Thaindian News

Sep 27 (THAINDIAN NEWS) According to WalletPop, there are many overpriced products on the market today which consumers should avoid. They recently revealed their list of the top ten.

1) Text Messages- A story which was posted in the ‘Chicago Tribune’ revealed that an outgoing text message of 160 characters on mobile phone usually cost about 20 cent per text. In contrast, it costs the cell phone carrier three tenths of a cent, which is a 600% markup.

2) Bottled Water- ‘Twilight Earth’ reported that bottled water is marked up about 4000%, since you need around five bottles of water to make the plastic for one bottle. Prepackaged water is often more expensive than a gallon of gas, and often comes from municipal taps anyway.

3) Movie Theatre Popcorn- Compared to the bill for buying a 3.5 ounce bag of popcorn in the grocery store, there is a 1275% mark up for popcorn. Theatre owners do this because when a movie is a new release, most of the proceeds from the sale of tickets goes back to the movie studio, not the theatre owners, who must make their money off of concessions for you.

4) Brand Name Drugs- Over the counter medications should always be bought in generic form, because many of these items have a whopping 600,000% mark up, and the generic form is most often made of the exact same ingredients.

5) Hotel Minibars- Mark ups of 300% to 400% are found in hotel minibars quite often, such as a $10 bottled of water and a $12 toothpaste kit.

6) Coffee- Places such as ‘Starbucks’ mark up their coffee products by 300%…and that is before you add the shots and whips.

7) Wine- Restaurants often pay around $5 for a bottle of wine, and charge the customer up to $25. It is even of a mark up by the glass.

8) Greeting Cards- Greeting cards, which often cost up to 5 dollars, can be much less meaningful than a hand written letter or note, for a 200% mark up.

9) Hotel Movies in Room- Movies in your hotel room are often 10 to 15 bucks a pop, which is a 200% mark up.

10) Pre-cut Veggies and Fruits- If you choose to buy veggies and fruit in those little trays, which have already been cut for you, you are paying for a 40% mark up as opposed to just cutting them yourself. They also go bad quicker once they have been cut.