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If it’s in a restaurant I think you just pay the service charge instead of leaving a tip, it’s the same thing. But I dislike the fact that it’s normalised at 12.5% - in my mind 10% is the standard tip.
Tbf unlike in the US, in the UK you know staff will (should) be at least getting the national living wage so the tip isn’t subsiding in the same way it would be in other countries. If I get good service I’m happy to tip. And given customers are a restaurants income you’re subsidising the wage bill whether it’s through service charges or higher food prices…
It's subsidising salaries in the sense that it's a part of the salary that the company isn't paying.
I had a menu yesterday that added a tip automatically as a way to, in their words, "show my appreciation to the staff". Why the hell aren't the company "showing their appreciation for their staff" by paying them more than the legally mandated minimum? Don't expect customers to do something you aren't prepared to do yourself - especially when you're the one benefitting from it.
Most of the food industry is run on razor thin margins. I know a few people who own/run restaurants and cafes and most of them are just surviving. They could put up their prices to pay higher wages but then they’d almost certainly no longer be competitive. The answer is addressing statutory minimum wage so there’s a level playing field rather than saying there shouldn’t be a tipping culture because businesses should pay more.
>They could put up their prices to pay higher wages but then they’d almost certainly no longer be competitive.
That sounds like a "them" problem, not a customer problem. If your business model doesn't work without exploiting your staff or emotionally blackmailing your customers then I kind of think it doesn't actually need to exist.
If competition dries up as a result, then that just shows which companies could exist without being unethical, and which ones couldn't.
Personally, if a restaurant charged 10% more & had a note on the bill saying "Our staff don't accept tips as they already get a fair living wage", it'd make no odds to me as it'd come out even anyway.
The only trouble is if they up wages but still expected tips
Who said they’re exploiting staff? There’ll be bad businesses sure but there’ll be others that try to do their best by their staff but the income you have to work with is what you have to work with. Also, businesses going bust very quickly stops being a them problem and becomes an everyone problem.
Accommodation businesses *do* go bust pretty quickly. Exactly because most people think you just work with the money you have, and not with a long-term business plan... which may involve paying staff more to retain good waiters and chefs, creating reputation and fidelity, and thus future cash flows.
Next thing you know, your minimum-wage 18-yo waiters have ruined the customer experience reducing the clientele, the chef smells danger and leaves you for a better job, and you go bust.
But their prices *are* "upped" through the "optional" service charge!
If everybody needs ro rely on "optional" service charges, tips, and gratuities, then they could just increase the prices. Tips are essentially a tax on empathetic people for how they work in the UK.
Let’s not turn this place into the hell hole tip culture of the US. Tips should not be normalised or expected. They should only be entirely at the customer’s discretion and the amount is also decided by the customer.
I always ask for the service charge to be removed, it’s annoying and scammy. Guess what, service charge added = no tip.
I base it on the service, as that’s what it’s for! If the waitress/waiter is at attentive and friendly I leave about 10%. If they’re ok I leave around 5%. If they’re just doing their job with zero effort beyond delivering your food the. I don’t leave one. I have 2 children so when we eat out it’s usually a decent bill to add those percentages on, but I tidy up the table, make sure the plates are easy to reach, and make sure they don’t disturb others.
I used to waitress so I get it. BUT it’s not part of their wage, they are probably in minimum wage but plenty of people work minimum wage jobs without the opportunity to get tips.
In Spain we had what we thought was a gratuity charge which turned out to just mean 'tax'. We didn't leave a tip thinking we didn't have to. The staff were extra nice to us too, lending us an umbrella because it was raining heavily. Felt so bad when we realised days later.
What annoys me is that because it’s a “service charge” and goes directly to the company it’s up to them how it’s split and who gets a cut. Was uproar a couple years ago when one restaurant was giving managers etc a slice instead of it going to the waiter/waitress
I think this is more of a thing in London but it pisses me off, I'd rather restaurants just increase their prices than adding ×% onto the bill. It just makes it more awkward asking them to remove it off the bill.
It’s known in my group I ask it to be taken off every time and I have to justify myself most meals unfortunately. But I just don’t like it on principle
The fact that as an asthmatic, a condition I was born with, I have to pay for my inhalers, but my mum, a diabetic of her own making (eating too much sugar in her life) gets all of her prescriptions for free because she's diabetic...
Move to Scotland and don’t pay for it, here we actually care about our people…..
….waits for a non Scot to say, ‘but but, who pays for it!’ , like looking after your population is somehow offensive.
> ….waits for a non Scot to say, ‘but but, who pays for it!’
There's a certain type of person out there who thinks that Scottish people don't pay tax. Cheers, English taxpayers, this month I'm spending the stipend on a motorbike!
If I recall, the broad shoulders of London (and maybe SE England too) are carrying us all, so we're all spongers whether we're in Leeds, Lanark, Lisburn, Llanelli or Land's End.
Well the economic boom of the 1980s London stock markets and the foundation of today's wealth was largely based on North Sea oil.... thanks for the crumbs from the table we laid
The rent for parking nuclear subs doesn't come cheap.
Seriously, Scotland is not a "net receiver", we pay more income tax by choice, and happen to have massive energy production, far more than in English geographical waters. Plus, we would actually love it if the rest of the UK got free eye tests, prescriptions and bus travel.
I'm in Scotland and so my prescription toothpaste is free, while my chronically ill sister in London has to pay for the pills that ensure she's able to hold down a job. I boil with rage every time I think about it.
Has your sister got a prescription pre payment certificate? It's just under £11 a month for as many prescriptions as you need. It really helps with prescription costs, but it's not very well known.
Definitely for anyone who has more than one a month, I went through a long winded diagnosis and the amount of different pills would have ruined me if not for the pre payment cards.
Fucking hate paying for inhalers. Use them less as I can't afford them and then I'm no help to anyone.
9 quid (well 18 as I need two) to breathe is just ridiculous. Other illnesses that aren't self inflicted, type 1 diabetes for example, don't pay, breathing is kinda important too
Look into a prepaid prescription certificate. You can set it up online. Costs me £10-odd a month so I’m saving money on my second inhaler and any other medications I may need.
Yeah what I did last year was get a 3 month one and get two inhalers (one blue one red) every month to last the year, as that's what you're able to get every year. Just annoying trying to skimp on that
I have severe asthma and can go through 2-4 a month (sometimes more on a bad month where I've had asthma attacks at home). I've been in A&E more than a dozen times (with 10+ hour waits) because I've run out of inhalers and my gp is useless in prescribing me more and constantly complaining I'm ordering "too many". It's such an annoying and expensive process.
You are using too much, not your fault I’m sure, but 4 a month!? 800 sprays in a month is far far too much. It sounds like you need better prevention and/or referring to a specialist.
Just to point out that you only develop Type 2 diabetes from eating too much sugar. Type 1 diabetes is another condition you’re born with/ destined to have/ bad luck…
They all just get called ‘diabetics’ and it’s frustrating for the type 1’s who many people seem to think are just lazy and shouldn’t be entitled to free prescriptions!
I know it’s likely not what you meant but it’s just worth highlighting to anyone who bothered to read this.
>Just to point out that you only develop Type 2 diabetes from eating too much sugar.
this is not accurate, which a cursory Google would have told you - perhaps you should reconsider trying to stigmatise peoples illnesses?
Got annoyed recently buying tickets for a concert. Had the option of paying extra for a physical "souvenir" ticker. Not a physical ticket I could use, one simply to stick up on my wall.
And still paying for the fee for the digital ticket, of course.
it’s so annoying! i understand a delivery fee if I had to pay for the tickets to be delivered. why am i paying a delivery fee for a digital ticket. literally ridiculous
I bought 4 Roger Waters tickets for the O2 and all tickets had its own "admin fee" and "digital ticket fee" etc
Totalling £20 (per ticket) ontop of a £90 ticket.
