Rip-offs in New Zealand are big news, following an opinion piece in this newspaper by UK sports writer Peter Bills.

It’s an issue that anyone who keeps an eye on their personal finances ought to be thinking about. We do get soundly ripped off in a large number of areas.

I first wrote for the Herald about rip-offs in 2005 - a year after returning from my OE. I was astounded that Kiwis simply sat back and accepted patent wallet-gouging rip-offs.

At that time, Google returned 11,000 entries for the words “Rip Off Britain”. Today it’s 58,900.

Of my “dirty dozen” rip-offs in New Zealand in 2005, at least nine still stand. That includes bank fees, fund charges, share dealing, books and magazines, consumer imports and domain names. All of these cost much more here than overseas. For example:

* We’re told books are expensive here because of the shipping charges. But the chances are that expensive UK-published book you bought was printed in China, not the UK.

* Real estate agent fees still befuddle me. How can agents charge 4 per cent to sell a property here, when people pay as little as 1.5 per cent in the UK?

I’m pleased to say mobile phone calling rates have become slightly less torturous here than they were in 2005 when I compared Vodafone’s charges to UK customers with its New Zealand charges.

Today the costs of calls on Vodafone UK’s Simply call plan aren’t hugely different from Vodafone New Zealand’s Simply pre-pay. But this is just a simple comparison.

In 2005, it was also many times more expensive to get a credit report here than in the UK, where I had been living. It’s now free in New Zealand, which is good news…

Read the original article at nzherald