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This is a question Waste of money

I once paid a small fortune to a solicitor in a legal case. She got lost on the way to court, turned up late with the wrong papers and started an argument with the judge, who told her to "shut up, for the love of God". A stunning investment.

Thanks to golddust for the suggestion

(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 12:45)
Pages: Popular, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

This question is now closed.

Motorcycle insurance
A bit of background: I have a motorcycle, it's shit. Good when it works but constantly falls apart/breaks/fucks up and I've spent more repairing it than the - admittedly, cheap - £600 I spent on it in the past 18 months or so.

So when it came to the time of insurance renewal, I decided not to get any more insurance and just sell the fucker. Insurance automatically renewed, lots of kerfuffle resulting in me having to pay the best part of a hundred quid to cancel a policy I didn't want in the first place.

I wrote a letter.


======================================================================

Dear Sir/Madam

Find enclosed a cheque for the amount of £96.75 which is now apparently a debt that I owe to your company, *** insurance. If you recall, my insurance policy for a silver Honda CB600F (1998 model, registration S*** ***) expired on August 19. I had no intention of renewing my policy for several reasons; I could not afford the upkeep of the vehicle and the extensive repairs that had to be made to the radiator. My plan was to keep the motorcycle off-road until I could sell it and thus I did not need to be insured for driving.

However, you saw fit to automatically renew my insurance policy – I understand that this must be terribly convenient for those short-sighted individuals who wish to blindly carry on insuring their vehicle under the same policy without searching for a better deal every twelve months. Unfortunately I am not one of those individuals and even if I had intended to continue making use of my motorcycle and renewing an insurance policy I would be using the wonderful world of price comparison websites in order to find a better deal – if one exists – than offered by *** insurance.

To rub salt in the wound you then decided that in order to cancel my insurance policy – if you cannot remember the last paragraph please note that I did not want the policy renewed in the first place – I would have to pay you £60.00. According to one of your phone staff, a letter and e-mail were sent stating that you would renew my insurance automatically unless I said otherwise. I received no such letter and was informed that the e-mail may have ended up in my (automatically deleted) spam/junk mail folder. I hope that you use my £96.75 in order to hire someone who can better construct your e-mails so they bear less resemblance to advertisements for Viagra, Trojan horse viruses, penis extensions and hot girls from my area.

Your insistence that unless I tell you not to do something, you are allowed to do it, has stunning implications in the legal world for date rape cases especially. Please don’t think I’m being facetious; this is actually an accurate analogy – you are raping my bank account and since my cries of “NO GOD PLEASE STOP OH NO STOP ARGH” cannot be heard by your deaf ears, it is consensual in your eyes. Trust me, I’m very good at metaphors and this one really works.

When I complained about this you offered me the deceptively good deal of being able to reduce my next policy with *** by £60.00 and thus break even on the debacle. I use the phrase “deceptively” because this so-called solution involves me once again taking out an insurance policy with your company which seems like a terrible idea given the utter ineptitude and lack of sympathy you have displayed towards the situation in question. Since then, you have decided to add a payment of £36.75 for no stated reason to bring the total amount owed to £96.75, which you will find in the enclosed cheque.

Please ignore the drawings of penises and repeated curse words written on the cheque – you will find that these do not affect your ability to cash the tender but it will provide me amusement to imagine one of your incompetent and idiotic employees attempting to do so.

Regards,


Matthew Perry


P.S. : I write this extensive letter in the small hope that an *** employee with half a brain will read it and realise that this £96.75 (which represents almost a quarter of my next paycheque) is an unnecessary and borderline criminal charge before removing the charges and returning the phallus-filled cheque.

P.P.S. : I am a journalist and I work for several publications and websites. Should this letter and/or the story of your abusive cheating policy regarding insurance renewal somehow find its way to print or online publication the resulting fallout could potentially cost *** more than £96.75. This may be worth considering.


(, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 17:21, 43 replies)
I'm an idiot
I've only ever been on one blind date* and I've sworn to never do it again, this is why.

