10 Best Girls' Athletic Shirts & Tees

Bestselling Girls' Athletic Shirts & Tees in 2023

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Biggest Consumer Ripoffs

From cell phone hell, to fitness madness, here are the biggest consumer traps. This content has an expiration date, but don't waste precious ink printing this article until you read further.

Everyone knows that bottled water and coffee-shop beverages are indulgences, and not values. In-room hotel movies and mini-bar contents are obviously overpriced. Microsoft makes billions every year not because of customer satisfaction, but rather a carefully engineered lack of real choice. Even so, the most aggravating ripoffs are those representing blatant legalized monopolies, shady marketing, and outright deceit.

Cell Phone Service: Whether it's "unlimited" contracts that can be "throttled" by cell providers, hidden or non-disclosed charges, horrible service within utterly-phony "coverage" maps, or usurious cancellation and other fees, the cell giants are arguably the most hated service providers in the U.S. So, read the fine print, see if their definitions of simple words jibe with yours, never take a free phone and/or sign a cell contract, and vote by porting your number elsewhere. Just know that consumers in other countries don't have put up with this garbage, so perhaps the tide will turn against these gougers stateside in the future. Again, buy your own phone and never sign a contract.

Cable TV: Although the quality of both cable signal and service have increased notably over the last 10 years, your competitive options have likewise only increased to the degree that the beloved phone company has now entered the ugly fray. That's special. Most local municipalities have permanently sold-off your right to truly choose in order to bring in money to pay their own salaries. If they have generous retirement plans, and you have a $200/mo cable bill, it may be time to think about other options, like a DVD mail service, or streaming, particularly if you are not dependent on live programming.

Mail-In Rebates: This is a no brainer. Retailers are betting that you won't mail it in, and won't complain if you don't get your check, and they usually win that bet. Coupled with "asterisked" advertising come-ons, these so-called "deals" are nothing more than a profit center financed by people with no time to spend chasing rebates after the sale. If you do buy with a mail rebate, the likelihood of you getting a check is good, but do the math. Calculate the grief of any follow-up inquiries for big-ticket items. If you enjoy spending hours on the phone, go for it, but if not, never use such an incentive as a reason to purchase anything. And check the fine print. Many chains offer mail rebates good only for store credit, which you may not want or need.

Gift Cards: Most of these things end up with unspent balances, or they are lost altogether. Buying a gift card is giving an interest-free loan to a retailer, and therefore these cards are a huge profit center for them, and a huge trap for suckers. Plus, there may actually be other fees attached to "non-use" of the cards, as ridiculous as this may sound. Cash may be tacky to gift, but most people don't lose cash, so give fresh, crispy cash instead.

Printer Ink: The Ink Mafia likes to sell printers far below cost and then take you to the cleaners thereafter on tiny cartridges half-full of overpriced ink that you really don't need. Isn't it nice when you run out of magenta and are prevented from printing anything at all? For home use, dump your old clunky, do-everything beast when it breaks, which it will soon, and buy a sleek and simple black amp; white printer with refillable cartridges. If you need to print color photos, buy a machine dedicated to that function. And never allow a printer to take over your computing environment by opting into anything on install, downloading any extraneous software, or by allowing any peripheral to communicate with the internet. The only benefit is to the manufacturer.

"Organic" Foods: Hey, everyone wants to eat healthy, uncontaminated food, but don't casually trust industry-driven terms like "all-natural" or "organic." These definitions seem to be very malleable, so you need to do your homework on each food product that you regularly buy and consume. If you are not willing to spend time on the research, don't spend your money on highly-overpriced items offering little more than a different label. Your best bet is to buy from a very reputable health food store that can, perhaps, do some of the homework for you, and help you buy wholesome foods with confidence.

Expiration Dates on Sealed Foods: This is not so much a ripoff as it is a misunderstanding. Food companies need to protect themselves, but it's hard to protect a consumer who lacks the ability to use judgment in the senseless waste of perfectly good food due to an arbitrary date-stamp on a vacuum-sealed package. If you buy a pint of sour cream with an expiration date of yesterday, and you have not opened it by today, it's almost certainly still perfectly edible. Use some common sense. If food stinks, or is visibly moldy, throw it away. If not, eat it. On the converse, also learn the difference between rotten meat, and the rotten and risky "deal" of buying something unsealed and highly perishable (like hamburger) that expires tomorrow, unless you are taking it straight home for dinner.

Gym amp; Fitness Contracts: Don't feel guilty if you've signed up for a contract or an auto-pay deal at a health or fitness club and don't use it. You are not alone. Most of the commercial gym companies are counting heavily on the fact that the majority of their "valued members" will basically pay regularly, but rarely show up to use to the services. If this is you, only join a gym that allows you to pay as you go. And if you have anything else cancelable on auto-pay which you do not use, get rid of it now. You can always sign up again later.

Credit Card Fees: This one is very simple: make sure whatever fees you are paying make sense in terms of service and rewards. There may very well be valuable "prestige" in having a high-line credit card, but if you are not gaining such a benefit, don't pay a high fee. Check various websites which rate credit cards on all of the various costs and benefits.

Bank Fees: If your bank is charging you any fees whatsoever for the privilege of using your money, consider going elsewhere. Look into a Credit Union. Banks are in the business of earning money - by any means possible - from you, and handing it out to their shareholders and top executives. That's fine, but think about Credit Unions, which have members, and not customers, per se'. And don't worry about changing your bank auto-payments. It's not hard to get fully set-up in a new CU account in an hour or so.