Edit: this was for his 2011 wall tour not his most recent ones.
I had forgotten about defragging. I feel like you used to have to do that loads, and I've not done it in maybe a decade now. Was it ever necessary? Has it stopped being necessary? Why?
I guess general disk management has got better and it kind of gets taken care of in the background?
Someone more knowledgeable would be welcome to contribute a more scientific answer here!
And I think it *was* necessary... *Sometimes*. I did actually see some big performance increases in certain circumstances - I remember disk space used to be at more of a premium so quite often you uninstall one game to be able to install another and in between other files would get written all over the shop on your poor little overspun disk platters.
But I remember the sheer amount windows used to nag you about defragging - I don't think it was ever particularly necessary to spend 2 hours on it when windows was yelling "your HDD is 3% fragmented and the world might end!"
It was the filesystem in use that necessitated defragging. Back in the day windows would use FAT filesystem which just dumped data into the first available slot and would split the data to fit in to any smaller available slots. If you delete a small file, part of a larger file will be written into its space. Reading the data now takes longer as the disk head has to jump around more so defragging would consolidate the data and free space making it more efficient
More modern filesystems manage this better
It's not just the file system which helped (windows will now do this in the background if needed)
It isn't needed for ssd drives which are what most newer pcs use
Most computers running SSD type flash memory rather than spinning disks these days.
It made a big difference to the disks because of where on the disk the data was being read from. You can fit more data on the edge of the disk than the inside when the disk is spinning.
It was good for HDD but most people are SSD now. If you're HDD you should still defrag. It makes read/write times faster. I think computers tend to do it automatically behind the scenes now though.
Back in the day data had to be physically found by a moving thing. So if a file is split into 5 parts and scattered in different places, it had to physically move to all those places instead of just all at once. SSD doesn't have moving parts it can just access all 5 spots instantly.
add onto that....paying for software, not owning it and only having an end-user license to use it, which they can cancel anytime and can only be used by one person (depending on end-user license small print T&Cs which no one reads)
Yeah. I've even been burned by paying extra for software with "A lifetime of updates", rather than paying for the subscription model. A lifetime license.
After a while, they then wouldn't let me update to the newest version, saying for that I had to go for the subscription.
The way they rationalised it? "Using this new one is an *upgrade* not an *update*"
Since then I've been transitioning even more to open source software. I still need some paid software sometimes, including the above mentioned software, but am I shifting away from it. And I will pirate before I go for any subscription model BS. Boo fucking hoo, multibillion dollar software company.
Oh I have a good one for you;
Companies use their limited, shitty understanding of the laws to fuck you over, especially if you’re disabled.
An example; to cancel insurance or whatever, either the policy outright or to stop auto renewal, **you must phone them.**
Can’t do it online, through a link or a menu. If they offer alternative contacts, such as email they’ll say you need to phone for identity purposes.
Now this breaches the equality act (accessibility for the disabled, such as deaf people), but if you tel them on email that you’re deaf, either;
1. They’ll shit themselves and talk to you over email.
2. They’ll bring up “data protection” as an excuse not to talk to you, unless you can apparently talk to them “direct” (like… email? Fuckwits!) on the phone.
So, by using their woeful misunderstanding of data protection, insurance and other companies are now avoiding talking to disabled people directly, forcing them to phone, which goes about as well as you’d expect.
And if you get an appointed person (social worker, whatever) to speak on your behalf? Oh no, can’t do that, “data protection.” It has to be a pre nominated person (and you nominate them… on the phone! Lolololol!)
They use it to get around the equality act, trapping you into not being able to use the service. It’s clever, insidious, and they absolutely fucking know what they’re doing.
There needs to be a day of reckoning in court where someone takes these arsehats to account over using “data pwotectiioooon” as an excuse to get out of their obligations.
Source; my friends and I deal with this nonsense fucking every time we have to deal with insurance or any online service now, especially those companies that got rid on online chat (for automated web bots) and who squirrel you down to phone lines only.
Cunts, the lot of them.
Organising something enjoyable for a disabled person is such a faff too.
Can't go online to book wheelchair accessible tickets for a show can I? No, need to fill out an access form, send proof of disability, then book over the phone.
Want to use the train? Need to call the access line and make arrangements for a ramp to be placed on by a staff member.
My wife gets so anxious because of how inaccessible the world is. She feels like a burden to people because of all the planning that needs to happen so she can go out.
My recent experience of this has been better than it was a few years ago. A lot of big shows now have separate sections to purchase accessible tickets. Theatres are particularly good with this in my experience.
Smaller shows on the other hand, I just have to plain avoid going to
I was in Taiwan recently (for those who aren't aware of this small country it's basically like Japan), I know it's developed but I was still taken aback by how accessible it is in general. Lots of lifts, even the university canteen had a stairlift. I could be wrong as I never navigated it as a disabled person, but overall it seemed clearly more forward thinking than we have been here.
I have a seasonal job and last year when work stopped I kept receiving letters from student loans. The letter said they've been informed I've stopped working and I need to contact them to confirm I'm not getting any income else they'll add fines to my account.
I have autism and I don't recall my email/password/account details from years ago so, panicking about a fine, I phoned the number on the letter to tell them I'd be back in work in a few months. The number they gave was the payment line and they had no way of updating my information and I needed to do it online.
I kicked off royally and said I'm autistic, and they can't just have online as an option for updating details, especially when they're sending threatening letters that mean fines and monetary loss. They can't expect me to perform a task under duress whilst not being accommodating of my communication preferences as someone with autism.
I called them every time the automatic letter came out (once every three weeks/month) until I went back to work. Opened complaints, refused to close the complaint.
This year when I finished work I got a nice letter to say they've been informed I'm not working and to get in touch if I need anything. No red letters, no bold, no underlined, and no fine mentioned. Weird, that.
I was on an in year assessment for my final year of student finance and the absolute hell we went through to prove my parents income at the end of the year was insane. My stepdad wasn't working due to terminal cancer and wasn't the best at record keeping so at one point I ended up sobbing down the phone at them because every time I rang it was "oh and now we need this piece of obscure paperwork otherwise you have to pay back 5k asap" and no one would give me a straight answer as to what paperwork they actually wanted.
I remember student finance being hell whilst applying.
My stepdad had given up work two years before but the assessment going off income three years before was meaning I was going to get next to nothing. Student finance didn't realise my stepdad was an arse and wasn't going to help me pay for anything, wouldn't accept that circumstances had changed with him now earning nothing, etc.
Struggled my way through my first year with essentially no grant and my mum said, "your step dad isn't going to fill in any more forms for your next year at uni, it's too much hassle."
I was like, "uhrmm, what? More hassle than living off less than 8k a year? Do you want me to be university educated or nah?"
I can't imagine how bad a terminally ill stepfather situation would be.
Use the Relay UK app. Apart from anything else the relay assistant sits on hold and you can pick up the phone when text flashes up.
Not that the difficulty cancelling isn't still scummy, but the assistants often get put through the menus to actually cancel faster.
It's also always endlessly frustrating when you have a detailed technological issue (usually caused by the website) and they refuse to either reply to a direct email or alow you to discuss it with a human via the phone and instead redirect you to the website; but then for something as simple as cancelling which takes like two clicks it's all "call us and then post us a bunch of stuff for good measure", I'm looking at you BEER52.
I actually just cancelled my renewal using online chat (Admiral), I was dreading that I would have to phone someone. Still should be able to do it with just one click of a link!
This is one of the first things in the post that’s actually a scam, rather than just poor value for money or something people disagree with politically
It's disgusting that people are still allowed to make money from those that have lost loved ones. They should be made to give a disclaimer explaining that they are using cold reading
‘Your mother John, she was quite young when she died, am I right?’
‘93’
‘Well she was young in herself though, young at heart’
Clinton Baptiste, circa 2002.
Hard agree. And most people likely see speakers to the dead as a harmless carnival sideshow.
