Do you have a story to share about Rip Off Britain?

[OliviaMumsnet]

We're helping the BBC with their preparations of the next series of Rip Off Britain. They want to expose the issues that matter most to you and expose the rip off merchants into the bargain
Can you help?

Have you -
been ripped off?
been a victim of unfair or sharp practice?
paid for something that you feel was a total waste of money?
Post on this thread or email [email protected] with details, or post your grievances to:
Rip Off Britain, PO BOX 4360, Manchester, M61 0DY.
Thanks

When I rang up to activate my credit card (NatWest Visa) they tried to sell me Identity Fraud Insurance. They told me if someone stole my identity and used my card then I would be liable for all the losses . This is not true. The small print in the documentation sent with the card actually said I would actually only be liable for the first £50. This insurance was ridiculously expensive when compared with the actual exposure.

I tried to complain to NatWest who told me that they were not responsible for this mis-selling as they had sub contracted this business to some other company. They didn't seem to think they had any responsibility for it, even though it was their name on the card and it was their insistence that made me call this number.

I wonder if there really is a need to activate the card or whether it is just a sales ruse.

After half an hour on the phone, the supervisor said he would look into it and get back to me. But of course nothing ever happened.

You'd think the big banks would be above this kind of nonsense.

Credit card APRs. Interest rates are at an all time low yet credit card companies are still charging the same astronomical rates they did when interest rates were higher.

Electricity and gas prices not coming down when wholesale prices do.

Train ticket prices being much higher than flying the same distance

The cost of the Edinburgh to Glasgow rail journey.

Bank charges!!

Price of train tickets

Fucking train tickets! Why why why does it cost £7.40 to travel 9.5 miles?

It would be cheaper to load four of you into a tax and split the cost!

Train fares for poor service as a regular commuter paying approx £3k a year in travel yet for inconvienance e.g. No driver turning up if delay is less than 30mons no compensation! Yet a big delay minimum compensation! I have to fork out extra childcare or sometimes a taxi because delays are so bad but I can't claim these costs yet it's noty fault!

Water companies agree they have a monopoly onyou.

Gas and Electric prices have increased beyond inflation/salaries.

Inflation v pay the balance isn't right!

Council tax

Petrol has gone up and up recently most places around here are now £1.18 per litre!

Supermarkets making such big profits - but rip off small traders - either pay fair or pass on savings further milk/bread other basic rations have all increased quite a bit like petrol....

Insurances.......

Dentists & perscriptiom fees

Train fares for poor service as a regular commuter paying approx £3k a year in travel yet for inconvienance e.g. No driver turning up if delay is less than 30mons no compensation! Yet a big delay minimum compensation! I have to fork out extra childcare or sometimes a taxi because delays are so bad but I can't claim these costs yet it's noty fault!

Water companies agree they have a monopoly onyou.

Gas and Electric prices have increased beyond inflation/salaries.

Inflation v pay the balance isn't right!

Council tax

Petrol has gone up and up recently most places around here are now £1.18 per litre!

Supermarkets making such big profits - but rip off small traders - either pay fair or pass on savings further milk/bread other basic rations have all increased quite a bit like petrol....

Insurances.......

Dentists & perscriptiom fees

we run a car because a) there are no trains for about 45 very long miles from here (A roads) b) the buses cost a bomb.

but we matter not a jot to the government. first of all, it's a rural area. we shouldn't be here according to them. only rich people or wealthy pensioners should be. secondly, it's in scotland, bastard stepchild of the new regime.

do i feel put out?

damn straight! this isn't mine. i could honestly take it or leave it at this point, tbh. but it's my childrens'. otherwise, i can't say i'd give a rat's ass.

but they (the government) don't give a toss if the working poor get ripped off.

as i wrote, where to start? it's not just a story, it's a book!

i pay for things that i feel are a total waste of money every day, and i was brought up to solidly believe your taxes going for a peaceful society with good infrastructure that allows you to go about your business and making a living is incredibly valuable, by people who didn't have that priviledge, or whose parents did not and fled death and starvation to escape such a fate.

