What a rip-off!

Which? investigation reveals we do pay far too much for IT products over here

We all hear the cries of 'Rip-off Britain' from various national newspapers and TV programs, but a recent Which? study into UK vs US pricing of IT goods proves this is indeed the case.

Us mugs here in the UK are ripped off left, right and centre. And the IT industry is one of the biggest culprits.

Take Apple, for example, which charges £1,499 for a 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro in one of its UK stores, but yet in the US it is the equivalent of £1,144 after tax. And we all know that iTunes is far more expensive over here than it is in the US. For the SAME service.

But let me not stop at Apple, the whole damn lot of them are at it.

And not just the tangible items either.

For example, an annual subscription to Adobe's Creative Cloud imaging software (according to the study) will cost over £200 more in the UK, and other services such as Amazon Prime and Spotify are also more expensive.

Microsoft are also guilty of charging over £150 more for a copy of Office in the UK. The list goes on.

When asked why, some of the companies told Which? that it was because of 'different operating costs in each country', or 'exchange rates', 'local import laws' and 'taxes'.

But interestingly others declined to comment, including Google.

The irony is not lost when 'tax' is cited as a reason for ripping the good people of the UK off, when some of these companies have been found sadly lacking when it comes to paying their fair share of tax in this country.

I would love to hear all of these firms' explanations for this phenomenon. I have wondered about it for years.