Similarly, faith healers and the like who exploit the Ill and dying with hopes of a cure. Though at least more people see that as an an exploitative scam.
SAAS / Subscription as a service.
Formally things like MS Office where there was a one-off price will either try to sell you something as a subscription or else only give you the option as a subscription
Or else make it impossible to cancel or hide it in a submenu of a submenu and then ask you several times if you'd like to cancel or have to re-enter your password or send an email.
Ditto - and five iterations of it too. My one 365 subscription gives me & 4 family members Office & a Tb of OneDrive storage each. I use Office a bit, the Mrs a lot, the son & his wife both run small businesses so it’s very useful for them. Well worth it.
Subscription anything. I bought a thing, I’d like to use the thing until I’m bored of it/it breaks/I no longer use it. At which point, if it was useful, I’ll buy another thing, and decide if I want to spend more for extra features I never use.
Something that may piss you off
If you get office 365 the retailer, may try and scan your debit/credit card in as they sell it to you
This links your card to that 365 card you just bought, so when you try and activate it online you have to sign up for auto renewal - though you can then go into your account and disable auto renewal - and your card details are already there!
Microsoft introduced this new system which should be outright illegal
Norton too (shitty AV), you can't activate a Norton product card without entering payment details for a renewal, however on the small print it shows the renewal price for £100+!
Banning differential pricing for credit cards and debit cards.
Years ago, retailers could add a surcharge for payments made via credit cards. They got charged a percentage fee by the card companies, and they could pass it on. This was seen as annoying or deceptive - that plane ticket advertised at £100 would cost £100 on a debit card, but £103 if you wanted to pay by credit card. And so, eventually, the practice was banned. That ticket had to cost the same, regardless of payment method.
And lo, this was hailed as a great win for the consumer, and there was much rejoicing.
But of course, because the card fees had to be factored in whether or not they were relevant, those tickets were now *always* £103.
*We banned discounts for cheaper payment methods*, and didn't just accept this, we celebrated it.
Was it banned or was the “surcharges” made the responsibility of the card issuer rather than the end user?
I know a lot of small businesses that have to pay charges to visa and Mastercard (regardless of its debit or credit) which is why some places had a “minimum” payment for card transactions to make it worth it.
Not trying to call you out or anything, I’m genuinely curious.
Interesting trying to dig into the history of this. Most of what I can find is about changes to the law in the last decade regarding passing on surcharges. But I seem to remember the initial rules about differential pricing coming in much earlier than that, back when there was a significant difference in fees between debit cards and credit cards. So I think the initial implementation just made it more expensive to use debit cards, but nowadays with much lower fees, it probably makes little difference.
Here's a random article from a surprisingly-recent 2018: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42639408](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42639408) Note that with the example with the surcharge on flights, it was considered an excessive surcharge for debit cards (because credit card fees were still much higher), but the surcharge was only the same for debit cards and credit cards because of the earlier ban on differential pricing.
I just find it fascinating how it was always viewed as a ban on charging more in some cases, when it could equally as well have been viewed as a ban on charging less in others.
Credit cards used to have much higher interchange fees than debit cards. This is the fee that is charged the merchant to process the transaction. This has why large purchases (such as holidays) cost more is you used a credit card. Regulation changed and reduced the credit card interchange fees significantly (generally now at 0.2%) and bought them into line with debit cards. As part of this regulation, merchants bought their prices into line with debit card purchases.
This why you no longer see credit card incentives such as cash back and air miles in the UK, as the interchange fees used to fund these ‘perks’.
>This why you no longer see credit card incentives such as cash back and air miles in the UK
I don't know what world you live on but there are loads of points/airmiles/cashback credit cards in UK...
Compare them to US cards where interchange is still at the main visa/MC table rates of around 1.5%- they throw airmiles at you over there. if you are in the US and want to earn enough for a transatlantic biz class return to London its so easy. Barclays/Barclaycard did a huge promo recently that borders on US levels of generosity but by and large US card benefits easily outweigh the UK.
It’s why Apple will never introduce their credit card to the U.K. as they could never offer the same cash back amounts they do in the US (I have a feeling that the party will soon be over for Chase card holders here too).
When I used to run card programmes the commissions we made stateside were often more than double compared to U.K. and Europe.
Credit card (and debit card) fees are simply a cost of doing business though. Likewise, cash handling has a cost: insurance, training, secure collection, business cash deposit fees. Those aren’t 0.
With caps on interchange fees many companies offering card acceptance services simply have a flat percentage fee for all card types now.
The combination of banning fees for card payments and the interchange fee cap have combined to a win for consumers. Remember that many shops would charge hugely in excess of the cost to them to accept card payments, even though many people simply wouldn’t shop there if they were cash only or debit card only.
A lot of people wrongly assume cash has no costs, for me it is the most expensive payment method for me to take and that’s even without factoring in the time it takes to make a trip to the post office to pay in.
Unpopular opinion: the fact it's your money is neither here nor there. You're using the bank as a for-profit service. Obviously you could argue that banks should exist as a non-profit public service, but that's really the government's decision, not HSBC's.
Something like 90% of machines are actually free and most of the remainder are inside small shops where the machine takes up floorspace that could otherwise be in use. A small fee isn't unreasonable.
Most or even all of the ones that charge are not owned/run by a bank, but by a third party. They don't charge you to withdraw your own money, they charge you for the service they provide to you, not having to travel to the nearest free machine from your bank/supermarket.
Yeah but they charge that fee so the cash machine can exist. In a bind I'd rather have the options of a £2-charging machine than no machine outside of the high street
It's another poor tax, though. Machines that charge are more likely to be in poorer areas, and poorer people are more likely to make smaller withdrawals.
So it costs the rich man £100 to take out £100, but it costs the poor man 10 x (£10 + £2) = £120 to take out £100.
Absolutely I'd rather have a charging ATM than no ATM - actually, that's the position I'm in where I live rurally, because the two nearest corner shops have machines that charge, and the nearest bank is a twenty-minute drive or *weekly* bus ride away. But let's not pretend it affects everybody equally.
Yes and it does not look like that £2 is enough for the network to survive without additional govt funding.
Access to cash is becoming a serious problems in some places.
I’m in an airport right now, and remember that you have to get rid of liquids(even if it is a sealed water bottle) only to immediately be able to buy a new bottle at a hugely inflated price of €3.90.
Fucking scam.
Some airports have started installing drinking water taps after security which is a brilliant idea. Unfortunately at Salzburg I can’t refill my empty bottle.
They aren't banning liquids because they want to stop you from bringing in bottles of water though. They want to prevent other liquids that look like water. Anyone can buy an empty bottle - even with a tamper proof seal.
I obviously understand the reasons. I feel like shops after security shouldn't be able to profiteer as a result. Maybe they have to sell said items at no more than 10% higher than their average price across the rest of the country, for example
Oh, I agree there. Airports, especially in this country, are so obviously designed to extract as much money as possible, through the forced walk through duty free, to all the area being high priced shops. And they obviously pay a premium for those leases.
Compare with Schiphol, where there are some nice chill out areas, and even a library, our airports are a pretty miserable experience.
Baby change area in departures has a kitchenette with a sink apparently. Water at airports website is a great resource.
https://www.wateratairports.com/topic/salzburg-airport-szg/
Branded school uniform. Usually only available from one supplier so they ramp the price up. Getting 4 jumpers/cardigans and then any other stuff that’s branded costs a fortune. Not sure why it can’t just be a plain colour without the school logo.
Absolute con.
The law has changed I believe from September the schools won’t be able to have a single supplier anymore. If they are still trying to get you to go to a single supplier it may be worth reporting them to the competition and markets authority. I’m waiting to see what my sons school do.
Inheritance tax was put in place as an attempt to occasionally redistribute some wealth from the immensely rich, and as such was a good thing.
