How getting a second opinion can stop you being ripped off

By Carlos Oyarzun, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland
Lana Friesen, Associate Professor in Economics, The University of Queensland
Metin Uyanik, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland
Priscilla Man, Senior Lecturer, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

You leave your car at the mechanic for a routine service ahead of your summer escape to the coast. When your mobile rings, you are stricken by unwelcome news: the mechanic goes through a list of parts that urgently need replacing to avoid a breakdown in the middle of the freeway. After accepting your fate, you never learn whether you really needed to replace those parts, or if the mechanic has just ripped you off.

Services like these - for which it remains unclear whether the service was really needed - are what economists call “credence…

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