[robocat]

That sounds like a religious question - cue joke about fate or acceptance or higher purpose? But thank you - I appreciate learning about parallel social systems.

The obvious answer is to either avoid getting in the situation or to suck it up and account for getting ripped off as the price of learning. Vet your choices more carefully, use prepay, avoid systems where you don’t control the direct debiting of your accounts.

More generally, ask the question of your social group who will have specific knowledge and strategies that fit in with the rest of your social rules. Asking here seems like you would get poor advice because we don’t have much motivation to have learnt appropriate hacks for your issue, and mostly will have little experience of your issue.