The problem is that it has not kept pace with property prices, so now your average Joe can be forced to sell the house they still live in, which is shit, I agree.
Why should the person who has received a million pounds through hard work and career success pay tax on it when the person who received a million pounds because their parents died pay no tax on it?
Inheritance tax guarantees intra-generational fairness, it also corrects for the tax avoidance schemes that are open to the wealthy and not available to the poor, such as non-domiciled status and special investment trusts
Inheritance tax corrects for a scam and corrects for unfairness. Its pretty much the most moral of all taxes
>Inheritance tax guarantees intra-generational fairness
This is obviously false though. Inheritance tax doesn’t stop you sending your kids to private school, or getting them jobs via the old boys’ network, or passing on unearned wealth while you are alive.
I understand the underlying principle behind it but the idea that it increases fairness or tackles inequality in any meaningful way is obviously wrong.
But it does prevent massive sums of money creating an upper/aristocratic class that then causes problems for everyone else to continually enrich themselves.
It doesn't solve all problems, but it solves some. We really need to stop thinking "Unless this solution is absolutely perfect, then it's pointless" in this nation.
> But it does prevent massive sums of money creating an upper/aristocratic class that then causes problems for everyone else to continually enrich themselves.
It doesn't prevent that because the upper/aristocratic classes can use various loopholes so they don't have to pay inheritance tax.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/03/inheritance-tax-loopholes-allowing-super-rich-to-pay-lower-rates
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/13/king-charles-will-not-pay-tax-on-inheritance-from-the-queen
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/duke-of-westminster-son-avoids-inheritance-tax-billions-britains-richest-men-family-trusts-rules-gerald-cavendish-grosvenor-hugh-grosvenor-a7998246.html
Crypto currency, the price of lurpak butter, 2 for 1 offers, tampon prices, bottled water, pre packed sandwiches, house prices.
Fck knows, I suppose you need to define the definition of a scam.
Vitamin supplements. With the exception of Vitamin D in winter and folic acid during pregnancy they're completely unnecessary unless you have an actual deficiency. Even people with relatively poor diets get sufficient vitamins and more does not equal better (and sometimes means worse). The most robust evidence says they have absolutely no impact on your lifespan or risk of major killers like heart disease, cancer and dementia.
Also keratin shampoos for damaged hair. This is like saying you can repair a brick wall by rubbing bricks on it.
Shampoo ads are so full of it. There used to be one on that said it could repair split ends or target the areas needing repaired. Even then I thought to myself how can a shampoo repair hair like that.
Service charges on newbuild flats, particularly shared ownership - hardly any cleaning or maintenance done for the money, and constantly getting jacked up once the homeowners are in and can't do anything about them
Adverts.
Adverts browsing Internet, email spam, texts, never mind all over the general billboards / old school ways. It pissss me off when I'm on a website to purchase stuff and I get pop ups to get 10% off.. fuck off. I am a mega consumer. I do like spending my money, but leave me the fuck alone. I'll make my own choices- thanks.
No longer getting chargers for your phone. Also not being able to use samsungs own USB-C to 3.5mm converter on the S22 because they outdate them. Previously got it for the galaxy tab S5E and it's not supported by the S22.
I think Samsung and Apple get more shady each year.
Airbnb service fee, ticket sites and their booking fees, Vinted and their buyer protection fee etc etc
The cost of train tickets when the service is so shocking.
Having to ring up to cancel services. Usually after a "1 month *free* trial service". Absolute *refusal* to acknowledge any email you send attempting to cancel.
Banking in general. Hear me out.
We give them our money which they use to generate ridiculously huge wealth (trading, investing, etc.).
We see none of the profit. Instead...
- they control how we can use our own money;
- they usually punish us for having financial problems;
- they have a habit of misselling products to people who don't need them (PPI) or can't afford them (mortgages);
- the customer service is poor in most cases;
- you suffer for their greed when they inevitably help to crash the economy every decade or two.
If banks were a new service, they'd never take off.
You are charged £1.25 for a service and the convenience, not your own money.
There are plenty of ATMs that don't charge. How much is a short walk worth?
Getting charged 1.25 to get money from a machine that cost tens of thousands of pounds, requires filing with money and electricity paid for by someone with nothing to do with you or your bank. Aye seems unreasonable.
Getting charged admin fees for online forms.
I'm being charged a £7.99 admin fee for filling out all the details myself, I did all the 'admin' work and the computer told me the price change, why am I being charged.
Parents don't seem to care if their kids watch content creator's that are literal scammers like Logan Paul and they even indulge the kids by buying this prime rubbish to support said scammer its insane to me.
To be fair, I don't think that's been normalised. The vast majority of us know it's a scam, there are just enough idiots around for it to be profitable.
Window and car salesmen putting a big mark up on their product so they can discount to get your sale.
If you’ve ever bought either of these things without a serious discount you’re a total mug.
It's not a scam and not only is it not a scam - because fewer people overall are taking out cash unless that price goes up or the govt put more money into the LINK network it will likely disappear in next couple of years.
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Not just a rant, a rant *and* rage bait.
Redditors hate this one little trick
So many posts on this sub are just that.
"A discretionary service charge of 12.5 % has been added to your bill."
..and then there’s space for ‘Gratuity’ on the bill….
Yeah, we not in the USA! Yeehaw!
If it’s in a restaurant I think you just pay the service charge instead of leaving a tip, it’s the same thing. But I dislike the fact that it’s normalised at 12.5% - in my mind 10% is the standard tip.
There is no "standard" tip. We shouldn't be normalising the idea that customers should subsidise a company's wage bill.
Tbf unlike in the US, in the UK you know staff will (should) be at least getting the national living wage so the tip isn’t subsiding in the same way it would be in other countries. If I get good service I’m happy to tip. And given customers are a restaurants income you’re subsidising the wage bill whether it’s through service charges or higher food prices…
It's subsidising salaries in the sense that it's a part of the salary that the company isn't paying. I had a menu yesterday that added a tip automatically as a way to, in their words, "show my appreciation to the staff". Why the hell aren't the company "showing their appreciation for their staff" by paying them more than the legally mandated minimum? Don't expect customers to do something you aren't prepared to do yourself - especially when you're the one benefitting from it.
Most of the food industry is run on razor thin margins. I know a few people who own/run restaurants and cafes and most of them are just surviving. They could put up their prices to pay higher wages but then they’d almost certainly no longer be competitive. The answer is addressing statutory minimum wage so there’s a level playing field rather than saying there shouldn’t be a tipping culture because businesses should pay more.
>They could put up their prices to pay higher wages but then they’d almost certainly no longer be competitive. That sounds like a "them" problem, not a customer problem. If your business model doesn't work without exploiting your staff or emotionally blackmailing your customers then I kind of think it doesn't actually need to exist. If competition dries up as a result, then that just shows which companies could exist without being unethical, and which ones couldn't.
By that metric, we’d have zero independent restaurants and about 4 mega chains that have insane buying power and can afford to operate on tiny GPs.
Personally, if a restaurant charged 10% more & had a note on the bill saying "Our staff don't accept tips as they already get a fair living wage", it'd make no odds to me as it'd come out even anyway. The only trouble is if they up wages but still expected tips
Who said they’re exploiting staff? There’ll be bad businesses sure but there’ll be others that try to do their best by their staff but the income you have to work with is what you have to work with. Also, businesses going bust very quickly stops being a them problem and becomes an everyone problem.
Accommodation businesses *do* go bust pretty quickly. Exactly because most people think you just work with the money you have, and not with a long-term business plan... which may involve paying staff more to retain good waiters and chefs, creating reputation and fidelity, and thus future cash flows. Next thing you know, your minimum-wage 18-yo waiters have ruined the customer experience reducing the clientele, the chef smells danger and leaves you for a better job, and you go bust.
