IT’S the lucky person who has never been ripped off.

Many years ago I attended a sale in a local hotel. The hotel’s only involvement was hiring out a room to people — their accents suggested a London connection — selling all manner of goods, from paintings to pots and pans.

I spied a radio that caught my fancy as it had more than the usual range of wavebands, which suggested the possibility of picking up stations on the other side of the globe. It looked so high-tech it could have been designed by an engineer who held a senior post with America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Upon returning home, I twiddled about with the selector only to keep getting the same waveband. It soon became obvious this was a single waveband radio with a multi-waveband selector. It had umpteen other controls but only the volume one worked.

Looking back, I had been done up like a kipper by someone who possibly was the inspiration for Del Boy’s character in Only Fools and Horses.

Not only must the salesman have known the radio was hokey but a factory had been deliberately churning out equipment that was not what it purported to be. It simply cannot have been a consignment of faulty radios that left the factory by error.

The saving grace was the radio was cheap and the sole waveband available contained stations I regularly listened to.

Some years later I attended another sale outwith the area. I bought a bottle of my favourite aftershave at around half the normal price.

Prior to going out for the evening I applied my new aftershave. I had just started down the garden path when my face suddenly felt as if it were on fire. Fortunately I managed to get relief from the sensation by dunking my head in a bucket which was full of rainwater. No lasting damage was done.

Regarding the radio and what clearly was counterfeit aftershave which I had to pour down the drain, I had been a victim of rip-off merchants but really should have known better.