I would (uncharacteristically) agree with CMan to the extent that this is a cultural issue rather than a legal one.

If you want to get by in Spain, you need to understand that there is a different view about what is "moral" or "right". I think it was best characterised to me by a Mallorquin friend who said "It's not right to take advantage of people you know ...

Otherwise, I reckon it's fair game, which is 180 degrees counter to our polite English mentality (or German or Dutch or...). We tend to go nuts when someone takes advantage of us - even in the smallest way. We have the law on our side, we have the OFT and so on... But here, it's different.

I have to believe it's due to lingering, deeply-embedded sentiments as a result of history. For decades, the law and the government represented something that is not there to serve their interests, rather it represented an obstacle to almost everything in life. Utter disrespect for the law and anything governmental was the norm, but they had to play "good citizen" on the surface, whilst making their own way "under the table". Corruption, black money, and back-door deals were completely normal. Sound familiar? Well, it was MUCH worse back then...

Then all the guiris show up with wads of money like they'd never seen before. Easy pickings for a society which had been oppressed for so many decades. I have to believe this is still well-entrenched in the culture (evidence of it is all around).

Most of the locals I know regard the law and the government (and guiris they don't know) with limited respect (for good reason), and when the law is an obstacle or some faceless guiri wants to buy something, they know that guiris believe the price you tell them is THE price (they love the Germans for this reason). And the "get what we can even if it's a bit dodgy" view extends to even the most "respectable" businesses in society - happens all the time with the utilities, the car shops, many others. It's just the way it is.

...many seem to have no guilt in "getting the most they can get", even if it's a bit dodgy. They feel they deserve it. Again, not our usual upbringing up north.

OK it exists... ...but does that make it right? Sorry, I just can't bring myself to subscribe to it.

Yet, I'm constantly surprised how little the Spanish seem to be attracted to "northern" style offerings with outstanding selection, services, fairness, or other things that we "northerners" tend to clamour after. It's as though they don't trust it.

Maybe Cman is right. Perhaps it's just part of the "charm".

OK, not a bad post, except for the exertion that the Northern Europeans only do things the "fair" way. Where did you get that idea from?

British society is built on an imagined sense of institutionalized "fairness" that delegates the individuals sense of morality to a greater un-named "good". The concept is the very definition of Britishness and helps tie society together. It is the one omnipresent when family and local identity has fallen to pieces. It's aim is to divide people into good and evil, the "just" and "injust". Read the Daily Mail and you get the idea. There is nothing fair about this, it serves as a way to de-individualize people and take power away from them.

On a separate point of pricing - Part of my work is for companies who want to decide how much they can charge for their products. To do that, they segment the market and work out how much different types of people are willing to pay. They then sub-brand their products to be aimed at people with various levels of wealth

e.g. a so-called "luxury" product will cost maybe 1% more to produce but will have a price of 100% more than the basic product. In fact two products may cost the same to produce but have two very different prices depending on the person it is targeting

This method is part of free market capitalism, and is what amideisals advocates so strongly. It fools consumers into thinking that they have lots of choice when everything is really the same but with different packaging, all designed to extract the most money out of people

In this respect, the small business in the tourist areas of Spain are simply charging what they think they can get away with from different sets of consumers. That is exactly the same as what big business does and is a smart business model

I went to Cuba a few years ago, there you have to pay 20 times the price of what the locals pay for anything. In amideislas' argument then this would be unfair, but in my moral world, it is incredibly fair. I earn more and can afford to pay more

If a local shop in the UK (or Germany or France or Denmark or Holland or...) decided to charge you more simply because you are Spanish, then they would be subject to all kinds of nasty legal action. Period. Certainly in Germany. The UK has become pretty questionable in many areas these days, so perhaps it's more the exception than the rule.

But more than that, what's fair is simply fair. In the free market economy (of which you are a major beneficiary), a fair price is a fair price. Period. Competition will take care of that.

If one shop charges double what the next shop charges for any like-item, people buy from the other shop. Period. It's natural. It's fair, and it's the way it should be.

In the free market economy which you are a major beneficiary (yet loath so much), products are affordable to the masses because of competition. Without it, cars or computers or bathtubs would only be available to the elite and "privileged". The free market you hate so much is the very reason you and billions of others can communicate via this medium. Otherwise, it would only be for the "elite", which you would also despise.

But that's the problem with you lefties (by the way, I used to be far more liberal than you, until I was exposed to the real world - but that's another story).

You guys love to sit in your cushy armchairs and criticise everything, find blame for everything without even considering what your real problem is. Most often it's simply jealousy or contempt for your mother, or some other personal problem.