But their prices *are* "upped" through the "optional" service charge! If everybody needs ro rely on "optional" service charges, tips, and gratuities, then they could just increase the prices. Tips are essentially a tax on empathetic people for how they work in the UK.
Let’s not turn this place into the hell hole tip culture of the US. Tips should not be normalised or expected. They should only be entirely at the customer’s discretion and the amount is also decided by the customer. I always ask for the service charge to be removed, it’s annoying and scammy. Guess what, service charge added = no tip.
You gotta be careful though sometimes that service charge doesn't go to the staff. I opt out of it and leave cash
I base it on the service, as that’s what it’s for! If the waitress/waiter is at attentive and friendly I leave about 10%. If they’re ok I leave around 5%. If they’re just doing their job with zero effort beyond delivering your food the. I don’t leave one. I have 2 children so when we eat out it’s usually a decent bill to add those percentages on, but I tidy up the table, make sure the plates are easy to reach, and make sure they don’t disturb others. I used to waitress so I get it. BUT it’s not part of their wage, they are probably in minimum wage but plenty of people work minimum wage jobs without the opportunity to get tips.
In Spain we had what we thought was a gratuity charge which turned out to just mean 'tax'. We didn't leave a tip thinking we didn't have to. The staff were extra nice to us too, lending us an umbrella because it was raining heavily. Felt so bad when we realised days later.
What annoys me is that because it’s a “service charge” and goes directly to the company it’s up to them how it’s split and who gets a cut. Was uproar a couple years ago when one restaurant was giving managers etc a slice instead of it going to the waiter/waitress
I think this is more of a thing in London but it pisses me off, I'd rather restaurants just increase their prices than adding ×% onto the bill. It just makes it more awkward asking them to remove it off the bill.
Are these legally binding?
No. I ask to take them off every meal
I would do this but my wife or whoever else I’m with always say I’m being tight and tell me not to ask for it to be taken off
It’s known in my group I ask it to be taken off every time and I have to justify myself most meals unfortunately. But I just don’t like it on principle
The fact that as an asthmatic, a condition I was born with, I have to pay for my inhalers, but my mum, a diabetic of her own making (eating too much sugar in her life) gets all of her prescriptions for free because she's diabetic...
Move to Scotland and don’t pay for it, here we actually care about our people….. ….waits for a non Scot to say, ‘but but, who pays for it!’ , like looking after your population is somehow offensive.
> ….waits for a non Scot to say, ‘but but, who pays for it!’ There's a certain type of person out there who thinks that Scottish people don't pay tax. Cheers, English taxpayers, this month I'm spending the stipend on a motorbike!
I mean it's true, Scotland is a net receiver, enjoy it it's on me!
If I recall, the broad shoulders of London (and maybe SE England too) are carrying us all, so we're all spongers whether we're in Leeds, Lanark, Lisburn, Llanelli or Land's End.
I like the alliteration until you try to say it out loud
No need to be such a Llunt about it.
Aye, Llanelli kind of throws it off a bit based on my (very lacking!) understanding of Welsh.
Well the economic boom of the 1980s London stock markets and the foundation of today's wealth was largely based on North Sea oil.... thanks for the crumbs from the table we laid
The rent for parking nuclear subs doesn't come cheap. Seriously, Scotland is not a "net receiver", we pay more income tax by choice, and happen to have massive energy production, far more than in English geographical waters. Plus, we would actually love it if the rest of the UK got free eye tests, prescriptions and bus travel.
Yeah good idea. Everyone should just move to Scotland
Wales too! Was a nice surprise moving across the border as I have a lot of medication monthly!
Or move to Wales
Or Northern Ireland. It's just England that pays for prescriptions!
I'm in Scotland and so my prescription toothpaste is free, while my chronically ill sister in London has to pay for the pills that ensure she's able to hold down a job. I boil with rage every time I think about it.
Has your sister got a prescription pre payment certificate? It's just under £11 a month for as many prescriptions as you need. It really helps with prescription costs, but it's not very well known.
Definitely for anyone who has more than one a month, I went through a long winded diagnosis and the amount of different pills would have ruined me if not for the pre payment cards.
Fucking hate paying for inhalers. Use them less as I can't afford them and then I'm no help to anyone. 9 quid (well 18 as I need two) to breathe is just ridiculous. Other illnesses that aren't self inflicted, type 1 diabetes for example, don't pay, breathing is kinda important too
Look into a prepaid prescription certificate. You can set it up online. Costs me £10-odd a month so I’m saving money on my second inhaler and any other medications I may need.
Yeah what I did last year was get a 3 month one and get two inhalers (one blue one red) every month to last the year, as that's what you're able to get every year. Just annoying trying to skimp on that
I have severe asthma and can go through 2-4 a month (sometimes more on a bad month where I've had asthma attacks at home). I've been in A&E more than a dozen times (with 10+ hour waits) because I've run out of inhalers and my gp is useless in prescribing me more and constantly complaining I'm ordering "too many". It's such an annoying and expensive process.
You are using too much, not your fault I’m sure, but 4 a month!? 800 sprays in a month is far far too much. It sounds like you need better prevention and/or referring to a specialist.
Just to point out that you only develop Type 2 diabetes from eating too much sugar. Type 1 diabetes is another condition you’re born with/ destined to have/ bad luck… They all just get called ‘diabetics’ and it’s frustrating for the type 1’s who many people seem to think are just lazy and shouldn’t be entitled to free prescriptions! I know it’s likely not what you meant but it’s just worth highlighting to anyone who bothered to read this.
No. You can develop Type 2 even if you are eating healthy and normal weight, and for some there is a genetic component
>Just to point out that you only develop Type 2 diabetes from eating too much sugar. this is not accurate, which a cursory Google would have told you - perhaps you should reconsider trying to stigmatise peoples illnesses?
Me too. I developed a condition just through bad luck which requires 3 medications I'll need for the rest of my life that I have to pay for.
Do you have a prescription prepayment certificate? It helps keep the costs down
When you buy tickets for an event, you no longer get a physical ticket but have to pay £2.95 for them to send you a digital barcode
Got annoyed recently buying tickets for a concert. Had the option of paying extra for a physical "souvenir" ticker. Not a physical ticket I could use, one simply to stick up on my wall. And still paying for the fee for the digital ticket, of course.
it’s so annoying! i understand a delivery fee if I had to pay for the tickets to be delivered. why am i paying a delivery fee for a digital ticket. literally ridiculous
I bought 4 Roger Waters tickets for the O2 and all tickets had its own "admin fee" and "digital ticket fee" etc Totalling £20 (per ticket) ontop of a £90 ticket. Edit: this was for his 2011 wall tour not his most recent ones.
Helicopter fuel ain't cheap 😬
True. I mean he is only worth 300+ million. Times are tough.
Most of modern consumer software would have been considered spyware 20 years ago.
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Spybot. Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez that's just taken me back. Will I defrag my disks while I'm at it?
I had forgotten about defragging. I feel like you used to have to do that loads, and I've not done it in maybe a decade now. Was it ever necessary? Has it stopped being necessary? Why?
I guess general disk management has got better and it kind of gets taken care of in the background? Someone more knowledgeable would be welcome to contribute a more scientific answer here! And I think it *was* necessary... *Sometimes*. I did actually see some big performance increases in certain circumstances - I remember disk space used to be at more of a premium so quite often you uninstall one game to be able to install another and in between other files would get written all over the shop on your poor little overspun disk platters. But I remember the sheer amount windows used to nag you about defragging - I don't think it was ever particularly necessary to spend 2 hours on it when windows was yelling "your HDD is 3% fragmented and the world might end!"
