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

Buy a pair of trainers for my daughter tried them on price tag said 20 quid rang through the till at 45 me and husband looked at each other paid and walked out and laughed that we never said nothing but didn't want to look cheap but didn't want to spend that on trainers for 1 year old but at least the lasted for my other daughter so did get moneies worth lol..

Oh and another time. We moved into this nightmare of a house. Needed to replace fence. DH got this bloke to do it after receiving several quotes of £1k+. This bloke was charging £600. He sent his workers, they were quite intimidating so I kept out of their way. They did one side of the garden and started packing up, I went out and asked when the other two sides would be done - they laughed and said they were only doing one as that's what their boss has told them. I remember checking with this bloke it was 3 sides because I pointed to opposite end of garden with decking and asked what he'd do there to make it all level.

My DH was heartbroken, we spent so much money on this house. The bloke threatened us with legal action. We didn't have the quote because it was 'cash in hand'. Huge lesson learnt. We had to get someone else in to finish the job

Oh Frangipan I feel your pain! I’d have been livid!!

Just thought of another one $7 for a box of tampax at a pharmacy in Italy. Just stuffed some tissue in there instead until I could find a supermarket outraged I was.

£6 for 3 organic carrots from a farm shop just outside Pembrokeshire.

Tried on some glasses and somehow bought them. The whole time I was thinking how much?! But somehow they seemed to get ordered and made up . AnStill not sure how!

Harry Potter world!!

I picked up the hogwarts train decoration. (Bauble)
Not checking the price but assuming it was no more than £12. Got the the counter it was £28!
I was too embarrassed to put it back.

I’m not even a bloody fan of Harry Potter.

Nearly £30 for an Uber for a 10min journey.

Oh and about £8 for a 'customised' fizzy drink last time I went to the cinema. It wasn't worth it. :(

@SedentaryCat

2 bras for £160. They were lovely and fitted beautifully, I was just too shy to say no to the bra fitter. Not something I would have a problem with these days.

Every time I wore them I'd calculate how much each wear was costing me!

Strangely enough, the shop went bust. I guess there's no a market for £80 bras where I live.

That's not overpaying though, really. Good boob support costs good money.

Local American diner on a hot afternoon, 3 of us decided on milkshakes - I was expecting it to be made with ice cream and cream - nope ordinary powder and milk - £6 each!!

I could’ve gone to the co-op and spent a whole lot less.

I bought a wooden stepladder for £25 to turn into a chicken activity centre for my coop. Went to collect it and it fell apart as soon as I took it out of the car - complete woodworm! It went straight on to the bonfire as I was too worried about upsetting the seller by complaining! Happy to complain to companies but not individual private sellers for some reason.

@JesusIsAnyNameFree
It’s overpaying when you can’t afford it at the time

I bought a window cleaning brushy thing from the local hardware shop. I thought it said £2.70 on the tag but I got to the till and it was £27.00.

I too was ripped off for olives and feta, at a Country Living Christmas fair. They didn’t even put them in a pot, just a crappy plastic bag. I was thinking, how much? but by that time he’d bagged them up. And they weren’t great olives either! I wonder whether it is the same olive salesmen touring Britain and charging a fortune?

I still resent paying £18 for two gin & tonics, ten years ago, at a chain hotel in a provincial city. £18! I said, I only wanted singles you know, at which point the barman (to his credit, quite sheepishly) told me that the gin was £6 per shot and a tiny bottle of tonic £3. In 2011. Too late to change my mind because the drinks were already in the glasses. I wonder what they charge now?

So much ripping off at Christmas markets et al! I went to Harrogate Christmas market pre-COVID and paid £6 for a bag of 5 roasted chestnuts! It's hard to be sympathetic and supportive of small business owners when the mark up is tremendous...and don't shoot me but these independent shops and stalls half the time aren't nearly as nice as M&S or Waitrose 🙊

Wanted to try a fruit & veg box from a local small company that delivers. Order was placed via email, payment due in cash and the guy came to deliver one morning. Instead of just the one mixed box, he placed two big boxes on my doorstep. One was just fruit and one was the mixed box. I couldn't think of a way to refuse one so just paid up for both. It was a lot of fruit and veg to get through as I live alone!

I’m in another country and have medical health insurance with my work. Went to an opticians and told I had a v slight need for reading glasses.

Chose some reading glasses, no price anywhere but thought to myself how bad can it be when you can pick up a pair from the pound shop. $300. My insurance only covered $200 so I paid another $100 for glasses that I really didn’t need.

I do need to stop worrying about the embarrassment and just start saying, no, that’s too much.

Ohhh I'm just reading all these comments saying they were too shy to query, or paid it as was too scared and Im like WTF lol
I'm shy, but also skint enough to query when I'm being ripped off

At a bar at the top of the Shard, I wanted a gin-based cocktail (a tarted up gin and tonic IIRC) but with only one shot of gin instead of a double measure. It was quite noisy and I was trying to explain to the barman what I was after. He suggested I have one of those alcohol-free spirits instead of gin. This wasn’t really what I wanted, but I was tired of trying to get my point across so agreed anyway.

I felt as if I ended up paying £15 for a glass of squash.

Not Uk, but when we first moved to HK, I went to the supermarket to grab some food. I was picking stuff up and thinking I must have got the exchange rate confused in my head as there was no way this stuff could be this expensive. No, it was that expensive. Equivalent of 12 quid for a cauliflower. Subsequently, M&S opened a tonne of food shops and they are now one of the cheapest supermarkets for imported stuff- a very reasonable five quid for a cauliflower , which is the same price as it would cost to get a puncture fixed, so some things are very cheap to be fair.

to clarify: M&S don't fix punctures- that's just an example of something that is weirdly cheap here.

Just thought of another one- ninety quid for two vodka sodas in the bar of The Address in Dubai. Dont think they were even doubles. FML.

Not me but some people we vaguely knew (my daughter's classmate and her parents).
We bumped into them in Japan. They had become confused by the exchange rate and thought 1000 yen equalled 60pence.
Their teppenyaki meal cost 100,000- about 600 quid, rather than the 60 they thought it would. They said it was delicious though.
We were super cautious after hearing their tale!

Potato salad from Rick Steins deli in Padstow. My DH has never got over the shock.

During my third pregnancy I finally decided to get a big pregnancy pillow (I have form for not buying proper stuff and just making do). It was $79.95, so quite expensive. I ordered it online, checked it all and hit pay. I then saw I had paid $159.90. I figured I must have ordered 2, but by coincidence, the postage was also $79.95 and I hadn’t picked up on this, nor the fact that it was coming from the USA to Australia.

The thought of phoning the company to cancel and all that rigmarole was too much when I was sick as a dog and and already managing two kids under 3.

So it was the world’s most expensive pregnancy pillow.