I got set up on a blind date by a friend with one of his work colleagues. He assured me she's about 5'3, cute, long brunette hair and great company. Had a very brief phone conversation with her beforehand and she tells me she'll be wearing a red coat.

I arrive and am relieved to see her walking in the opposite direction towards me as I reach the restaurant. I run up and say hi, give her a hug, she looks more nervous than I do. Excellent. Ask if she's hungry and ready to grab something to eat, she replies 'Ummm...sure', a lot more nervous, brilliant!

Small talk for a bit, ask her what she does etc. If she does this sort of thing often, tell her she sounds a bit different on the phone; she has no clue what I'm on about. About 10 mins in, my phone buzzes, I'd usually not answer it on a date, but it's the blind date calling? Huh?

Excuse myself and answer it, she's sorry, but she's going to be about an hour late because she got held up at work. So who the hell am I on a date with? Just some random that I met on the street, which explains why she was so nervous and bemused.

I had to rush through the meal with her in record time before the actual blind date arrived. Then I had to spin some bullshit upon meeting her and take her somewhere else because I'd already used up my reservation and the waiting staff would think I was nuts.

So I paid for two meals that day, and struggled through the second one while trying to act all normal (I barely touched the steak). I got the first girl's number at the end but never heard from her again, and the first meal was more expensive than the second one!

Not only that, but the second one told my friend that I was acting weird during the meal.

Top work Catherine in the red coat, wherever you may be, you played a blinder and got free food and drink that night!

*Technically, two.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 14:39, 6 replies)
I've ordered a custom guitar
It's going to take about a year to build, but when it's done it'll look something like this:



The artwork is from q4nobody's amazing gif. For those of you who don't know, the girl in the picture is Jessie...

It'll be the most expensive thing I own apart from my house... waste of money? No fucking way (although I bet Jess would disagree with me!)
(, Mon 4 Oct 2010, 12:44, 37 replies)
Mental Van Rental
My brother-in-law - we shall call him Andrew, because that is his name - used to work with another brother-in-law, John, in a blacksmiths forge.

Andrew decided he needed a van to run around in, chuck stuff in the back and not care too much about. He rang around, and his mates at the local scrap yard informed him of a Bedford Van that had just been brought in. It was a bit bent & rusty, but still road legal and with 8 months MOT & 4 months tax - yours for £80 - bargain. Oh, it doesn't start because the fanbelt snapped....

John & Andrew set off in the works transit van to said scrapyard which is deep in the Sussex countryside. On arrival at the scrapyard, £80 changes grubby hands, and the Bedford is tied to to the rear of the Transit for the long tow home through the lanes. All is going well, until a long sweeping bend. Turning into the bend, Andrew realises his rookie mistake of not putting the keys in the ignition, as the steering lock suddenly clicks on. With the steering locked, he frantically pumps at the brakes which fail to respond due to the engine not running.

Cut to scene of John in the Transit looking bemused out of the side window as Andrew overtakes him on this beautiful countryside bend, snapping the tow rope and crashing spectacularly into a very solid, ancient stone wall surrounding a church.

The dust & rust cloud settles. The impact was so bad that the van is now a write-off, and Andrew has to open the rear doors to retrieve his bobble hat.

A call is made to the same scrapyard who come and pick up the van and give Andrew £30 scrap value, pissing themselves loudly at the same time. Net result, £50 spent on renting a van for half an hour, a ride of terror and making yourself look like a complete bell-end.
(, Tue 5 Oct 2010, 5:37, 4 replies)
Fucking guidance counsellors
A while ago Ms Foxtrot and I were having some pop-pop problems. Sexwise. Nothing to do with aged grandparents, I've no idea who wrote that first definition but they obviously don't have as excellent a knowledge of Arrested Development as I do.

Anyway, things had fizzled - we've been together a long time, all our energy was spent dealing with the stresses of work and dancing lessons, and look at me for gods sakes. All the usual stuff that makes a couple less inclined to get jiggy with it (everyone dances, right?). I couldn't quite bring myself to ask the advice of any of my male friends - I get enough in the way of gay jibes as it is without admitting that I was finding it difficult to muster the energy to fuck a woman none of my mates can work out how I managed to pull - so I decided to seek professional help.