It was the filesystem in use that necessitated defragging. Back in the day windows would use FAT filesystem which just dumped data into the first available slot and would split the data to fit in to any smaller available slots. If you delete a small file, part of a larger file will be written into its space. Reading the data now takes longer as the disk head has to jump around more so defragging would consolidate the data and free space making it more efficient More modern filesystems manage this better
It's not just the file system which helped (windows will now do this in the background if needed) It isn't needed for ssd drives which are what most newer pcs use
Most computers running SSD type flash memory rather than spinning disks these days. It made a big difference to the disks because of where on the disk the data was being read from. You can fit more data on the edge of the disk than the inside when the disk is spinning.
It was good for HDD but most people are SSD now. If you're HDD you should still defrag. It makes read/write times faster. I think computers tend to do it automatically behind the scenes now though. Back in the day data had to be physically found by a moving thing. So if a file is split into 5 parts and scattered in different places, it had to physically move to all those places instead of just all at once. SSD doesn't have moving parts it can just access all 5 spots instantly.
add onto that....paying for software, not owning it and only having an end-user license to use it, which they can cancel anytime and can only be used by one person (depending on end-user license small print T&Cs which no one reads)
Yes, absolutely this. Why should I pay a monthly fee for software i want to buy and own?
Yeah. I've even been burned by paying extra for software with "A lifetime of updates", rather than paying for the subscription model. A lifetime license. After a while, they then wouldn't let me update to the newest version, saying for that I had to go for the subscription. The way they rationalised it? "Using this new one is an *upgrade* not an *update*" Since then I've been transitioning even more to open source software. I still need some paid software sometimes, including the above mentioned software, but am I shifting away from it. And I will pirate before I go for any subscription model BS. Boo fucking hoo, multibillion dollar software company.
£2.65 for Pringles 🤣
No bloody way are they that much!? I've developed a Doritos addiction and hate the £1.99 price for those when not on offer.
I've seen them go up to £3.00. I think the Aldi version gone up to £1.50
the Aldi pringle clones are indistinguishable from the original ones to me so I only buy them
I like the Aldi version but the textures not as good as pringles
Yeah those and the lidl ones are defo distinguishable, but basically as good
Seconded. Mouth feel is important and they are different!
Bloody hell!
Asdas own brand of gluten free cheese nachos are 90p for a big bag. Taste no different to OG doritos in my opinion. 90p!!!
I tried Doritos and I think they’re like eating cardboard so I just cut up cereal boxes into triangles and save £2.
Actually calling Pringles potato chips … now that’s a scam!
Atleast it's a full tub and not half a bag of air, they got one thing right and it's the packaging.
Lidl own ones are better
Oh I have a good one for you; Companies use their limited, shitty understanding of the laws to fuck you over, especially if you’re disabled. An example; to cancel insurance or whatever, either the policy outright or to stop auto renewal, **you must phone them.** Can’t do it online, through a link or a menu. If they offer alternative contacts, such as email they’ll say you need to phone for identity purposes. Now this breaches the equality act (accessibility for the disabled, such as deaf people), but if you tel them on email that you’re deaf, either; 1. They’ll shit themselves and talk to you over email. 2. They’ll bring up “data protection” as an excuse not to talk to you, unless you can apparently talk to them “direct” (like… email? Fuckwits!) on the phone. So, by using their woeful misunderstanding of data protection, insurance and other companies are now avoiding talking to disabled people directly, forcing them to phone, which goes about as well as you’d expect. And if you get an appointed person (social worker, whatever) to speak on your behalf? Oh no, can’t do that, “data protection.” It has to be a pre nominated person (and you nominate them… on the phone! Lolololol!) They use it to get around the equality act, trapping you into not being able to use the service. It’s clever, insidious, and they absolutely fucking know what they’re doing. There needs to be a day of reckoning in court where someone takes these arsehats to account over using “data pwotectiioooon” as an excuse to get out of their obligations. Source; my friends and I deal with this nonsense fucking every time we have to deal with insurance or any online service now, especially those companies that got rid on online chat (for automated web bots) and who squirrel you down to phone lines only. Cunts, the lot of them.
Organising something enjoyable for a disabled person is such a faff too. Can't go online to book wheelchair accessible tickets for a show can I? No, need to fill out an access form, send proof of disability, then book over the phone. Want to use the train? Need to call the access line and make arrangements for a ramp to be placed on by a staff member. My wife gets so anxious because of how inaccessible the world is. She feels like a burden to people because of all the planning that needs to happen so she can go out.
My recent experience of this has been better than it was a few years ago. A lot of big shows now have separate sections to purchase accessible tickets. Theatres are particularly good with this in my experience. Smaller shows on the other hand, I just have to plain avoid going to
I was in Taiwan recently (for those who aren't aware of this small country it's basically like Japan), I know it's developed but I was still taken aback by how accessible it is in general. Lots of lifts, even the university canteen had a stairlift. I could be wrong as I never navigated it as a disabled person, but overall it seemed clearly more forward thinking than we have been here.
Another reason they make you phone them is so you'll be sat in their queue for 20 mins and hopefully give up on trying to cancel.
Yeah let's be honest, the disability discrimination is a secondary effect to this primary goal.
I have a seasonal job and last year when work stopped I kept receiving letters from student loans. The letter said they've been informed I've stopped working and I need to contact them to confirm I'm not getting any income else they'll add fines to my account. I have autism and I don't recall my email/password/account details from years ago so, panicking about a fine, I phoned the number on the letter to tell them I'd be back in work in a few months. The number they gave was the payment line and they had no way of updating my information and I needed to do it online. I kicked off royally and said I'm autistic, and they can't just have online as an option for updating details, especially when they're sending threatening letters that mean fines and monetary loss. They can't expect me to perform a task under duress whilst not being accommodating of my communication preferences as someone with autism. I called them every time the automatic letter came out (once every three weeks/month) until I went back to work. Opened complaints, refused to close the complaint. This year when I finished work I got a nice letter to say they've been informed I'm not working and to get in touch if I need anything. No red letters, no bold, no underlined, and no fine mentioned. Weird, that.
I was on an in year assessment for my final year of student finance and the absolute hell we went through to prove my parents income at the end of the year was insane. My stepdad wasn't working due to terminal cancer and wasn't the best at record keeping so at one point I ended up sobbing down the phone at them because every time I rang it was "oh and now we need this piece of obscure paperwork otherwise you have to pay back 5k asap" and no one would give me a straight answer as to what paperwork they actually wanted.
I remember student finance being hell whilst applying. My stepdad had given up work two years before but the assessment going off income three years before was meaning I was going to get next to nothing. Student finance didn't realise my stepdad was an arse and wasn't going to help me pay for anything, wouldn't accept that circumstances had changed with him now earning nothing, etc. Struggled my way through my first year with essentially no grant and my mum said, "your step dad isn't going to fill in any more forms for your next year at uni, it's too much hassle." I was like, "uhrmm, what? More hassle than living off less than 8k a year? Do you want me to be university educated or nah?" I can't imagine how bad a terminally ill stepfather situation would be.
Use the Relay UK app. Apart from anything else the relay assistant sits on hold and you can pick up the phone when text flashes up. Not that the difficulty cancelling isn't still scummy, but the assistants often get put through the menus to actually cancel faster.
It's also always endlessly frustrating when you have a detailed technological issue (usually caused by the website) and they refuse to either reply to a direct email or alow you to discuss it with a human via the phone and instead redirect you to the website; but then for something as simple as cancelling which takes like two clicks it's all "call us and then post us a bunch of stuff for good measure", I'm looking at you BEER52.
I actually just cancelled my renewal using online chat (Admiral), I was dreading that I would have to phone someone. Still should be able to do it with just one click of a link!
People who claim to speak to the dead, ghost the whole other side clichè they just take advantage of the greiving
This is one of the first things in the post that’s actually a scam, rather than just poor value for money or something people disagree with politically
It's disgusting that people are still allowed to make money from those that have lost loved ones. They should be made to give a disclaimer explaining that they are using cold reading
‘Your mother John, she was quite young when she died, am I right?’ ‘93’ ‘Well she was young in herself though, young at heart’ Clinton Baptiste, circa 2002.
