There is a cumulative adverse effect on our well-being of the hidden extras and mark-ups encountered in so many of our transactions.	Mrs Thatcher's "Me First" economy is still ripping us off, creating a drip, drip, drip, of depression and anger. There is a cumulative adverse effect on our well-being of the hidden extras and mark-ups encountered in so many of our transactions. As part of the laborious process of "getting on to the Net" last week (in fact, I have still slipped through it), I had to get advice from a company called Locomotive Software, on a 0891 number at 50p a minute. Rather than getting through to a person, I was greeted by a recorded message, read at snail's pace. "This is the support line for Locoscript Professional, Locoscript PC and local links for Windows. Calls to this line are charged at 50p per minute. We recommend that you call from a phone at which you can use your PC and that you have the programme you are calling about running on your PC. Please hold for a support assistant. Please hold for a moment." I paid 25p (30 seconds) to hear this totally unnecessary message. When the Locomotive operative did finally come on the line, I am afraid I flipped. Foaming at the mouth, I said something like "You bastards. Not satisfied with keeping me waiting for a minute, you charge me to do so." Understandably, the man said he was not prepared to be abused, and ended the conversation. Phoning back in a more sweet-tempered voice, I asked to speak to the supervisor and Howard Fisher, managing director of the company, came on the line. An assertive and interrogative man, he admonished me for calling his employee a bastard. "Bastards," I ranted, "I was referring to the organisation, not the individual" - and tried to justify the message. Mr Fisher replied that callers needed to be informed what software was dealt with by this line, warned that the calls cost 50p a minute (at 50p a minute) and reminded to have their PCs to hand. He also suggested that I contact the 0891 regulator, but it is increasingly obvious (if it was ever obscure) that these Ofs (OfTel, OfGas etc) are toothless crones. Most of us have anyway got better things to do than spend our time writing to bodies that so manifestly do not really represent our interests.
	I was told: "technical reasons". I assume this is the technical need to make a huge profit out of me.	Mr. Fisher told me that at the end of the recorded message it says that if we call again we can press "9" to avoid having to listen to the whole message again. But, quite simply, this was not true: no such statement was on his recorded message. "Oh," said Mr. Fisher, "Well, it might not be on the specific number you called." It would be wonderful if this experience were merely a one-off, but in a thousand other ways, both small and large, we are paying more than we should. Our cars are much more expensive than the equivalent models in Europe and our mobile phone charges are similarly inflated. It used to be the case that if you preferred a cassette tape to a CD, you could find one. Slowly tape prices rose, so that a typical tape would cost £9.99. But even this method of avoiding the £14.99 for a CD is no longer on offer in most music shops, because they do not supply tapes at all. Then there are the hidden extras associated with electrical goods. When I bought my Hewlett Packard fax/printer I did not realise that a replacement ink cartridge (available only from Hewlett Packard) would cost around £25. Contacting the company to ask why they did not make a cartridge that could be refilled, I was told: "technical reasons". I assume this is the technical need to make a huge profit out of me, because I simply refuse to believe they could not create a refillable version. Another problem is the moving goalposts. I have recently realised that I am paying miles more than I need to for my mobile phone. Hours of tedious research revealed that if I move to Orange there would be much lower charges, and none for an itemised bill. Similarly, a couple of years ago I realised that I was paying far more than I needed to for my mortgage. Having contacted a few competitors to my building society and obtained better offers, I fed this information to mine. They immediately offered me a much cheaper deal. Even if you do obtain the best deal, most of the services you purchase send bills that are almost completely incomprehensible. I suspect that teams of graphic artists carefully test them on focus groups to ensure inscrutability so that consumers do not really understand where their money is going.
	Most of the services send bills that are almost completely incomprehensible.	The same is true with professional's billings, like those from lawyers and accountants. Only if you are very persistent will they give any sort of detail. If you are still not happy, there is no point in complaining to their self-policing regulatory bodies, who will not automatically get involved in disputes over fees. I am a reasonably assertive, well educated person who is self-employed and has the time to engage in the required argy-bargy if I am unhappy. But not everyone is lucky enough to be in this position. What about the mentally ill, the elderly and the exhausted? Not that my proactivity helps me much, because I end up with the uncomfortable feeling that there is always something else that I should be worrying about: Should I move my telephone line to Mercury? Change to a different pension scheme? Get some health insurance? All this is extremely bad for our daily well-being. It provokes Victor Meldrew raging and helpless depression. Mrs Thatcher's toxic legacy of enfeebled regulatory bodies and self-policing professional protection rackets must be ended. The Government should take over these roles, forcing the various industries involved to pay, making the bodies truly independent and supplying razor-sharp fangs.