I had my doubts to begin with, which I seriously wish I'd heeded. Basically I was going to cough up my hard-earned in exchange for advice on how to cough up cock yoghurt from my hard-boned. Christ that was laboured. Sorry, everyone. I'll start again.

I had my doubts to begin with, which I seriously wish I'd heeded. Is paying a professional for sex advice tantamount to hiring a prostitute? Of course it fucking isn't, I hear you spluttering from behind your strawberry cream frappucino. But that's the sort of spent, frazzled headspace I was in. I was desperate to put the lead back in my pencil so I braced myself for the mockery, the embarrassment, the bill, and went to see a guidance counsellor.

The experience itself wasn't bad at all - my counsellor was very understanding, made lots of platitudes about how it happens to a lot of people, and gave me some unusual advice. Highly unusual, however I figured that was what I was paying for - thinking outside the box (hehehe). Newly determined to remind Ms Foxtrot of the man she was first attracted to all those years ago, I strode home and left her a message to meet me, when she got home from work, at a farm a few miles up the road (unlikely? I live in Norfolk. Thousands of the bastard things).

Things did not go as planned.

Ms Foxtrot entered the barn, presumably thoroughly excited by my note promising an atypical sexual adventure. I suppose she was expecting an al fresco roll in the hay. She was most distressed to find me oiling up a piece of farm machinery in a state of undress, performing a sexy striptease and eyeing up the exhaust pipe in a most unseemly fashion.

Apparently my explanation clarified matters but did not make things any more palatable. My counsellor's expensive advice was that in order to seduce Ms Foxtrot, I should do something sexy to a tractor.

I thank you
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 15:42, 5 replies)
Baby alarm
Bought one of these - she still got pregnant.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 15:15, 3 replies)
I once made a papier maché belt for Pavarotti, out of €50 notes.
That was my massive waist of money.



No. Fuck YOU.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 14:17, 6 replies)
eBay
For some dull reason I had two accounts. Wanted a copy of OSX, found one on eBay, low price, so put in a cheeky bid. Logged in later to check how it was going, but stupidly did it under my other account. 'Ah-ha!', thinks I. 'It'll not get away that easily!'

So I bid. Against myself. Ended up knocking up the price by about a tenner, and won the item.

These days I just use one account.
(, Mon 4 Oct 2010, 21:48, 1 reply)
Inspired by the mention of Franklin Mint/Viz adverts...
These are just a few of the genuine products from www.Bradford.co.uk







And here's Viz's Bourbonhenge:


(, Wed 6 Oct 2010, 15:21, 10 replies)
I fashioned a cummerbund out of £50 notes
It was a waist of money
(, Sat 2 Oct 2010, 17:36, 2 replies)
I went to Ikea last night...
Last night I went to Ikea Wembley for a nice glass shelving unit - a bargain at £40. I am now £120 lighter.

I bought a lantern. I don't need a lantern. Yet a lantern I now own.

I bought a one-cup cafetiere and 100 tea light candles (£1.38!). Twenty-four hours ago, had you asked me if I need a cafetiere and a block of low-grade candles I'd have said no. Now I can't possibly live without them.

I bought a rug, some heavy duty salad tongs and some loganberry-scented candles. I bought a set of coloured knives.

I bought a table for £5. A TABLE! It's currently stored flat-pack because I don't want it and I don't have room for it. BUT IT WAS ONLY FIVE POUNDS!

What the actual fuck happens to the part of the brain which handles reasoning when you walk into that place?
(, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 12:41, 6 replies)
I did the worst of all.
I went back to college at the age of 35 to get an engineering degree.

Until that time I had been working in land development as a draftsman, drawing maps and sire plans and such. It didn't pay that well, but it did pay the bills at least... but then I had the opportunity to get a degree, and chose mechanical engineering. I had had enough of designing things to be built out of dirt- I wanted to work with machinery.

So I quit my job and went to school. As I went on an inheritance the loss of income was covered. I felt like I was on top of the world.

Only thing was, Nurse Ratched absolutely HATED the idea of me going back to school- after all, I was 35 and too old for such things. It Just Wasn't Done! And besides, I would be surrounded by cute little college age girls.

