America's Biggest Rip-offs

"Text Messages -- 6,500% Markup
The messages are such a tiny piece of data that they cost carriers only about one-third of a cent to deliver, according to computer scientist Srinivasan Keshav, who testified before U.S. senators on the issue last summer. But on a pay-per-text plan, the 160-character messages typically cost 20 cents outgoing and 10 cents incoming. That's a markup of as much as 6,500%.

College Textbooks -- $900 a Year!
And a separate study conducted by the Government Accountability Office found that textbook prices nearly tripled from 1986 to 2004 -- a jump that's twice the rate of annual inflation over the last two decades. Public-interest groups say this is a rip-off. They blame greedy publishers and bookstores for driving up prices by issuing unnecessary new editions that render older texts worthless without adding much new information, as well as by "bundling" books with other materials like CD-ROMs."

source: Yahoo! Finance/CNN MONEY