the evolutionary scale. They are perhaps the rudest, laziest, most irritating people on the face of the earth. Calling them dumb as dirt would be a compliment.