For fuck's sake. I was trying to get a degree to increase my income at least double, and honestly the thought of screwing a 19 year old feels a bit creepy to me- I prefer women my own age, thanks. But nothing I could say would make her happy, so she pretty much sandbagged my college career as much as she could as she saw it as a four year vacation.

We divorced in the midst of this, which cost me heavily as you can imagine. I had to get an apartment, so I was fucking broke now. And yet I persevered, and eventually got through it.

The first company I went to work for made plastic for injection molding. They ended up getting into hard times, so I moved on to a semiconductor factory that a friend was working in. After a couple of years the market for semiconductors got very volatile and the company was split (and folded a year later). Things looked grim so I jumped ship from there. Not a lot of jobs were out there, but there was contract work so I did that for a few years. Then the recession hit.

At this point I'm in a house that I bought while making semiconductors and being paid as an engineer, with a resume that shows a lot of job changes in a short time, in a city that has pretty much closed down most of its manufacturing industries, and have no job prospects. All of the surviving firms are preferring to overload the staff they have rather than hire new people. And because I now have an engineering degree, I'm overqualified to be a drafter and no one will hire me for that either. I'm not sure if I'll lose the house or not, but it's fucking close.

The last ten years has been a bigger waste of money than I ever would have feared.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 19:11, 24 replies)
Two Words:
Games Workshop.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 15:57, 33 replies)
Dodgy bin bag sale
Around 1995, got a leaflet through the door:
"Warehouse clearance sale...Game Boys £5...Hi-Fis £10...TVs £20...Community Centre Tuesday 8pm" or something to that effect. "I'll have some of that" thought I.

Many people had the same thought, the place was packed as the Cockney crook took to the stage. Holding an item above his head he says "Who'll give me £5 for this Game Boy?". A hundred arms shoot into the air accompanied by cries of "Me, Me, Me". He says to one of his helpers "Give it to the lady" and the Game Boy is "sold" to a woman standing near the front. He repeats this a couple more times so now three people are the proud owners of the latest in gaming technology and an excited crowd strains to contain themselves.

There is a brief pause in proceedings as some bin bags containing mystery items are brought onto the stage. The crowd chatter noisily until they are suddenly interrupted by the Cockney con-man shouting "QUIET!" followed slightly less loudly with "Please...Ladies and Gentlemen".

He continues by explaining that they've got far too much stock out the back to sell items one at a time so his lads have bagged up some stock and "Who'll give me £25 for one of these bags?". Arms in the air (including mine), cries of "Me, me, me", the boys walk around the room distributing bin bags full of goodies and taking the 25 notes off of the mug punters.

Now I was 99% certain before I bought the bag that it would be full of crap yet for £25, curiosity got the better of me. I ignored the cockney scammer's continued barking from the stage "Don't open the bags until you get home" justified by "We haven't got time, we have to get on with the sale" and took a peak inside.

My £25 bought me:
1. A battery operated carving knife.
2. A plain round plastic wall clock.
3. The crappiest camera I have ever seen, as someone later put it: "It looks like something you'd squirt water with".

I looked around and noticed that the rest of the crowd were standing obediently with their un-opened bags waiting for the next part of the sale probably thinking "Five Game Boys, that's Christmas sorted". The Cockney gangsters started to bring more bin bags onto the stage only these ones were bulky, filled with boxes of mystery items. The chief thief explained that there were three different bags to choose from each filled with "'Undreds of pahnds worth of gear". Each bag contained one major item, "Tools" was one of them, "Stereo" another, can't remember the last option. The bags also contained several smaller items to fill them up. The crowd were instructed to shout out which bag or bags they wanted and the cost? A mere £200 each.

Again curiosity got the better of me, though I had absolutely no intention of paying, so I shouted out "Tools". My bag was brought to me and my bank card taken away. The Cockney geezer was shouting "Don't open the bags here, wait 'til you get home" but I took a peak inside. The "Tools" consisted of a set of spanners and sockets which looked like they would snap if you tried to use them. There was another crappy camera and a mini radio and cassette player, the make may have been Alba or maybe it wasn't even that good.