You'd probably rationalise that we shouldn't have cars or any other modern products because they're bad for the environment, cause us all to be child molesters, or whatever other rationalisation you can come up with, yet in the same breath would be screaming bloody murder that your "elite", "rich" and "privileged" neighbour can have all those things whilst you cannot - and how unfair our system is. Are you beginning to see the irony in your position?

In most places in the free world, you can rely on free market competition to settle prices within a certain range - so you can be reasonably assured that if the price is €29, then that's more or less what others will be charging.

Unfortunately, particularly in my area, there is little attention paid to competition. So, in one shop, a toaster is priced at say, €19.95 (if there's even a price on it). But the very same make and model of toaster in the next shop will be €49.95. In the next shop, it will be €13.95. And if you're a guiri - well, anybody's guess. Depends on how you ask :-)

So, you are forced to hit every shop in town before making a decision, OR buy the one in front of you for whatever price they ask, and be very pissed off when you find the exact same thing next door for 1/3 the price.

Is it unfair? Well, you can debate that point, but IMHO it's certainly is every bit as greedy, self-centered and dodgy as what you want to claim everywhere and everyone else to be.

But back to my original statement, I reckon it's a cultural characteristic. It's no secret that Spanish favour buying from "friends" or family or who they "know", not necessary from the guy who offers it at the lowest price. I think it's a trust thing more than anything. After all, in Spain, it's easier to count those you can trust than those you can't.

And if you want to claim the rest of the world is worse, then I can only say you obviously haven't been anywhere else. Try living somewhere else for a change. It would be good for you.

The twinkle in his eye is through trying to decipher your dire Spanish. How long have you been living there?

Oh Ha ha ha. Lo que me cuesta esta la gramatica. Supongo que mi vocabulario esta mejor que muchas aqui! 3 years since you ask. And the twinkle is in my eye. Although I'm well beyond my 'pretty years' I still believe in being charming...if a bit cheeky.

Nasty, unnecessary comment.

Spot on analysis

That analysis is only spot-on if you subscribe to the popular notion that anyone less prosperous than you is simply an innocent victim of those more prosperous than you.

Naturally, you bear no burden of responsibility, because you are neither of them. You're the good guy. Everybody else is the problem.

I'm just relieve we all don't subscribe to such a sanctimonious ideology (yet).

I went out to get some potatoes for dinnner
the first shop I got to they were advertised at 30c a kilo
but they had none

I walked on down the road and found a shop selling
potatoes for 60c a kilo
I remonstrated with the shopowner that his were twice
the price of the first shop

The shopowner looked me up and down and said
He hasnt got any, I have - do you want some or are
you going to get out of my shop


Nuff Sed
`

Exactly, very sad to see the ever increasing trend to that way of thinking.

So are you saying that it would be a step forward to make the likes of Richard Branson etc pay 100 quid for a load in the local bakery just because they can afford it.

In fact a multi-price scale based on ones personal wealth?

And by the opposite token should a modest wage earner be able to offer 100 quid on a 5k engagement ring, because that is all he can afford to pay?.

The jeweller could sell it to the "poorer customer" cheaply because the likes of David Beckham would be charged 100k for the 5k ring. (according to your logic and sense of fairness, that is)

In the case of the spuds it's a question of supply and demand. 60c a kilo sounds fine to me! I must be weird or know weird people 'cos I know quite a few tradespeople who will accept less for someone on a pension with little resources/family that they have known a while and fluff out the bill for someone who won't have any problems paying. We are talking necessities here, not diamond rings.

In NZ in 2010 with a ex-Kiwi friend. Everywhere we went, bars, cafés, restaurants, accomodation the bill was adapted, we always ended up paying more than the price displayed. There are laws against this but...good old NZ'rs, major rip-off zone

No, you have just misunderstood it

When any consumer good is priced, it is priced according to how much a target group will pay for it, often this bears little relation to the production cost.

Richard Branson wouldnt pay £100 for loaf of bread in the UK because he can go next door and get it for £1. However, he may pay £500 a day to get a loaf of bread delivered to his private island, as he may have no cheaper alternative, and £500 is peanuts to him.

In any business, you should always price on that basis. It is the basis of capitalism

I like socialism, I have nothing against paying what things costs plus a small margin, but we do not live in a world like that

Well in my xp,after running a bar in spain 7 years and wife working in the trade here 14 years,the worst customers you get are the ex pats that sit down, and the first thing they say when ordering is,we live here,like they would get some kind of discount by saying that,even worse is when they say, the time they have lived here,like they are special or something,when was the last time a person walked into a bar in england and said how long he had lived there before he ordered a pint in the hope of getting 20p off,never got asked that in 20 years of running pubs in devon holiday resorts

sorry keyboard messed up,cant do quotes