PCR test providers are charging British holidaymakers up to four times more than the official advertised price for tests. In a bid to force “cowboy” firms to bring their prices down, Health Secretary Sajid Javid has lowered the price of NHS Test and Trace tests for some travellers from £88 to £68, still costing more than £270 for a family of four. The Telegraph has more.
Companies are claiming they can provide tests for as little as £20, which pushes them to the top of the Government’s list of approved travel test providers because they are the cheapest.
But once the potential customer clicks on to the firm’s website, they find the real prices are up to four times more than they claimed.
Others were found to be offering a cheap price but it was only available at one of their sites and only if the customer visited in person. This meant that for the vast majority of those who click on to them, they will only be available at the higher price. …
The Telegraph investigation found 247 HomeTesting, using North London Laboratory, was listed by the Government at £20 for an on-site test but charged £80 when people clicked through to its website. It lowered the price to £69 after being contacted by this newspaper.
Abicare Health was listed at £20 for a self-swab at home on the Government website. But those arriving from Green List countries for a day two test would actually have to pay £75 for a home test. The firm has been contacted for comment.
1Rapid Clinics, using Nonacus Ltd, was listed by the Government as charging £23 for a day two home test. But this price was only applicable if the kit was collected from their site in Marylebone, London.
A test for a trip to a Green List country delivered to a prospective holidaymaker’s home would cost £84. An on-site test was listed at £70. The firm has been contacted for comment. …
Karen Dee, the chief executive of the Airport Operators’ Association, said the Government’s measures [of slightly lowering the cost of its own testing services] were “little more than tinkering” and did not “go anywhere near far enough to meaningfully cut the costs of travel.”
Worth reading in full.
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I don’t care how much they cost. The whole mass testing mania has to stop. But it won’t.
It won’t – especially after Gates and Sorros have invested so heavily in the testing process!
Buy cheap (from China) and sell expensive. It’s an entire economy.
I need to do one to get back to Italy where I live. Any recommendations for the cheapest fit-to-fly?
Much appreciated
Forgery?
If you’re actually worried about this pesky virus, despite all the vulnerable being vaccinated and symptoms being very mild for all others, you could get a free NHS trap and trace test to be sure for yourself, then forge the certificate once you know you are clear.
Not really when the PLF to be allowed to board a flight needs proof of a test with a valid booking reference to be accepted.
Quelle surprise! An artificial crisis aimed at inflating profits for the mates – creates profits for the mates!
Funny how as soon as you’re back home, you can have a stick jabbed up your nose for free.
People keep telling me that this crisis has brought out the best in people. I don’t see it myself!
Mind you, you should see some of them at their worst!
I suppose that, in amongst this Dystopia, at least one British candle brightly burns. Rip-Off Britain is one facet of the Normal Normal that is ineluctable, and forever with us, along with its attendant Spivs and Drones.
The ripoff in Wales is even worse with a single government mandated testing supplier and £92 a test.
Correct me if I’m wrong but:
1.There is no magic marker on test certificates which actually proves they are valid.
2.The “approved list” means those which government recommends using, but providers off that list can still make certificates which will be accepted as valid.
Has anyone thought of a busines opportunity where they claim to have set up a PCR lab, take swabs, then toss them in a clinical waste bin (can’t be polluting the environment can we) and send back certificates saying “you have been proven negative”. They could charge about £5 of pure profit per test plus some minor figure for postage and printing, plus a few pennies for the swab, for which they could just supply a cotton bud. Coems to well under £10 and they could make economies of scale on the postage by shipping a whole family’s worth of stuff in the same envelope. It appears a lot of the approved companeis aren’t actually doing tests on the samples they collect anyway, or only on a fraction of them, so why not run a company which skips the middle step and doesn’t test at all.
Even if 2. isn’t a correct understanding, folk have easily forged PCR certificates to look like they are from approved companies, the Telegraph had an example featured in December (with an apologetic anonymous confession where the forging lady, very happy after a holiday which would otherwise have been cancelled makes a whinge on how she “feels so guilty, don’t be like me”). Why aren’t more people doing this?
I have every confidence (without actually being there) that one can buy a fit-to-fly certificate in the Khao San Rd in Bangkok for 200 baht. I remember reading an article in the newspaper a couple of months ago about finding 50 fake covid certificates at Heathrow immigration per day and thinking “is that all?” and that it just showed how piss-poor Border Force was–nobody checked my documentation at all then I returned from the Far East in June, BTW.
On a note relevant to the article however, when I returned I was already aware of the bait and switch going on over day 2/8 provision costs and I see it has become much worse. The list of £20 providers, NONE of which provide tests for £20 is a long one. What I don’t understand is this–it would need one person, just one employee, out of the god-knows-how-many devoted to covid suppression, to go through the list twice a week, click on the provider links on the government website, and update the figures to whatever they find there. The very first provider on the list for my area says it has £20 tests, click on the link and you immediately find the £20-ers “out of stock” (if they ever existed) and it really charges £55. Why isn’t some government employee going through this twice a week and changing £20 to £55? it would be a service that people would actually appreciate. As it is the government just looks complicit in mis-selling.
Fit to fly is just the lateral flows before boarding. These are often free anyway.
But the day 2 PCR is whats being talked about here. You need proof of booking with a valid booking reference number on the PLF to be allowed to board the flight.
So you cant “buy” one in Thailand.
There’s no checking once landed but there is often checking at the desk before leaving the country to return to the uk.
Why bother trying to travel and play this ridiculous game? It just isn’t worth it, and by going along with it all you are just legitimising the evil charade. And getting ripped off.