There was a bloke stood near to me, he appeared to be in ecstasy, he had all three of the £200 bags by his feet. I said to him "Don't pay for them mate, it's a load of shit inside", he replied "I know" and continued to stare at the stage looking like he'd just been brainwashed.

One of the boys came back with my bank card in one of those carbon-paper slidey things that we all used before Chip & Pin. He asked me to sign my name. "I'm not signing that, give me back my card" I said. He got quite aggressive about it saying I had to pay, "Verbal contract, blah, blah" but I refused to do so, he eventually handed back my card and told me to "Fuck off out of my site before I get angry".

I went outside and had a laugh with a few others who had lost £25 that night. None of us could believe that anyone would hand over £200 for a bin bag the contents of which they hadn't seen let alone that some people had handed over £600 for three.

My bag of goodies went to a charity shop (and probably straight into their bin).
(, Mon 4 Oct 2010, 10:50, 12 replies)
Huge waste of cash?
Anything with an Apple logo on it.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 20:02, 25 replies)
When I was a younger and a bit more naive
I tried to buy some weed of a rather unscrupulous drug dealer.

After following him for what seemed like an eternity down a maze of alleyways I handed over a crisp £10 and began the joyful walk home to inspect my goods. Turns out he just wrapped up some shitty herbs and palmed them off to me instead.

It was a massive waste of thyme and money
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 13:01, 8 replies)
When I was about 6...
We were at some or other fast food place. My brother threw a chip at me during the course of the meal. I replied with, 'You know mum and dad work really hard. You're wasting their money'. Then he punched me in the stomach and drank half my milkshake.
(, Wed 6 Oct 2010, 11:07, 4 replies)
Fat fucking waste of money
Renovating your bathroom? Don't buy a whirlpool bath. The novelty wears off pretty sharpish because after you've got out, you have empty the bath, refill it and leave it running to flush the pipes out with clean water.
If you don't do this, the soapy scummy water will sit in the pipes and go all foetid until one day you'll be in the bath and think "ooh, I haven't used the whirlpool function for a while". You'll switch it on and all that filthy water suddenly gets pumped into your bath and you end up lying in what looks like a sewage treatment pool.

This happened to me. The only way I could've leapt out of that bath any faster would be if I saw a plugged in toaster arcing across the room and heading towards the water.
(, Tue 5 Oct 2010, 21:46, 18 replies)
Lack of style and teenage years go hand in hand
I was 17. I was desperately, oh so desperately trying to be a "goth", and thought that a shin-length leather trenchcoat would be teh BUSINESS. Now being a diminutive sort of chap I had fantastic difficulty in finding one to fit, until after weeks of searching I finally found one that would hug my slender frame. I forked over over my hard-earned £250 to the salesman who was grinning from ear to ear like the cheshire cat who'd just got the cream which'd been spiked with E.
After a few unwelcome advances from gentlemen who'd seen me from behind only to look horrified when I turned around it dawned on me.

It was a fucking ladies trenchcoat. >.<
(, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 17:00, 5 replies)
A horse walks into a bar
and just stands there, staring. The dutiful barman asks if it would like to become part of an amusing anecdote, whereupon the horse excuses itself, explaining that it is, unfortunately, a horse not in possession of a sense of humour, and thus it would be a "waste of m'neigh".

Unfortunately indeed.
(, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 14:48, 3 replies)
Valentine's Day.
The past two times I've had a reason to do anything for Valentine's day...I haven't. I consider it the ultimate waste of money, even money you'd normally spend on the exact same sort of thing on any other day.

My principles were long ago offended by the idea that I had to go out and buy a card, flowers, chocolates or jewellery (exercise your free will by picking two of four) on a certain day because it was expected.
I know this is an outdated rant and you've seen it before and blah blah blah card manufacturers but for the love of Christ, it really is the exact opposite of romance.
There's nothing loving and tender about doing something because you're supposed to rather than because you want to, and the unflinching automatic status of VD reduces it to having all the tender warmth of going down the shops for a pint of milk.

