Two Pennies Worth

Rip-off Britain is here to stay

Consumer champion, Sam Dunn tells Confused.com warns us that the most common day to day rip-offs are here to stay.

If you took the reins of a major UK company, would you instinctively hustle your customers?

I only wonder because every month or so, another swathe of the British public falls victim to hucksterish rip-offs.

Last week, Consumer organisation Which? filed a so-called “super complaint” with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in a bid to kibosh "rip off" surcharges levied by companies on debit and credit card transactions.

Teams of Which? researchers discovered that, while the cost to companies for processing a payment by debit card hovers around 20p and is no more than 2 per cent of the transaction value for a credit card,  companies regularly charge far higher fees.

Egregious examples included train-ticket booking site the Trainline slapping on a £3.50 charge for credit card payments while Eurostar laid it on extra thick at £4.

Naturally, the retailers themselves contend that they’re trying to recoup the cost of charges levied to them by banks and card issuers.

The Which? salvo is just the latest in a frankly ludicrous litany of criminal charges and rapacious rip-offs that continue to leave the average UK punter blinking in a state of incomprehension.

What could go wrong with council tax band valuations? Easy: estate agents drove down streets in second gear and wrongly valued some 400,000+ homes leaving many overpaying thousands since the early 1990s.

Or how about the sale of over-priced payment protection insurance on credit cards and personal loans?

And don’t forget monstrous personal pension mis-selling in the late 1980s where providers creamed the fattest of commissions for their own pay packets while convincing retirement savers to swap a secure final salary scheme for the vagaries of the stock markets.

Then there’s endowment mortgages (cheap interest-only home loans were an easier selling point than complex stock market-related endowments), high-risk precipice bonds for elderly savers, door-step selling, split cap investment trusts….

It would all seem to suggest that being a modern-day mountebank is either too lucrative to ignore – hang the inevitable penalty fines that ultimately come with it! - or that it doesn’t take much to swindle the ordinary British customer.

But I wonder how much of it is vanquished victims and the rest middling mugs?

Part of the problem is that enough of us, when faced with outrageous card charge hikes or preposterous sales pitches, still plough ahead and buy anyway.

In worst-case scenarios, many won’t have a choice because of lack of income or poor knowledge – especially among the vulnerable and elderly – and that’s a nasty exploitative situation we can all do without.

However, it’s also the case that many more who do have a choice will be complacent and won’t think to cast even a fleeting glance at small print; won’t blink at a spiralling credit card charge because they can afford it; or are simply too trusting to ever balk at a particular charge and say ‘Excuse me, did you just say that would cost me X? I’ll have to think again.’

Of course, there’s greed too: barrelling headlong into a financial arrangement – take your pick from store finance to hire purchase or credit card promotion – simply to get your hands on favoured goods is nobody’s fault but our own.

Unfortunately, all these flaws favour those with money over those without: and if enough of the former carry on with their daily financial routines like this, it’ll simply get worse for the latter.

Rip-offs thrive in such adverse conditions as, when consumers don’t all pull in the same direction, their overall protection remains stunted.

Until this changes, all manner of snake oil salesmen, profiteers and traders seeking to make a fast buck – whether dressed up in corporate suits or flogging fakes in back streets - will continue to creep into our lives.

So look lively: the rip-off is here to stay for a long while yet.

The MPG Challenge: We want your fuel-saving tips

We can all be fiercely vainglorious about our talents when it takes our fancy. I, for example, like to boast about my ability to get pretentious words like ‘vainglorious’ into blogs about motoring.

Others may talk with pride about the number of ‘celebrity’ friends they’ve managed to amass on Facebook - a friend of mine currently counts TV entertainers Roy Walker, Liza Tarbuck and Dave Benson Phillips among his improbable collection.

Moving on from my *ahem* bizarre foibles, the point I’m eventually trying to get at is that many motorists are keen braggers when it comes to getting the most out of their vehicles. This, of course, is understandable when the price of petrol is so eye-wateringly high.

In particular, after skulking around various sites and forums across the web, I’ve noticed that van drivers are especially passionate about edging up the amount of miles they can get to the gallon. Bikers might have a little more hunger for speed, but that doesn’t mean they’re adverse to saving money either.

Now, as I don’t drive, I’m laying down the gauntlet to you all. Be your weapon a van, car or bike, I want to hear your top tips for saving fuel.

•    First off, let me know the MPG you’ve managed and what motor and model you used. If you want to find a way of measuring it, use this handy tool from Torquecars.com.

•    If you’ve made any big changes to achieve this, let me know the difference from your original MPG and what you did to achieve it - whether it’s through alternative fuels, smart mods or simply changing your driving techniques.

•    I’ll feature your best results and top money-saving tips once we get enough responses, so you’ll get the recognition you deserve for sharing your expertise.

Have you managed to cut your fuel usage? How big were your savings and what did you do to manage it? Let us know by commenting below.