Many of us feel ripped off in our day to day spending, so much so that bringing up even a single rip-off story in a group of people is likely to trigger a flood of them from everyone else. Whether it’s at the movies, in restaurants or on vacation, we seldom believe we are getting as much for our money as we ought to. Of course, some rip-off stories are more debatable than others. Often times, what is called a ripoff is little more than someone’s subjective opinion of what they “really” deserve for their money, whatever that means. However, other purchases actually
do appear, by all objective criteria, to be a raw deal just about all the time. Today, BillShrink analyzes some common ripoffs as mentioned recently by
CNN Money, that most of our readers are likely to be well acquainted with.
Movie Theater Popcorn
Movie theater popcorn is as much an American icon as baseball and apple pie. Like a moth to its flame, movie-goers instinctively load up on hot, buttery popcorn before sitting down to enjoy the show. It’s hard to imagine things being any other way. That being said, movie theater popcorn is without question one of the biggest, most egregious ripoffs around.
ABC News reported in July 2008 that a small bucket of movie theater popcorn will run you “around $5.50 — more per ounce than filet mignon.” University of California-Irvine professor Richard McKenzie, who wrote a book on this very subject, conjectures that popcorn costs less than ten cents an ounce to produce. That makes the markup somewhere between 900%-1,300%! The reason appears to be that movie theaters do not make much money on actual ticket sales. According to McKenzie, “the theater can be paying 70 or more percent of the ticket price to the studios.” That leaves concessions, like popcorn and candy, as the next logical place to raise prices and recoup some of the revenue being sacrificed at the ticket counter.
All You Can Eat Buffets
All you can eat buffets thrive on an all too appealing sales pitch: pay once, eat all you want. It might seem difficult at first to find fault with such a generous offer. However, buffet operators do not offer that deal because they’re generous – they offer it because they know their numbers and study their customers. While the typical buffet charges somewhere between $12-$15, they know that that the average customer is not likely to eat very much more than they would’ve purchased for $7 or $8 at McDonalds, despite the fact that they can if they choose to. Furthermore, it’s questionable whether the quality of the food being served is much
better than that of a fast food restaurant. Therefore, what often ends up happening is that a buffet’s customers pay for the
ability to eat twice as much as they
actually eat, on average.
Printer Ink
You’re absolutely right, Shrinkage readers. How could we forget about the abominations that is printer ink — the bane of all consumer existence? As pointed out succinctly by
the Oatmeal, and frequently noted by
other people on the interweb, printer inks makes us want to scream in silent rage (especially during the checkout aisle at Office-Super-Max-Staple-Depot). Unfortunately for us, printer inks follow the tried-and-true razor blade marketing tactic of offering something at an hugely marked down price (printers) in order to sell something disposable, but needed continually, for a much higher markup price (printer inks).
Alternatives? We suggest finding a printer you can trust that has all the features you’ll need for years to come, and find a good alternative/generic brand ink cartridge set for that particular printer. You should note however that many generic brands may be manufactured from refurbished ink cartridges (there’s a huge industry for this), and at times, some generics or refilled ink cartridges may not work well. Always do your homework before you buy!
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