However, there is equally nothing romantic or loving about disappointing your loved one's expectations. The fact that you consider these expectations howl-dribblingly unreasonable is not...well it's...look, you're in a relationship with a woman here, pal, lest you forget.

Anyway, my tentative forays on this subject were met with exactly the kind of dismissal you'd expect, so I resolved to test exactly how dedicated they were to Valentine's Day at the expense of actual romance. So that's twice now that I've spent the week leading up to Feb 14th spoiling the relevant girl rotten, and then doing absolutely nothing whatsoever on the day itself. I broke out all the trappings you'd expect - wine, chocolates, candles, meals out, movies, little gifts...ect ect ect.

The first time, she twigged that something was up when I presented her with a fluffy red heart shaped cushion I'd cut and sewn myself and a bottle of wine.
"Falstaff, are you just doing this to get out of Valentine's Day?"
"Sort of. Is it working? :D"
"...shut up. Love you."
Romance ensued.

The second time, with a different Falstaffette, she threw a gigantic temper tantrum when nothing materialised on Valentine's. Pointing out all the other stuff I'd got her recently that was lying around had no effect. So, 1-1. I plan to try and score the winner some day.

Granted, I probably spent far more on this plan than I ever would have on the standard Clintons'n'Thorntons combo, but I don't consider it money wasted. Any reasonable human being would rather their boyfriend put some thought into it (number 2 wasn't a reasonable human being), which is a nice discovery to make. If I play my cards right, I may never have to do Valentine's Day again.
(, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 9:34, 19 replies)
I bought a strawberry trifle from Tesco on Tuesday
The bag broke and it fell on the floor,leaking everywhere
Cost £1.50

I was sad after
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 15:09, 5 replies)
A digree in Inglish

(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 14:27, 4 replies)
I kicked the fucking shit out of my dad's car
The cunt!


(, Wed 6 Oct 2010, 6:58, 8 replies)
Money Wasted
My mate used to live beside a forest. This was class and we used to spend long summers frolicking about in it. One fine day me and two friends came across a rather tatty but serviceable £20 note. Cue excited babbling about what to buy and if it would be better to split it or spend it in one go on something we could share.

As my two friends discussed the pro's and con's of what way to split the money I found my self tuning out and looking at the note. Hey I thought, if I hadn't of found this I'd still be having a great time. It was pure chance and at the end of the day if I was to rip it up nothing gained and essentially nothing lost.

I figured in my entire life time I would never have a chance like this and as my friends chatted away I started to tear up the note into tiny pieces. It took one or two glances in my direction for it to sink in what I was doing and at that stage all hope of spending the money was lost.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 18:42, 5 replies)
I'm in danger of falling into the trap in 2 hours 26 minutes time
There's a pristine BBC Master 128 with a disc drive and games on eBay, a decent price (so far) and a chunk of my past nostalgia waiiting to be rediscovered. Only problem is, I've got a fully working free Beeb emulator and almost every game I ever played when I was young tucked away in a few megabytes on my laptop. So why do I need the bulky hardware?

I don't know. I just WANT.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 18:08, 21 replies)
In hindsight
Buying a twelve pack of Durex at the age of fourteen seems a little presumptuous and not particularly good value. If I recall they were mostly very pricey water bombs.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 17:08, 6 replies)
The cinema ticket for Star Wars Episode I
Still angry about that.......
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 16:28, 20 replies)
Mullets, hahahahahaha!
I was getting married a few years ago and being a penniless student, I went to the hairdressing department at my local college the day before.

I asked the student for a nice short bob, being a bride-to-be of matronly aspect, and she gave me instead a striking mullet.

She took so long that it was too late to get someone senior to sort it.

Next morning I rushed to a proper hairdresser and and had the long bits lopped off, leaving my head looking like a bog brush.

Well, better that than floating down the aisle to my eager groom looking like Rod Stewart.
(, Tue 5 Oct 2010, 18:24, 3 replies)
Last week
I bought tickets to see Norman Wisdom as an after-dinner speaker.

Too soon?
(, Mon 4 Oct 2010, 23:01, 14 replies)

This question is now closed.

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