You go to the store to buy yourself a new HD TV. But now you need one HDMI cable to hook it up to your cable box and another to hook up your DVD. So you look around and notice that prices are all over the place: from 30 to 150 bucks. The salesman offers his advice:

“Well, let’s see. Since you just paid a $1,000 for a hi-tech TV, this is no time to scrimp. After all, the quality of the picture you see is no better than the cable that delivers it. So let’s get you a couple of nice hi-end cables. This $80 cable here, while obviously not as good as our $150 cable, will probably be ok. Unless, of course, you’re a person that demands the very best.”

This is BS of the highest order. In my opinion, it’s literally stealing and the companies perpetrating this fraud should be ashamed of themselves. Popular Mechanics did a comparison between cables costing from $13 to 300. Their conclusion? “None of our editors could tell the difference.” And CNET agreed, flatly calling $50 HDMI cables a rip-off and saying “You should never pay more than $10 for a standard six-foot HDMI cable.”

And even $10 cables are expensive! Here’s an ad from Amazon.com where you can actually buy one for as little as one cent! Granted, shipping is $2.98.

No doubt some people that read this post are going to argue that expensive cables are worth the money. Fine. Then here's my advice: skip the argument as well as doing a bunch of inconclusive research. Go buy an $80 cable from Radio Shack or Best Buy and keep the receipt. Then buy a $3 one online. Try them both and compare. If you don't see the difference, take the $80 cable back and use the $77 you just saved to pay down your debt or fatten your savings account. Then reflect on how hard you work to make an honest living but how some companies would rather mark their products up 1,000 percent than do the same.

As a consumer reporter, this crap really pisses me off…how about you?