Scams and rip offs in Kuta

Arrived in Sanur from Ubud on the bus which was only 30  minutes. Had an altercation with a local though who thought she could bag the best seat at the front of the bus with the most legroom for herself when me and Kath had claimed them for ourselves. An exchange of views followed with the bus driver getting involved trying to bully us off these prize seats. Obviously most younger travellers would have moved over due to peer pressure but up against the stubborn 'we're English and we were here first' Daz/Kath tag team they did not stand a chance and were quickly dispatched to second place when we refused to budge from the seats.  Lets just say the journey was low on conversation from the locals (until we got off at least).
     Next we were targeted by the Kuta petrol station rip off crew. A common scam with people who hire scooters. The dude who fills it up for you will distract you with a bit of small-talk while filling up your bike. Then he ask you to pay which looks like a large sum of money but it says it on the pump so must be correct, right? So you pay the man. WRONG! What has happened is he has not reset the pump from the previous punter and added your fuel to the previous fill up and after you pay he skims the money off that you have overpaid! Well he picked on the wrong dudes this time. We saw him do it to the tourists before us and they just paid it even they could not believe the amount of money they were handing over! We happen to know how much the bike holds in the tank and the amount the guy put in was not physically possible. So we queried it. He got very angry,very quickly and started getting all the locals involved insisting on payment. We would not budge and would not pay asking for the manager. Even the locals offered to pay for our fuel as the guy was steaming and shouting profanities at us. We stood firm. Eventually after the dispute was unresolved the manager came over and asked what had happened.  He spoke good English and we explained the dilemma that was facing us. He quickly realized that we could prove our innocence with the bill we presented to him and he said we did not have to pay any of the fuel we had received.

Get on your bad motor scooter and ride.

 But us being proper and Bristish,

Do not mess with Kath as she has super human powers.

we paid for what we thought the fuel was worth then watched as the pump dude was publically reprimanded in front of all the customers on the forecourt. I would say by the managers reaction that this is a common scam and he probably knows it goes on but turns a blind eye to it.
  Another common over charge scenario is the fast boats to Nusa Lembongan. If you go direct to boat companies and try to haggle you will be given short shrift. There is no discount. But if you go to any of the travel agents up the road and quote a price'that your mate paid' than it was easy to get 35% off just like that.
  Also parking charges for scooters are epidemic. If they don't charge you on the way in and give you a ticket then don't pay on the way out when someone will quickly jump out from the side of the road and demand money from you even if you did not park but just went to have a look and drive by of a beach area for example. Don't pay them if they don't look official as they are trying to take easy money off foreigners who are none the wiser. They even tried to charge us for parking in McDonalds when we ate there. I nearly ran the guy over when he demanded money!