Tell me about a time you accidentally overpaid for something because you were too embarrassed to back out

[FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop]

For me it was when I was a Uni student, visiting family in France and went into a little French boutique that had reasonably priced trinkets - €10-€20. I picked up a purse simply because I needed a new one, assuming it was €20 as it was on a table with other €20 stuff. €135 I couldn't speak French very well and was too embarrassed to put it back so forked out. That was my food money for the month. I survived for the next 3 weeks on pot noodles and plain jacket potatoes

I came close , in a lovely small kids shoe shop with my 18 month old 13 years ago . Nothing had prices , tried on boots and I said yes they’re fine expecting them to be around £50/£55 .
Assistant put them in a bag and said that’s £97 please 😳 I got my purse out and pretended I’d forgotten my bank card .

£80 for 3 steaks at the butchers counter in an independent mini supermarket type shop. The price was displayed per weight and I didn't have a clue how much 3 steaks might weigh. They had wrapped them up and handed them to me with a price sticker on before I realised, so didn't feel able to say no.

And about 18 years ago as a skint student I felt obliged to fork out £30 for 2 gin and tonics at a club in London for a friend's birthday. We made the drinks last as long as possible and then made our excuses to leave.

Mine is a fabric one.
I got the beautiful Brora viscose tea dress in the sale for about £30. Dh ripped the waistband, which had an integral belt, getting it out of the drier. I am a confident seamstress and I loved the dress so I went to the lovely fabric shop in my nearby city to find some fabric to replace the waistband and belt. They got me some similar weight viscose down from a high shelf and I naively didn’t ask the price as I only needed half a metre.
They wouldn’t sell me less than a metre and it was £40.
Needless to say I never dared cut into it and it is sitting there useless in my stash because it is too little to make anything other than a top and the colour is wrong for me to wear near my face. £40 for bloody viscose.

£14 for a watermelon in Greece.
I misunderstood that the displayed price was seemingly per kg/I was an easy target.

Two leather jackets in Beunos Aires
She also MARCHED me to the cash machine
I didn't really have enough

They were beautiful but I had no intention of buying two !!!

She was too much

All these butchers shop ones, I am always afraid of this happening so when I ordered my Christmas goose at a new butcher I said ‘please could you tell me roughly how much it’s likely to be?’ and she went, ‘I can’t tell you that because they’re still running round in a field now, happy.’

The watermelon reminds me of being in Majorca on the beach and someone was selling coconuts. I asked for one - I get them for about 70p at the supermarket so figured with a mark up maybe €5. The lady cracked it in half, emptied the milk onto the sand (annoying as I like it straight from the coconut) chopped up the meat, it was €10 - which made my toes curl a little, but the worst part was that it was a big family holiday with (now Ex) H's family...I have two coconut halves filled with little squares of coconut meat and asked if anyone wanted any. ExH's aunty and second cousin both came and took one half each off me walked away and sat down to eat them so I paid €10 for in laws I barely knew to eat coconut

I didn’t pay it as he wound me up that he tried to rip me off, but I went on holiday to Puerto Rico (the Gran Canadian one) back in 2002. I lived in ROI at that time so was paid in euros so it made it easier to compare prices.

I looked around the small market on the pier, there was a singing tat gorilla I wanted for my boyf as a joke. I asked how much and he said for you €80, I shrieked €80 as I thought I’d misheard and he’d said €8 so I just laughed and started to walk away. Then he starts running after me saying how much you want to pay and I said €10 and he shouted after me €15 for ages but he’d annoyed me trying to rip me off so off I went.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

All these butchers shop ones, I am always afraid of this happening so when I ordered my Christmas goose at a new butcher I said ‘please could you tell me roughly how much it’s likely to be?’ and she went, ‘I can’t tell you that because they’re still running round in a field now, happy.’

This is precisely why I avoid butchers too for large cuts of meat. Heard so many horror stories about people paying £150 etc for a Turkey!

What's with the escorting people to cash machines? Surely that must cross a line for everybody between sharp sales practices and downright criminally threatening behaviour?

I don't think even the police escort you to a cash machine when you have a fine to pay, do they? Much less a shopkeeper who refuses to let you decline a sales attempt!

