So Great Perth Rip
It’s a rainy late winter’s evening in a restaurant in Subiaco. I’m just about to order a $33 scotch fillet, when I notice I’m going to be charged an additional $4.75 to put some black pepper sauce on it. It’s not as if I’m about to walk out and turn my back on what’s reputed to be a really good steak.
And so the idea for this story was born. I’d morph from my sporting alter ego The Waterboy to the economically outraged Cheap http://www.cheapjerseys11.com/ a$$ed Man and find a list of Perth rip offs that really got me hot under the collar.
What I worked out was that it wasn’t really the big ticket items such as rent that got my goat (friends would point out at this juncture that I’m technically not renting, anyway). Nor was it the really generic stuff like transaction fees at ATMs.
Rather, it was the bizarre little things that seemed to involve ridiculous over charging that angered me the most.
Exorbitantly expensive potatoes, pints that (judging by price) might be made out of liquid gold, juiced up fees for juicing up your batteries and the inflated cost of a couple of hours spent with Scarlett Johansson.
Naturally my own (petty) gripes aren’t going to be same as everybody else’s, so this story also comes with a promise that we’ll reproduce a collection of reader contributed most offensive rip offs by the end of the week (see details at the end of the story for how to contribute).
Righto, let’s get started.
The bad boy on the left is a $10.50 Heineken on a quiet Wednesday morning at the OBH; on the right is a sign from an Adelaide pub that will never be seen in Perth!Simple one to start with. Could just as easily have been coffee but I’m not much of a caffeine man. I do, however, drink beer wherever I go. Recently, I conducted an experiment in Sydney by walking into the first inner city bar I could find and ordering a pint of Heineken. The non happy hour price was $7.90. I did the same thing in central Adelaide on the weekend and got a $6.50 and a $7 (admittedly for slightly smaller non imperial pints). All were substantially cheaper than the corresponding figures from Perth’s Botanica ($11), OBH ($10.50) or Subiaco Hotel ($10.90).
And that’s not even mentioning the grand daddy of them all, the $9.20 for a daytime middy (a middy, I tell you!) of Peroni at The Boulevard.
Cheap a$$ed drinker’s solution: happy hours are the only answer. Mind you, during many of them, our prices only drop as low as the standard price in other capital cities around the country. A genuinely sad state of affairs.
Charging for charging literally
So you’ve gone to Perth Domestic Airport, paid the sky high parking fees, coughed up the inflated cost of a ham and salad sandwich and then noticed your phone is short on charge. Not to worry, just plug it into the conveniently located charging station at the boarding gate and you’ll have more than enough power to last a cross country trip. What’s that? It’s going to cost me $2 for 10 minutes! Proof that nothing’s ever complementary when it comes to flying, save for crummy headphones and, if you get lucky, the occasional frisk down with the explosives wand.
Cheap a$$ed traveller’s tip: not entirely relevant to this rip off but stick to franchised junk food in airports, it’s the only thing that isn’t bumped up to genuine 2053 prices.
Tasty looking steak would you like to buy any sauce with that?
A steak in my cheap heart
Everyone knows I love a good, cheap steak. By contrast, those who know me well will be aware how angry I get when I order a relatively expensive cut of meat and then get asked to pay extra for sauce. I’m sure the list of culprits is longer than this (very happy to take contributions) but here’s a start: Squires Loft Subiaco (excellent meat costing up to $56, shame about the $4.75 for sauce), Outback Jacks ($2.75 to put gravy on a $21.50 chicken schnitzel) and the Inglewood Hotel ($34 scotch fillet, minimum $2 for sauce).
Cheap a$$ed meat lover’s thoughts: try taking your own box of Gravox with you. Not sure if it will work, would just love to see the reaction!
Scarlett Johansson wonderful actress, expensive date on a Thursday night. Entertaining film, but the cost? An entirely unhealthy (or healthy from the perspective of the cinema’s bank account) $26. Chuck in a medium popcorn and a large soft drink and I’m coughing up a little less than $40 for one person to see a movie. Sheesh, I went to assess Scarlett Johansson’s acting capabilities, not to take her out for dinner. Obviously this is a nationwide issue but I can’t for the life of me understand why I’m forking out so much in downtown Innaloo, when I could go see the same film in London for $15, New York for $12 to $15, Auckland for a touch over $14, Singapore for $12.50 and Durban for less than $10.
Stuffed is certainly the word that comes to mind.
Just how gourmet can a potato be?
There are plenty of footy related rips I could insert in here off the top of my head, the AFL Record doubling in price for finals, Chicken Treat being more expensive than the outside world (it’s like the anti airport) and that little scam they’ve got going where they charge for beer trays without you realising. But the one that really sticks in my craw is the price of baked potatoes at Subiaco Oval (I refuse to mention sponsor names when this kind of outrage is happening). minced beef), cheese and sour cream or, even worse, $10 for one filled only with cheese and sour cream.