We stay on a metre to avoid catch-up bills. I had to play hardball with Scottish Hydroelectric and lie to them and say I was going back to the States (sometimes, don't I wish!) to haggle the bill down. They'd reversed two numbers on the ancient metres, and it's not uncommon around here, to begin with. When our landlord returned from two years in Uganda working for VSO, he had to do the same thing. He is a retired physics teacher and headmaster, fgs! An educated person who is, frankly, a genius.

Oh, and before he went to Africa, he worked part-time as a metre reader in his early retirement!

But I had to be all thorny and not like I like to be, but if I didn't, then DH would have just taken it lying down.

Ditto the ILs, pensioners in horrible health. I have to handle all calls like this, I just had to two days ago with Scottish Power on their behalf, break out Excel and run the calculations and use my Sage background to run things.

What if there weren't an expat there?

Why is this happening? Why are they allowed to sell and set up direct debits, these power companies, and come back years later with enormous bills because their accounting system they can't be bothered to invest money in to keep bill on track?

Then they make slaves out of people, with the debts that are their fault?

Why are they not being held accountable for this?

Why do people put up with this, and so much? Who gives them the idea this is okay and all you can do is moan?

I would be interested re: Asda home shopping/ghost payments debacle

What really gets me worked up (if it not too banal ), and I've been waiting for the chance to have a rant about this thrilling subject, is printers and ink cartridges. I know we should all be moving toward printing less stuff out etc. That aside, my run-of-the-mill Canon ink-jet printer has 5 ink cartridges that cost over $50 (pounds - sorry, only have dollar sign) to replace each time. They barely last a month or so. It is so disgusting that the companies see these products as a cash cow and have little regard for the environment. Each of my 5 ink cartridges has masses of packaging as well as a little circuit board/chip thing so that you can't use cheaper cartridges. I want to be able to print stuff at home, I don't want to have to deal with highly toxic and staining inks, I want a more eco-friendly way to print - a printer for life just for printing out simple stuff/black and white etc. I went to the dreaded PC world recently and the salespeople admitted to me that these products are a joke and you are better off printing out your stuff in a copy shop - also true for photos. They also told me that there is not a black&white printer on the market that they know of that is not laser.

My ink-jet sits on my shelf like a mouldering, non-biodegradable relic, I can't afford hundreds of pounds a year to keep a printer in juice. Surely someone will see sense and produce a more realistic product? I want an ink cartridge that lasts a year. At the moment these printers are made as disposable items, I'd be willing to guess that most people never replace the cartridges after the first go.

That's my rant, sorry it is really very boring but so is schlepping around the shops comparing printer specifications with your DP of a weekend. Bee out of bonnet now.

Another one here for ASDA - re ghost payments.

Public transport. DH took DD on a bus for the first time yesterday - £4.30 return for just him to the town 3 miles away , it doesn't pay to be green

SwansEatQuince - yes voting with you.

The 'renewables oligation' which forces electricity companies to buy a minimum percentage of their electric from 'green' forms of power generation cause electricity tariffs to go up which hit the poor the hardest.

I have paid NI contributions for 7.5 years in the past decade. However, now I am unemployed due to no fault of my own (redundancy due to employer going into administration) I do not qualify for jobseekers allowance and I have not paid NI contributions for the past full two years, just two years less two months, as I went to University in 2006 and spent about 8 months temping/unemployed/volunteering afterwards until I found my most recent job, which I loved. My DH earns less than £24,000 a year so I don't qualify for income based. I am so angry about this as the money really doesn't go very far after rent and essential bills. I have contributed almost all my adult life in taxes and NI, and yet when I need it most (4.5months pregnant - so who's going to employ me now?) I don't qualify for anything.