We once went out to dinner with friends who were staying with us. It was our choice of restaurant and somewhere we'd been before and liked. There was a fixed price menu that wasn't exactly cheap but that we'd decided would be fine. A few things were accidentally ordered from the a la carte menu, I'm not exactly sure how but possibly due to confusion over the lunch and dinner menus as the waiter had brought both.

It came to £650 and I just could not believe what I was seeing when the bill arrived. We then had a flurry of activity to quickly get the bill paid and not let the friends see it or try to split it - they would have been equally horrified but felt obliged to share the cost, despite not being flush. So we quietly stumped up £600 for dinner with pretend smiles plasters on our faces and tried not to think about it again. My heart skips/sinks every time I remember it!

@Kylereese

I didn’t pay it as he wound me up that he tried to rip me off, but I went on holiday to Puerto Rico (the Gran Canadian one) back in 2002. I lived in ROI at that time so was paid in euros so it made it easier to compare prices.

I looked around the small market on the pier, there was a singing tat gorilla I wanted for my boyf as a joke. I asked how much and he said for you €80, I shrieked €80 as I thought I’d misheard and he’d said €8 so I just laughed and started to walk away. Then he starts running after me saying how much you want to pay and I said €10 and he shouted after me €15 for ages but he’d annoyed me trying to rip me off so off I went.

What is it with Puerto Rico and weird toys?! I went there when still married, we really actually couldn't afford the holiday as then-husband hadn't been working much but we had booked and paid for it ages before, and ended up having a tiny food budget each day. DD who was 3 at the time wanted this fugly purring cat toy that opened its mouth from a market stall, and it had the eyes of the devil. It should have been in a museum of ugly artefacts. €28!! That was our dinner budget, and I was so mad with then-husband for buying it rather than teaching DD she can't have everything she wants sometimes. We ended up eating hot dogs in the apartment that night with the creepy fucker staring at us

On holiday in Cuba , my DH and DD told a walk with DGD in her pram to a shop nearby. They came back saying they had been overcharged. This happened 3 times over the first week of the holiday . The shop priced things in 2 currencies, US dollars and Cuban money . The next time they went shopping I went with them and added up their purchases in my head as we went round . At the till we found out where they were going wrong . The staff were counting it up as Cuban money but saying the total in US dollars .
They told me the high price in dollars and I just told them they were wrong . They accepted this and we gave them the correct amount .
My DH made me go on any shop visits after that .

I'm usually very careful about comparing prices for online purchases but about 2 years ago I was looking at information on security. I started getting pop ups about personal security alarms. I ignored for a bit as they were priced about £20 and I saw no need but started to read about dangerous situations women had been saved from by having an alarm. And offers to get 6 for £60 and wouldn't they be good presents? I paid by card before realising the company was based in the USA and had to pay P&P. I should have cancelled straightaway as they took weeks to arrive, I had to pay extra £17 for customs, they were basic model and I found them for about 12-15 pounds for 6 with a torch function on Amazon. I have never used it and nor have the friends I gave them to. I use a pop up blocker now.

@Biffsboys

I came close , in a lovely small kids shoe shop with my 18 month old 13 years ago . Nothing had prices , tried on boots and I said yes they’re fine expecting them to be around £50/£55 . Assistant put them in a bag and said that’s £97 please 😳 I got my purse out and pretended I’d forgotten my bank card .

Yes, WHY don't shoe shops for kids display the prices??? Do Clarks still do that? You'd go in, ask for your child to be measured and then they're bring you a selection and you'd have no idea what they all cost!

I spent £9 yesterday on 4 cheese scones. But I don’t begrudge a penny of it as they’re frickin amazing!!

Worst one was $25 on 6 pieces of baclava in Monterey Bay California. I bloody love baclava and it was a posh little boutique store with the price per kg on a little sign, but I had no idea how much my little box of pastry would weigh. By the time I’d chosen my 3 flavours, he’d popped them in a posh box and put a ribbon around them I felt I couldn’t say no when he told me the total!

They weren’t even very nice

I also paid £5.60 each for some very tiny eclairs in London recently. They were delicious but not £5.60 delicious. I just had to know why they were so expensive. I think the answer is “London. Pretty box. French name”.

Oh and a ‘traditional’ Finnish meal in Lapland including bear broth and teeny tiny reindeer chops . Was £100 for two of us (no alcohol) and we ended up going for a McDonalds afterwards as we were still hungry.

