A PFI contractor, I hear, has charged £149.71 for putting up a notice board for Calderdale Royal Hospital. A bit steep, I agree, but I’ll bet that there are worse examples of that in the murky world where Private Finance contractors devote themselves to the service of the public sector.
Anyway if you ever need to put up a notice board, my advice is Do It Yourself. Or if it is really beyond you, Ask Your Neighbour. Nobody likes to be ripped off, least of all myself. Here is my list of The Ten Biggest Rip-Offs.
- Estate Agency Fees.
Have you noticed how, these days, estate agencies seem to have great big glass windows, presumably so that passers by can see all the slaves inside working their socks off? In fact, all we know is that they are either on the phone (talking to their boyfriend) or looking at a computer screen (checking the racing results). The fact is that all you need to do to sell a house is to take a few photos, place a few adverts and make a few appointments. Sorry, but it just isn’t that difficult. - Theatre Programmes
£5 for a theatre programme! Are you kidding? All they contain are a list of the cast and (the most important bit as far as I am concerned) a note of how many intervals there are; a load of advertisements from local restaurants of which you are already perfectly well aware; and pages and pages of photographs of the performers above a list of their credits. You know the sort of thing - ‘Appeared as a yokel in The Mayor of Casterbridge at the Dorchester rep; as Sid the plumber’s mate in one episode of Coronation Street; as a duck in Chingford Theatre’s Christmas panto, The Ugly Duckling…’ Who cares? - Lawyers
If you have ever had anything to do with this horrible blood-sucking profession you will know that concepts such as ‘getting a move on’ and ‘not using twenty words if you can use one instead’ are foreign to it. Time is money – and don’t they know it! - Birthday Cards
I simply will not go into Clinton Cards. Why? Partly because it sells nothing but tacky, vulgar rubbish. But also because the cost of greetings cards is an absolute rip-off. £3.50 for a bit of bent card and a pink envelope? Please! - Eating Out
How come I have to pay £15 for a miserable plate of pasta with tomato sauce, the underlying ingredients of which must have cost about threepence? Could it be because, unlike in the United States where your meal is delivered to your table by some enormous waitress almost before you have finished ordering it, in this country the food takes so long to arrive that by the time it finally shows up you have eaten all the bread, drunk all the wine, run out of conversation and altogether lost the urge to eat. - Foreign Currency
I bank with HSBC. Actually, I don’t, so identity fraudsters don’t bother! But my own bank is no better. In this country it has loads of pounds that it is willing to hand over free of charge. It also has loads of dollars that it will hand out free of charge in the United States. But if I ask if I can have some of those dollars when I am in the USA I have to pay a whacking great commission and a foreign exchange dealing spread. Who are they trying to kid? Are they trying to tell me that if I want some dollars while I am in the United States I have to pay with pound notes that the bank then has to ship back across the Atlantic? - Hospital Parking Fees
Can there be one single person in this country so weird that they visit a hospital for fun? I hope not. We go because we have to. We are ill, or we are visiting someone who is ill. Why should we pay for the privilege? This falls into a whole category of things that we never used to have to pay for but, thanks to the government’s inability to manage its budget, do now. Prescriptions, dental charges – there are two more. - Service Charges
I once met a businessman who sold security alarms. He told me that his firm installed them and then charged for an annual service. The real money, he told me was in the servicing. ‘But,’ I said foolishly, ‘surely alarms are sufficiently reliable these days that they don’t need servicing?’ ‘Exactly,’ he chuckled. ’That is why it is so profitable.’ - Gift Hampers
You know the sort of thing I mean. You see then in the run-up to Christmas. A fancy pot of marmalade, a bottle of cheap champagne, a jar of anchovies, a packet of Bath Olivers and a box of dates. Cost if bought individually? £10. But swaddled in a wicker basket and tied round with a red ribbon these items suddenly become worth £25! Clever marketing or just a rip-off? I know what I think. - Fund Management Fees
And now the biggest rip-off of the lot! Estate agents are bad enough. But at least you only have to pay their 1.5% or so when you choose to move house. Fund managers take a bite out of your savings each and every year. And that’s not all! They take a slice of your cash up front in the form of ‘entry fees’. And now they have come up with performance fees, which mean that they keep 20% of the profit that should rightfully be yours if they do well and give nothing back if they do badly. No wonder they are so rich!
Regards,
Tom Bulford
for The Penny Sleuth