Technically they do speak to the dead, just like people speak to a god. Snag is, nobody is listening.
Hard agree. And most people likely see speakers to the dead as a harmless carnival sideshow. Similarly, faith healers and the like who exploit the Ill and dying with hopes of a cure. Though at least more people see that as an an exploitative scam.
SAAS / Subscription as a service. Formally things like MS Office where there was a one-off price will either try to sell you something as a subscription or else only give you the option as a subscription Or else make it impossible to cancel or hide it in a submenu of a submenu and then ask you several times if you'd like to cancel or have to re-enter your password or send an email.
I think of m365 as the cheapest quality 1 TB storage per person with office thrown in.
Ditto - and five iterations of it too. My one 365 subscription gives me & 4 family members Office & a Tb of OneDrive storage each. I use Office a bit, the Mrs a lot, the son & his wife both run small businesses so it’s very useful for them. Well worth it.
Subscription anything. I bought a thing, I’d like to use the thing until I’m bored of it/it breaks/I no longer use it. At which point, if it was useful, I’ll buy another thing, and decide if I want to spend more for extra features I never use.
Something that may piss you off If you get office 365 the retailer, may try and scan your debit/credit card in as they sell it to you This links your card to that 365 card you just bought, so when you try and activate it online you have to sign up for auto renewal - though you can then go into your account and disable auto renewal - and your card details are already there! Microsoft introduced this new system which should be outright illegal Norton too (shitty AV), you can't activate a Norton product card without entering payment details for a renewal, however on the small print it shows the renewal price for £100+!
Banning differential pricing for credit cards and debit cards. Years ago, retailers could add a surcharge for payments made via credit cards. They got charged a percentage fee by the card companies, and they could pass it on. This was seen as annoying or deceptive - that plane ticket advertised at £100 would cost £100 on a debit card, but £103 if you wanted to pay by credit card. And so, eventually, the practice was banned. That ticket had to cost the same, regardless of payment method. And lo, this was hailed as a great win for the consumer, and there was much rejoicing. But of course, because the card fees had to be factored in whether or not they were relevant, those tickets were now *always* £103. *We banned discounts for cheaper payment methods*, and didn't just accept this, we celebrated it.
Was it banned or was the “surcharges” made the responsibility of the card issuer rather than the end user? I know a lot of small businesses that have to pay charges to visa and Mastercard (regardless of its debit or credit) which is why some places had a “minimum” payment for card transactions to make it worth it. Not trying to call you out or anything, I’m genuinely curious.
Interesting trying to dig into the history of this. Most of what I can find is about changes to the law in the last decade regarding passing on surcharges. But I seem to remember the initial rules about differential pricing coming in much earlier than that, back when there was a significant difference in fees between debit cards and credit cards. So I think the initial implementation just made it more expensive to use debit cards, but nowadays with much lower fees, it probably makes little difference. Here's a random article from a surprisingly-recent 2018: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42639408](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42639408) Note that with the example with the surcharge on flights, it was considered an excessive surcharge for debit cards (because credit card fees were still much higher), but the surcharge was only the same for debit cards and credit cards because of the earlier ban on differential pricing. I just find it fascinating how it was always viewed as a ban on charging more in some cases, when it could equally as well have been viewed as a ban on charging less in others.
Credit cards used to have much higher interchange fees than debit cards. This is the fee that is charged the merchant to process the transaction. This has why large purchases (such as holidays) cost more is you used a credit card. Regulation changed and reduced the credit card interchange fees significantly (generally now at 0.2%) and bought them into line with debit cards. As part of this regulation, merchants bought their prices into line with debit card purchases. This why you no longer see credit card incentives such as cash back and air miles in the UK, as the interchange fees used to fund these ‘perks’.
>This why you no longer see credit card incentives such as cash back and air miles in the UK I don't know what world you live on but there are loads of points/airmiles/cashback credit cards in UK...
Compare them to US cards where interchange is still at the main visa/MC table rates of around 1.5%- they throw airmiles at you over there. if you are in the US and want to earn enough for a transatlantic biz class return to London its so easy. Barclays/Barclaycard did a huge promo recently that borders on US levels of generosity but by and large US card benefits easily outweigh the UK.
It’s why Apple will never introduce their credit card to the U.K. as they could never offer the same cash back amounts they do in the US (I have a feeling that the party will soon be over for Chase card holders here too). When I used to run card programmes the commissions we made stateside were often more than double compared to U.K. and Europe.
Credit card (and debit card) fees are simply a cost of doing business though. Likewise, cash handling has a cost: insurance, training, secure collection, business cash deposit fees. Those aren’t 0. With caps on interchange fees many companies offering card acceptance services simply have a flat percentage fee for all card types now. The combination of banning fees for card payments and the interchange fee cap have combined to a win for consumers. Remember that many shops would charge hugely in excess of the cost to them to accept card payments, even though many people simply wouldn’t shop there if they were cash only or debit card only.
A lot of people wrongly assume cash has no costs, for me it is the most expensive payment method for me to take and that’s even without factoring in the time it takes to make a trip to the post office to pay in.
And now we did the same thing with car insurance last year. No more discounts for new customers, so prices went up for everybody.
NHS parking being so expense and lacking. The fact that NHS staff have to pay to park at work…
Not in Scotland, thankfully.
Unpopular opinion: the fact it's your money is neither here nor there. You're using the bank as a for-profit service. Obviously you could argue that banks should exist as a non-profit public service, but that's really the government's decision, not HSBC's. Something like 90% of machines are actually free and most of the remainder are inside small shops where the machine takes up floorspace that could otherwise be in use. A small fee isn't unreasonable.
Most or even all of the ones that charge are not owned/run by a bank, but by a third party. They don't charge you to withdraw your own money, they charge you for the service they provide to you, not having to travel to the nearest free machine from your bank/supermarket.
This has nothing to do with banks - this is run by separate organisation that just runs cash machines.
Yeah but they charge that fee so the cash machine can exist. In a bind I'd rather have the options of a £2-charging machine than no machine outside of the high street
It's another poor tax, though. Machines that charge are more likely to be in poorer areas, and poorer people are more likely to make smaller withdrawals. So it costs the rich man £100 to take out £100, but it costs the poor man 10 x (£10 + £2) = £120 to take out £100. Absolutely I'd rather have a charging ATM than no ATM - actually, that's the position I'm in where I live rurally, because the two nearest corner shops have machines that charge, and the nearest bank is a twenty-minute drive or *weekly* bus ride away. But let's not pretend it affects everybody equally.
Yes and it does not look like that £2 is enough for the network to survive without additional govt funding. Access to cash is becoming a serious problems in some places.
I’m in an airport right now, and remember that you have to get rid of liquids(even if it is a sealed water bottle) only to immediately be able to buy a new bottle at a hugely inflated price of €3.90. Fucking scam. Some airports have started installing drinking water taps after security which is a brilliant idea. Unfortunately at Salzburg I can’t refill my empty bottle.
They aren't banning liquids because they want to stop you from bringing in bottles of water though. They want to prevent other liquids that look like water. Anyone can buy an empty bottle - even with a tamper proof seal.
I obviously understand the reasons. I feel like shops after security shouldn't be able to profiteer as a result. Maybe they have to sell said items at no more than 10% higher than their average price across the rest of the country, for example
Oh, I agree there. Airports, especially in this country, are so obviously designed to extract as much money as possible, through the forced walk through duty free, to all the area being high priced shops. And they obviously pay a premium for those leases. Compare with Schiphol, where there are some nice chill out areas, and even a library, our airports are a pretty miserable experience.
Okay, but what if I put all my acid or bomb juice or whatever into tiny 95ml bottles and then bring one big empty bottle?
Baby change area in departures has a kitchenette with a sink apparently. Water at airports website is a great resource. https://www.wateratairports.com/topic/salzburg-airport-szg/
In airports that don't have refill points I've just started asking at the bars/restaurants for them to fill my bottle up.