I'd not had roast lamb for years when suddenly I got the urge to have it so walked into my local butcher and asked if she had a leg of lamb. "Yeah" she said, "half or whole?" Caught unawares with no time to think I replied cheerily, 'Whole', thinking that a whole leg wasn't that big and would do me 2 or 3 meals. I expected it to be about a tenner, maybe 15 tops. She went down to the basement, came back with it, wrapped it up, weighed it and plonked in on the counter in front of me.

"£38 please."

I just froze. No way could I back out now, I just had to pay it and pretend I was not remotely surprised by the price.

Skiing one.

We were in a reasonably modest ski resort, but it was a couple of hours to ski across to one of the most expensive ski resorts in France. I didn't really understand this though... We'd got used to the prices of the mountain cafes and bars in our resort - not super cheap but about ten Euros for a hot chocolate and a sandwich.

Day four and we'd been skiing for a bit and we found this really cool looking mountain cafe/bar with a DJ and hammocks and oversized double deck chairs. The music was really good and we decided to stop for a drink. There were four of us, and we had: two hot chocolates, two small beers, four cheese and ham toasties and two portions of fries.

One hundred and fifteen Euros.

When I was twenty, my life revolved around the pub. On Christmas Eve, I went out with my best friend for a few drinks and on our way to the station I realised that I hadn't bought my mum a Christmas present.
'Luckily' the solution was at hand and a lovely man helped me pick out a wonderful present. I stepped out of Mappin & Webb with an Omega de Ville watch.
I couldn't afford it and it took more than a year to pay off the credit card bill, but nearly forty years later, it's still on her wrist.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

They kept ordering extra sides, champagne, more wine, whiskies etc then of course they decided to split the bill equally. I had to pay £120 for my £15 bit of veg and tap water. I tried to protest but was shouted down for being stingy and nean. I had to run outside to make a panicked call to my dad to ask him to transfer money to me to cover it.

I will never, ever understand how some people can demand money from somebody else, because they (presumably) weren't able to control their own consumption and need a sub - and then THEY are the mean and stingy one?!?!

You should have told them to bugger off! There is no way I would have paid and I was a very shy person

Thought of another.

For my wedding I wanted cupcakes alongside my wedding cake after being at another wedding and seeing a gorgeous cupcake tower, like the first picture below! Asked the bride about it, she'd paid £2.50 per cupcake but they were amazing, tall with iced peaks and each one decorated beautifully, flavours like chocolate orange and white chocolate and raspberry etc. They were the talk of the wedding! Sadly the supplier was miles away from where I lived, but my mum told me that she had a friend who had set up a cake business. I said great - emailed the woman a picture of this other cupcake tower and said just like these please, and a mix of chocolate orange and white chocolate flavours please. No problem, she said, and quoted £3 per cupcake. I ordered 50 and paid in advance.

Morning of the wedding me and mum went to collect them. they weren't cupcakes, they were buns, exactly like the one in the second picture, except they had a tiny sprinkling of hundreds and thousands on them. And they were all the same too. I was horrified - but could feel my mum tensing and making the "don't say anything" eyes at me. I asked the lady which ones were chocolate orange and which were white chocolate - she said "Oh they're just all plain sponge as I didn't have the ingredients". My mum did the chirpy "Oh how lovely that's fine isn't it Frangi, best be off thanks Susan so much".

We drove back With 50 shitty buns on my lap and I burst into tears in the car! My mum bless her tried to make out they were actually quite nice and really did I want fussy cupcakes 🙄 a grand total of 3 guests ate them, the other 47 went in the bin.

Feels like such an overreaction looking back but at the time I was so mad I'd been completely ripped off

I'd been looking for my Mother of the Bride outfit for ages and tried on a lovely dress and matching jacket for what I thought was £270. Daughter and I both loved it so went to the till to pay. Turns out it was £270 per item, £540! I'd picked up the matching handbag as well so couldn't really say I don't want it after all. Luckily I could afford it but I hadn't really wanted to spend that much on a one off outfit.

RobotandPenguin you married the man who's brother and friends treated you like that?
Did he not stick up for you or tell them to stop being arseholes?

Fleeced for some feta & olives at a food event years ago.

Recently went to w vegan market. Stall holder offered DS some juice, he'd been saying before he was thirsty. He tried a few, decided on one he liked so I bought it. £6!!! £6 for 300ml fruit juice. I was so angry.