back to article How much for that Belkin cable? Margin of 1,992%?

Some "unscrupulous" tech suppliers used Brexflation in 2016 to overcharge customers with the most extreme example being a uni that coughed more than ten times the trade price for a cable. In the wake of the EU referendum, the British pound weakened against the US dollar and many manufacturers bumped up their local sales prices …

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    1. rd232

      Re: The sector that paid the highest average margin in 2016 was the NHS

      "I can't get my head around this. Why does an organisation that rivals the PRC Army in size pay over the odds for everything, especially drugs? It should have massive purchasing power."

      The NHS doesn't pay over the odds for drugs, generally - quite the opposite actually, with one of the many "advantages" of Brexit being a likely increase in the average price of drugs across Europe as the NHS loses bargaining power and currently is something of a price-setter for the European market.

      Where does the NHS get ripped off the worst? PFI contracts, obviously, where it's tied in to a service provider and it'll cost more in lawyers and consultants to do anything but accept paying through the nose.

    2. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: The sector that paid the highest average margin in 2016 was the NHS

      If you look at the prices of drugs on the British National Formulary, and compare them to what is typically charged in the US, then it is way cheaper for the NHS usually.

      Where the NHS overpays is for over the counter drugs, such as paracetamol. I can get a pack of 16 in Asda for 19p, whereas the NHS would pay a lot more proportionately for larger packs.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The sector that paid the highest average margin in 2016 was the NHS

        hospitals will get rebates from the wholesalers which also brings down the actual cost compared to the listed "NHS price" in the BNF.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The sector that paid the highest average margin in 2016 was the NHS

        @Katrinab

        Okay, so your 19p Paracetamol v NHS paracetamol. First off, you have the quality of the tablet, then you have the assurance that the stated dose is correct.

        A few years back, a hospital decided to cut costs by purchasing cheaper paracetamol, much as you suggest. They then found they had a high crumble rate to the tablet meaning they couldn't give them to patients meaning they were having to bin over half the tablets as unusable (when a tablet crumbles, the dosage becomes an unknown and that's not permitted in patient care). So the more expensive tablets, which didn't crumble as easily, were cheaper in the end due to lower wastage.

        The problem with the dosing was highlighted when some cheaper paracetamol tablets were found to vary in dosage by more than the accepted ammount (I don't have the figures as to what these are, but it was another reason given for why a more expensive tablet was preferred).

        So 19p boxes of paracetamol from Asda might be fine for self prescription, but not for an NHS prescription. This is why you're only prescribed paracetamol in dosages greater than over the counter amounts, and why the tablets are higher dosage than you can buy over the counter: They're also a higher quality tablet.

        That doesn't mean hospitals aren't ripped off on drug costs, however, it just means that comparing self-prescribed medication to NHS prescribed doesn't work due to different rules over quality.

    3. sad_loser

      Re: The sector that paid the highest average margin in 2016 was the NHS

      I sell to the NHS

      You just price in the incompetence and inability to spec anything properly and 30% is cheap!

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pissy Weird purchase by any chance??

    Years back I had to source a 2m SCSI cable for a scanner; the above only had 0.5m in stock for £28; they would ORDER a 2m cable, but wouldnt give me a price.

    I needed it in a hurry, so drove 5 miles to a computer fair, where a 2m cable (still in use today*) cost me £8.

    * Still in use because, although the scanner barely works with WinXP, it is the BEST scanner I have ever come across - and built like a nuclear bunker.

    (The most modern driver for it was Win98SE).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pissy Weird purchase by any chance??

      Wouldn't be a HP Scanjet would it?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pissy Weird purchase by any chance??

        No, it is an Epson; the model number has rubbed off, but I think it was a 6500 ?? We got the first one with our first Win95 office box.

        I had two*, with the slide/negative adapters; to this day it is as fast at standard dpi speeds than my Epson Workforce AIO, or any of the newer, dedicated scanners I have lying around.

        For day to day, I use the Workforce (because it has an auto-feed system), but for photos I use the old one, as the colour correction is better.

        *My sister broke the one - god knows how; probably yelled at it; the same way she yelled at her PC and killed the HDD.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Pissy Weird purchase by any chance??

          I ask because I had (only disposed of last year) an old scsi HP Scanjet which worked for about 20 years solidly and was as fast, if not faster than a shed load of modern scanners. The resolution it could achieve was astonishing. But for an A4 scanner it was huge. So attached to it I became, when I upgraded to a p4 800fsb I bought the gigabyte titan MB which had scsi on board so I knew I could carry on with that exact scanner.

          I did a lot of scanning back then....

