Much has been written recently about the ’scam’ called Lapland New Forest. This was where an enterprising family set up a Winter Wonderland theme park attraction and charged everyone £25 to get in. Sadly the image the park had projected did not match up to the reality and this led to some very angry punters.
The story was picked up by the media because it had everything – Christmas, wrong-doing, sad kids but no real harm done. It was an easy story to report on, had some great imagery and was to be fair mildly amusing in a Father Ted kind of way.
The owners of the park seem (so far) to have done nothing illegal. They simply overcharged and underprovided. This ended up on the news.
Every day we are being ripped off to the same extent whether it be British gas not honouring their Service agreements, insurance companies not paying out or local councils failing to do the job they are paid for yet it rarely makes the headlines.
Stick a crying child and a smoking Elf in the mix and Bingo – you got yourselves a news story.
So bearing this in mind, next time you need to get your heating fixed and you are told it will take days for them to appear and then they don’t, then why not dress your child as an elf poke him in the eye and invite a press photographer around. It would help if you had a husky tied to him too.
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Here’s the way it works. The prices that Americans pay for things like pharmaeuticals are heavily inflated because we have to consider the cost of the very very significant scientific tests and legal issues that are involved with rolling out new drugs. You pay the laughable amount of 11 quid per prescription or whatever it is because you are being subsidized by the fact that americans pay for lawyers who in effect ensure that you get decent drugs. This applies even if your pharmaceuticals come from a swiss-french company, since they still have to adhere to the same standards since they want to sell in the USA.
So, you have your 11 pound prescription and you laugh at the yanks with their overlawyered society. What fools – they don’t know how to live in a society without suing each other to death, you think.
And then this happens. If you read the various messageboards, it is clear that a lot of money are not going to get money back from their banks even though they have clearly been defrauded by advertising. In effect, many individuals have efffectly no recourse whatsoever regardless of whatever trading standards describes. This is a system badly broken – this is institutionalized theft.
But a hundred pounds stolen by a few pikeys is hardly news.
The bigger, very serious problem is your example of british gas. this is a multi-billion dollar company who sits in a priviliged position and thus can use the fact that it in effect can not be sued to provide crap service. This is the british consumer experience in a nutshell. Well – let’s be clear here- in theory, an exceptionally motivated individual could sue. And, if they were lucky, they’d in effect win – the value of their time. British courts basically never award much more than this. Imagine if you had no moral scruples and the only pentalty for theft was to give back what you stole – this is in effect the situation in england. and professional indifference and much much worse rules the day.
The problem is twofold: there are basically no punitive damages awarded (only the occasional token fine against the worst and most high profile offenders) and there is no such thing as a class action lawsuit.
Yes, yes, it’s all abused in the USA. Lawyers are arseholes and too many people abuse the system. But, apples to apples, this is a small price to pay for this shit products and worse service that continues to dominate Britain.
/ american, 10-years UK resident
Great response and very succinctly put. Pleasure to have you read the blog.
“Here’s the way it works. The prices that Americans pay for things like pharmaeuticals are heavily inflated because we have to consider the cost of the very very significant scientific tests and legal issues that are involved with rolling out new drugs. You pay the laughable amount of 11 quid per prescription or whatever it is because you are being subsidized by the fact that americans pay for lawyers who in effect ensure that you get decent drugs. This applies even if your pharmaceuticals come from a swiss-french company, since they still have to adhere to the same standards since they want to sell in the USA.”
Actually not accurate. The standards for approval in the UK and more widely EMEA are at least if not more stringent than in the U.S. The trials are just as expensive and the approval process as mind-numbingly complex. Pharmaceutical drugs are price-premiumed in the U.S. since that is the way the market works and the payors pay, nothing more, nothing less. Governments subsidise drugs in the UK (and parts of Europe) and that is why you pay 11 quid. The government picks up the tab for the rest.
Enjoy your stay.
I’ll get me coat.
//English, 8-years US resident.
hmm this is getting real interesting