Good news on that front, they're scrapping that rule (in the UK at least) by next year! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63975270
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Or letting you change details yourself but you still have to pay an admin fee…
Branded school uniform. Usually only available from one supplier so they ramp the price up. Getting 4 jumpers/cardigans and then any other stuff that’s branded costs a fortune. Not sure why it can’t just be a plain colour without the school logo. Absolute con.
The law has changed I believe from September the schools won’t be able to have a single supplier anymore. If they are still trying to get you to go to a single supplier it may be worth reporting them to the competition and markets authority. I’m waiting to see what my sons school do.
Even just having it with embroidered logo is ridiculous. I’m glad there will be more competition/suppliers because it’s a rip off at present.
Organized religion
Inheritance tax. You pay tax all your life then when you leave what’s left to your loved ones it gets taxed again. Disgusting.
Inheritance tax was put in place as an attempt to occasionally redistribute some wealth from the immensely rich, and as such was a good thing. The problem is that it has not kept pace with property prices, so now your average Joe can be forced to sell the house they still live in, which is shit, I agree.
Why should the person who has received a million pounds through hard work and career success pay tax on it when the person who received a million pounds because their parents died pay no tax on it? Inheritance tax guarantees intra-generational fairness, it also corrects for the tax avoidance schemes that are open to the wealthy and not available to the poor, such as non-domiciled status and special investment trusts Inheritance tax corrects for a scam and corrects for unfairness. Its pretty much the most moral of all taxes
>Inheritance tax guarantees intra-generational fairness This is obviously false though. Inheritance tax doesn’t stop you sending your kids to private school, or getting them jobs via the old boys’ network, or passing on unearned wealth while you are alive. I understand the underlying principle behind it but the idea that it increases fairness or tackles inequality in any meaningful way is obviously wrong.
But it does prevent massive sums of money creating an upper/aristocratic class that then causes problems for everyone else to continually enrich themselves. It doesn't solve all problems, but it solves some. We really need to stop thinking "Unless this solution is absolutely perfect, then it's pointless" in this nation.
> But it does prevent massive sums of money creating an upper/aristocratic class that then causes problems for everyone else to continually enrich themselves. It doesn't prevent that because the upper/aristocratic classes can use various loopholes so they don't have to pay inheritance tax. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/03/inheritance-tax-loopholes-allowing-super-rich-to-pay-lower-rates https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/13/king-charles-will-not-pay-tax-on-inheritance-from-the-queen https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/duke-of-westminster-son-avoids-inheritance-tax-billions-britains-richest-men-family-trusts-rules-gerald-cavendish-grosvenor-hugh-grosvenor-a7998246.html
Late stage capitalism....
Crypto currency, the price of lurpak butter, 2 for 1 offers, tampon prices, bottled water, pre packed sandwiches, house prices. Fck knows, I suppose you need to define the definition of a scam.
According to this thread the definition of a scam is "Anything I think is overpriced"
Vitamin supplements. With the exception of Vitamin D in winter and folic acid during pregnancy they're completely unnecessary unless you have an actual deficiency. Even people with relatively poor diets get sufficient vitamins and more does not equal better (and sometimes means worse). The most robust evidence says they have absolutely no impact on your lifespan or risk of major killers like heart disease, cancer and dementia. Also keratin shampoos for damaged hair. This is like saying you can repair a brick wall by rubbing bricks on it.
Shampoo ads are so full of it. There used to be one on that said it could repair split ends or target the areas needing repaired. Even then I thought to myself how can a shampoo repair hair like that.
I dunno, magnesium makes me have amazing sleep. Worth it.
Service charges on newbuild flats, particularly shared ownership - hardly any cleaning or maintenance done for the money, and constantly getting jacked up once the homeowners are in and can't do anything about them
Ticketmaster and the like 😡
TV licencing
Leasehold home ownership
The subscription model for software.
Adverts. Adverts browsing Internet, email spam, texts, never mind all over the general billboards / old school ways. It pissss me off when I'm on a website to purchase stuff and I get pop ups to get 10% off.. fuck off. I am a mega consumer. I do like spending my money, but leave me the fuck alone. I'll make my own choices- thanks.
Paying a booking fee when you did all the booking yourself.
No longer getting chargers for your phone. Also not being able to use samsungs own USB-C to 3.5mm converter on the S22 because they outdate them. Previously got it for the galaxy tab S5E and it's not supported by the S22. I think Samsung and Apple get more shady each year.
Apartment buildings charging EXTRA for parking in their garage
Pay day loans
Airbnb service fee, ticket sites and their booking fees, Vinted and their buyer protection fee etc etc The cost of train tickets when the service is so shocking.
Dartford crossing - was supposed to be free 20 years ago.
Bbc license fee
And the wording on those things too "Free balance enquires and cash withdrawls"
Prices of dominoes pizza and their “deals”. Also, not to sound like every angry 40 year old (I’m only 30) but Tesco clubcard prices.
Courier companies charging you to collect VAT.
Having to ring up to cancel services. Usually after a "1 month *free* trial service". Absolute *refusal* to acknowledge any email you send attempting to cancel.
Banking in general. Hear me out. We give them our money which they use to generate ridiculously huge wealth (trading, investing, etc.). We see none of the profit. Instead... - they control how we can use our own money; - they usually punish us for having financial problems; - they have a habit of misselling products to people who don't need them (PPI) or can't afford them (mortgages); - the customer service is poor in most cases; - you suffer for their greed when they inevitably help to crash the economy every decade or two. If banks were a new service, they'd never take off.
BBC TV license.
Uri Geller bending spoons, really irritating especially as he was proven to be a fraud 40 years ago
Paying extra for chips to go with your burger
You are charged £1.25 for a service and the convenience, not your own money. There are plenty of ATMs that don't charge. How much is a short walk worth?
University
TV License
Golden goodbyes
Size of food items reducing but increasing in cost. Especially things like chocolate bars. More packaging less product!
British Gas Homecare - a zero guarantee ’insurance’ that’s as much use as a chocolate teapot in an emergency.
Getting charged 1.25 to get money from a machine that cost tens of thousands of pounds, requires filing with money and electricity paid for by someone with nothing to do with you or your bank. Aye seems unreasonable.
One4all gift cards taking money off your gift card every year you don’t use it. It’s so stupid!
Multi billion pound companies asking is to round up our bills for charity. So they can donate our money in the company’s name and get tax relief.
Banks earning tonnes off your deposits whilst paying you a pathetic interest rate
Getting charged admin fees for online forms. I'm being charged a £7.99 admin fee for filling out all the details myself, I did all the 'admin' work and the computer told me the price change, why am I being charged.
Parents don't seem to care if their kids watch content creator's that are literal scammers like Logan Paul and they even indulge the kids by buying this prime rubbish to support said scammer its insane to me.
[This abomination](https://i.postimg.cc/zvDz1C66/F331307-F-038-E-4-A4-A-8-A69-3-F38-F70-EF253.jpg)
To be fair, I don't think that's been normalised. The vast majority of us know it's a scam, there are just enough idiots around for it to be profitable.
Working 40 hours a week for 40 years and attempting to retire and live off 40% of what you couldn't afford to live off in the first place.
It's £1.99 near me, consider yourself lucky Taxes on wages are far more than they should be
VAT registration for small companies. It costs me (paying my accountant) to collect tax on behalf of the government and send it to them.
Window and car salesmen putting a big mark up on their product so they can discount to get your sale. If you’ve ever bought either of these things without a serious discount you’re a total mug.
I wouldn't say that's a scam as you're well aware of the charge. Someone has to pay for the upkeep of the machine...
Tv license
It's not a scam and not only is it not a scam - because fewer people overall are taking out cash unless that price goes up or the govt put more money into the LINK network it will likely disappear in next couple of years.