What's the most ripped off you have ever felt?

[coulditbeme2323]

Now I don't mean something that was expensive but you really enjoyed, but where you felt ripped off.

I'll start.

26 euros for two Sprite's in Paris.

And this was circa 2014.

£11 for a small bottle of water 😭

£1.30 for a portion of toast today. Bought two portions. It came out two slices of toast, asked if a portion was one slice of toast .. to be told no you get two slices we’ll bring another portion out. Then a snotty women came out and said a portion is a singular slice of toast therefore we have our two portions already. 🤷‍♀️ why this annoyed me so much 😂

In the south east, yes, but not in Glasgow.

2.90 for a can of water at a local theatre that wasn’t even a west end one, but has its prices.
I was thirsty , but I should have taken in my own bottle from home.

Amazing!

I lost £120 in cash when I was a teenager - I'd been saving up for months from my waitressing job and it was for christmas presents. I don't know if it fell out of my pocket or someone dipped in for it but I was devastated. Over the next 30 years I have found £20 notes on 6 separate occasions so I like to think the universe is evening things out...not sure if the universe is aware of interest though, because £120 in the 90s was a fortune and now it's just a couple of pints (going by this thread!).

Not the most ripped off I've ever been, but the most memorable occasion. About 30 years ago DH and I went to the Ideal Home Exhibition and there was an extremely persuasive salesman demonstrating a food cutter - just a piece of plastic with some blades. He put on an amazing show and a huge crowd gathered. Cost was £20 which was quite a lot then. We basically fell for the speil and afterwards realised a lot of the other people eagerly waving £20 notes were probably stooges (or as gullible as us). Once home it occurred to us that normal kitchen knives could do the same job. We kept it for a few years - barely used it, and only then to justify the £20.

Even now we laugh about it every so often and remind ourselves never to be caught out again. It kind of felt like being hypnotised at the time.

It very much is normal in Glasgow. I went to uni there, and now live in a town nearby. My boyfriend lives just off sauchiehall street, we go out all the time. Anywhere decent you go in the city centre is going to be pretty much minimum £6/7 for a drink. That’s not that expensive these days .

...

£120 in 1996 is worth £245 today.

Fair enough, then... but even then, are you employed to do nothing but check the toilets - or is it just one task of many... and are there two of you doing that sole job?!

Absolute madness. What a waste of everybody's time and money. Not the most romantic life for them, either. I wonder if one of them ever breathlessly whispered to the other "What if we kissed at the toilet entrance fee table?"

A medium size house wine out last Friday, £15. Bar was nice but not THAT special. Won't be going there again. Not even London, oop north.

I wonder if the people who run these rip-off businesses ever get a little twinge of conscience about what they're doing?

It's funny, isn't it, that rogue trader plumbers, electricians, builders etc. who charge 3, 4 or 5 times what a job 'should' cost are roundly condemned and exposed and confronted on TV for it - even when they've given the customer their full (outrageous) price in advance and not put any pressure on them to accept it... yet when it's somebody doing the exact same thing with selling food or drinks for a buttock-clenchingly extortionate price that isn't clearly publicised upfront, even in relation to comparable establishments (i.e. nobody expects to pay the same at a bar as in the supermarket), it's just laughed off with "They saw you coming!" or similar.

About ten years ago, took my dog to the vet because he was pawing at an ear, £90.00 consultation fee, £14.50 for two tablets which when I looked at them were low dose parecetamol.

7€ for a pack of 8 ibuprofen in a pharmacy in Italy last month. Pharmacies have it all sown up on the continent, we are an exception being able to buy meds in the supermarket.

This reminds me, 2 years ago our cat who was very elderly at the time had not been herself for a few months, and had gone downhill very quickly over 4-5 days and we took her to the vet. We had a 10 minute consultation, and she had an anti-inflammatory injection, a steroid injection, and a blood test that took 2 minutes.

£300 in total. The blood tests showed she had multiple issues with her internal organs, and some other issues too. The only answer was euthanasia. She was 18, and was at the end. They started banging on about how they would bring her in and keep her there for a few weeks to 'bring her health back as much as they could' and then start treatment for the issues with her internal organs and the other issues, including underactive thyroid. We would be looking at a bill of 'around £10K!' We said 'she is 18, tthere are far too many issues, and her quality of life has diminished rapidly. We really think putting her to sleep is for the best.' She said 'oh well if that's what you want to do.....'

I thought 'yes it fucking well is. You're not robbing up of £10K or more, putting our poor, sick, old girl through the ringer, poking at and prodding her, and shoving needles into her, just for her to die 4-5 months down the line anyway.'

Piss take through and through.

25 years ago, being charged an additional £12 to park in a hotel car park when attending a party there. It had already cost far more than it was worth, the meal was dreadful.

One tip - go to medium-large hotels. They have toilets around the foyer/reception area. Usually have a sign with the various facilities - conference rooms, restaurant etc and it mentions toilets.

Clean and free. The reception staff don't batter an eyelid as large hotels could have 10+ reception staff on their books. When you at hotels yourself, you probably deal with a couple reception staff and see a few more on passing.

The poshest loos I went to were the ones in The Phoenicia in Valletta, Malta.

That's disgusting. The poor thing would have been so distressed and confused in the last part of her life - rip off merchants is bad enough but to make an animal suffer in the process is utterly diabolical.

Thank you @SpaceRaccoon and you are absolutely right. I can't believe these people use sick old animals like this to make a fast buck. The £10K we would have paid, would very likely not have been all we would have forked out either.

This was just to get her a bit 'better' apparently. They would have still milked us for much more money, for ongoing underactive thyroid treatment, and arthritis meds, and meds for a heart murmur they said she has... If she had have survived past 4-5 months, we would have been paying several 100 pounds a month in vet bills, indefinitely/until she died......

But as you said she would have been so afraid and confused and distressed, being shoved in a cage - away from her family - to be prodded and poked and virtually experimented on for a few months. It would have been immeasureably cruel.

.

£75 for Build-A-Bear birthday trip with ds and two friends who couldn’t make his party

the cheapest soft toy extra for it to have a beating light up heart, when squeezed personalised voice message, outfits made of the cheapest material, sunglasses/jewellery, one choose a cat so needed a cat box then they all needed passports

I recovered from the shock and came round to my senses and finally said no more when second outfits were being chosen

my Vet was trying to charge me £20 that was just one paracetamol cut it half.

I bought a pill cutter for a couple of quid and used my own tablets

That's very normal

Small by comparison but a learning moment. In 2007 we went for a walk along the corniche from Marseille centre to find the nearest beach. It was late September but still pretty warm and we weren't that prepared. Walking back, tired and thirsty, we stopped at a very modest looking roadside cafe - of the sort where the owner just comes out and asks what you want. We ordered two coffees and a bottle of water. The guy came back with coffees, two glasses and a largish bottle of water (Badoit - yes - we know now!). The bill of 20 euros for two small cafe au laits and a 1.5l bottle of water was pretty punchy.

I worked as a cleaner in McDonald's in the mid 90s. My duties included:
Clearing and wiping down tables
Emptying bins
Sweeping and mopping floors
Cleaning and restocking toilets and sinks and obviously sweeping and mopping the floors there
Wiping down chairs and ledges etc.
Restocking straws, condiments etc.

Break aside, I didn't stop the entire shift. And I was the only cleaner on duty during my shift. Did get my meals provided, though.