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We belong to an organisation that puts you in touch with pet-sitters when you go away. People who can look after your house and animals while you're on holiday. And it was coming up for renewal, wasn't it? The subscription, yes.我们加入了一个组织，当你外出时，它会帮你联系宠物看护的人。他们可以在你度假期间照顾你的房子和动物。而我们的会员马上要续费了，是吗？对，就是订阅服务。

Every year. Fine. But what they didn't tell us was it was more expensive than the previous year.每年都要续费，好吧。但他们没告诉我们的是，这次续费比前一年更贵。

And what's more, it was more expensive, a lot more expensive than new customers were going to pay. We're looking at customers' loyalty. It wasn't the first time that we found out that we as existing customers were paying more for a product than new customers coming on.更糟的是，这次续费比新客户要付的钱贵得多。我们说的就是对老顾客忠诚度的“惩罚”。这不是第一次我们发现，作为老客户，我们反而比新客户付更多钱。

We're not the only ones. In the UK, Citizens Advice, which is an independent charity, have recently complained to a government department about these loyalty penalties, which people are paying in essential markets. Yes, now these essential markets, they include things like paying for your mobile, broadband, home insurance is a big one, bank savings and mortgages.我们并不是唯一的例子。在英国，一个独立慈善机构“公民咨询局”最近向政府部门投诉这种“忠诚惩罚”，它出现在很多基本民生市场里。是的，这些基本市场包括手机套餐、宽带、家庭保险（这个特别严重）、银行储蓄和房屋贷款。

They're all more expensive for their loyal customers than for new people joining. Yeah, their existing customers. Up to 64% of consumers didn't know that they were being charged either the same or much more than newer customers.这些服务对长期客户来说都比对新加入的人更贵。是的，就是说对老客户更贵。多达 64% 的消费者甚至不知道自己被收取的费用要么和新客户一样高，要么更高。

Yes, and they found that 8 in 10 bill payers are currently charged significantly higher prices for remaining with their existing supplier rather than getting a new supplier. And I suppose, Richard, part of this is because of privatisation. In the past, a lot of these – especially gas and electricity, things like that – the government provided those.是的，而且他们发现，十分之八的账单付款人因为继续使用原服务商，而不是更换新服务商，被收取了明显更高的费用。我想，Richard，这部分原因是私有化导致的。过去很多服务——特别是燃气、电力之类——都是政府提供的。

And now you have to go and look, and it's difficult to choose which company to go for. And when they've got special offers to attract new customers, that's got to be paid for by someone. So, we're feeling very sympathetic towards these people, especially because of our own situation.而现在你必须自己去选择，挑选哪家公司很麻烦。而且企业为了吸引新客户会推出特价优惠，而这些成本总得由某些人承担。所以我们对这些被多收费的人很同情，尤其是因为我们自己也遇到了类似的情况。

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