You bust your bums every single day to make ends meet. You wake up early in the morning, go to the office, leave late at night. And then the next day, the whole cycle starts again. Every now and then you find yourself a break – you go to a coffee shop or you to a pub. Even rarer, you go on a vacation to forget your daily worries. Yet the stark fact remains – you are prone to daily expenses that are not necessary. Indeed, they are so unnecessary that you can consider them rip-offs. Naturally, you would have no way of avoiding them if you were not aware of what they are, right? So here, take a look at some of the daily rip-offs that you might encounter and do your best to avoid them.

Rip-off#1: Default service charge
This often happens in restaurants and other food establishments. While it is not illegal to automatically add service charges onto the bill, it should be clear that the establishment does this. Otherwise, you might end up giving a tip (again) and spending double than what you should. Another thing about automatic service charging is the fact that you, the customer, have no control over how much you tip. While some restaurants keep it low, there are establishments which could charge up to 15% service charge. Keep your eyes open for these charges!

Rip-off #2: Currency exchange in airports
This is for those of you who tend to travel here and there. While there are always currency exchange services to be found in airports, you are setting yourself up to be ripped off if you wait till you get to the airport to change your money. The pound is doing quite well against other currencies but you can be losing out on a nice sum of money if you convert at the airport. Instead, spend the time to find the best possible rates while you are still in the city. Alternatively, find a good service that exchanges money at favourable rates.

Rip-off #3: Restaurant cancellation fees
Do you like eating out? If so, do you always book your table in advance? This is a very smart move, especially if the restaurant that you are going to tends to be fully packed. However, do make sure that you really are going to make it. Otherwise, you just might get ripped off due to booking cancellation charges. Yes, there is such a thing although not all restaurants engage in this practice. For high end establishments, like Boxwood Café (Ramsay’s resto), you will be charged as much as 50 pounds for a cancellation less than 24 hours before your reservation!

Rip-off #4: Professional debt advisers
The chances are that you have already considered taking on the services of a debt advisers (if you haven’t done this already). With the credit crunch prevailing for such a long time, average people are looking for help more and more. Hence the proliferation of businesses offering their services with regard to debt solutions. If I were you, though, don’t make the mistake of paying for this service. There are many charitable institutions and NGOs that offer exactly the same service for FREE.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 12:55 am and is filed under Debt, Personal Finance, Advice . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.