          1. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: Pissy Weird purchase by any chance??

            "which had scsi on board so I knew I could carry on"

            Have you never seen a USB to scsi adaptor? They do exist.

  2. The Nazz

    Why worry about a piffling llittle overpriced cable...

    when a pot hole costs you £1.8m.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-41523751

    Cost of filling in pothole £842 **

    Cost of not filling in pothole £1.8m compo; 38 days annual holiday, 11+ days "sick leave", 42 Fridays off for flexitime, and a gold plated pension all for the manager..

    ** 6 workmen, 5 to stand around for hours until a colleague finally bangs £2 worth of tarmac back in the hole.

  3. fobobob

    Bought a couple bulk boxes of cable (solid copper, not rubbish copper-clad aluminum cable that work-hardens and fails a year later), a giant sack of RJ45 connectors, and a cheapo set of cutters/strippers/crimpers.

    2000 feet of cable -- ~$110

    1000 connectors -- $23

    tolerably reliable tools -- $25

    Basically set for a few years. Prices in USD

    1. Donn Bly

      Based on those prices, sounds like you got solid wire, and connectors for stranded. Those connectors will fail with breaks in the copper over time -- even heat expansion/contraction will be enough, without even introducing vibration or cable movement.

      There are reasons why we use stranded wire for patch cables, and why special RJ45 connectors for solid wire exist.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "sounds like you got solid wire, and connectors for stranded"

        Precisely. Solid wire goes into back boxes ("keystone jack"). You want stranded for patch leads with plugs on the ends.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          You can _get_ RJ45s for solid (and there are some crimps which are designed to work with either), but putting such plugs on the end of solid cored cable is decidedly _un_wise.

    2. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      When I was in the networking biz, i was informed that the cost of the cable is insignificant, compared to the cost of installing it.

      I would wager, having terminated more than a few RJ45 cables, that the cost of (correctly!) installing connectors on each end, dwarfs the cost of the cable in between.

      Oh, and RJ45 connectors are designed for solid copper wire, as almost all telephone wire (in the US at least) is solid (26AWG?) wire. The ones for stranded wire are the "special" ones.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        "When I was in the networking biz, i was informed that the cost of the cable is insignificant, compared to the cost of installing it."

        Pretty much. It costs about 10% more to run two network sockets to each desired location as it does for one. On that basis we always look at the number of points we think are needed, double it and double it again. So far all we've learned is that we never ordered enough network sockets (although ubquitous wifi is making the demand for more network ports start to plateau)

        In the meantime the building services people think that an acceptable number is one per desk, at 100MB/s with an IP phone plugged into it.

    3. BagOfSpanners

      Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I find fitting RJ45 connectors to be a very time consuming faff. I much prefer buying pre-made cables.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Today's Word: Brexploitation

    English, 2017

    1. To use Brexit as a cover or fallacious reason to gain advantage politically, socially or financially. Usage: "In an act of shameless brexploitation, Belkin blamed Brexit-related currency fluctuations when raising the prices of their cabling products in the United Kingdom" (See also: Tony Blair, Nigel Farage)

    2. Using the danger and costs of a departure from the European Union to instill a general level of anxiety in either a British or European population to forestall or curtail public debate (See: Jean-Claude Juncker)

    3. To exploit Brexit to get a new word added to the English and various European languages (e.g. "le Brexploitatione") in pursuit of a dubious claim of payment due by the Oxford English Dictionary and other linguistic references. (See: Marketing Hack)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Today's Word: Brexploitation

      Yoda voice:

      Hmmmmm. Cynicism is strong in this one it is!

      Eyes on him or her keep, will we.

  5. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    But high end audio grade USB cables must be better, because the atoms are directional, it says so on the packet.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still expensive

    Only two weeks ago, I popped into PC world out of boredom (the other half at next door Currys) and saw a Belkin USb cable for £19.99, conveniently placed where they sold printers ! Mind, they sell printer cables separately, whereas before they would be included in the box. They make it a point to highlight this with a sticker too. Was so disgusted that I didnt even muster up the courage to confront the sales bod (who was loitering aimlessly) with a question about pricing strategy and justifications. He wouldnt even have known the answer. Usually, I like to remind them the price in poundland is err... a pound.

    I once picked up a 10 metres length of Cat5 network cable for a pound in, you guessed it, Poundland. And it was a fully loaded and fancifully packed Belking brand. Still use it today.

  7. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    I get mine from...

    I buy my iPhone lightning and USB cables from Poundland and they seem to be perfectly fine.

    Guess how much they cost... I'll give you a clue. I can buy 15 of them for the £15 cost of a single one in Tescos.

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