Child care costs. I need to work so that I can help pay the family bills and some day hopefully be able to afford one further child. Nursery fees are as high as private school fees! And there are lots of hidden costs in relation to schools as well, after and before school clubs and child care as schools end at 3.30 - again I have to work so can't stop at 3.30.

I would like to see the tax credits scrapped and all parents given full tax excemption on child care costs. Also see further subsidies from the state to cover child care costs (although that is a long shot I know).

Petrol prices that don't go down when oil prices fall, utility bills, council tax rip offs, councils introducing recidency parking permits even if all the people who ever park in my street are those who live there and now do so for free - and other stealth taxes. Inequality of pay between those at the top of organisations and those lower down (exec, council chiefs, heads and NHS bosses all need to recude their pay and have it flatten out to more normal levels). Pampers for changing their nappies from a perfectly good product to one where the padding in the nappy is much less than before (saving in production costs) charging you the same for a new and much worse product...the list is in fact endless!

M&S furniture. If you have a complaint about its quality they will not deal with your complaint themselves. No, they will refer you to an "independent" technician who will overrule your complaint by stating that there is nothing amiss with its manufacturing. So you could pay four figures for a piece of furniture that has been stuck together any old how and be totally unstable but because it's officially made to this standard that's fine.

M&S will then wash its hands of its shoddily made cr*p by referring you on to an ombudsman who you will have to pay £50 for the pleasure of his visit, only to be told verbally that yes the furniture is a piece of shit made in the Far East when you were told it was made in Britain but his report will simply say that its shit quality is within acceptable levels of shitness.

M&S sells cheaply made furniture under the guise of its reputation for quality and if you're not happy with it they will not give a rat's arse. Beware.

I buy every day furniture from John Lewis for that reason. M&S could be the mass market John Lewis if it wanted to be and would do very very well.

Paypal charge you for an account.
Airlines - don't even get me started on Ryanair, Monarch, Easyjet.
Car prices, am glad that industry is suffering, they scerwed us over for years.
Tax on some food, not others.
Iphones.
Sky TV, you have to give 31 days notice when cancelling
Dolland and Aitchinson contact lenses by post, you used to get branded ones by post, they then changed it to their own brand with no warning and only passed on a cost saving of £1. CLs are medical devices and this is appalling, they did this just to imporve their margins as if we DON'T KNOW IT.
Petrol.
Paying the council for parking. On top of council tax etc etc.
Washing powder / dishwashing tablets etc. They are soooo expensive.
Nappies in holiday resorts, £25 for a pack of nappies in Canaries !
Ooo, I've got lots...

Why has nobody mentioned car park fees when you go to hospital?

I absolutely resent having to pay parking fees when taking my child to A&E or for a check up, or maternity scans etc etc. There is no need for this at all. Absolute rip off.

Also discovered that there are 2 'earmarked' payments on 2 different cards (Visa) for hotel fees while my DH is in USA. Why oh why oh why does this happen? It is ridiculous and nobody seems to know how to sort it out! Hotel says it has gone through on 1 card, but not on original... however, DH has authorisation code for both payments. What if we couldnt afford it or if we only had 1 card?

About as bloody bad as PRO's ASDA debacle!

I take it the rail companies won't get a mention? 9% fair rise every year but shorter or less trains and ever widening range of excuses for the same poor service.

Can we talk about why we tolerate manufacturer's getting away with producing garbage, and why the UK has not implemented EU Directive 1999/44/EC? It has to do with electrical goods and that they should last!

Although the UK does have consumer protection in the form of s 48 of the Sale of Goods Act, it puts the burden on the consumer rather than the manufacturer.

Case in point: I have an Apple Mac Book that is 17 months old. The keyboard needs replacing, and even Apple admitted that there is a fault with the computer. They refused to repair it, but said that I had, 'consumer rights.' In other words, they wouldn't fix it unless they were forced into a corner.

Another one for childcare costs whilst I don't resent paying for those most precious to me you can understandvwhy people don't want to work by the time you have childcare/travel costs/bills you have to wonder if you'd be better off on benefits!!!