Do you not have the saying 'fobbed off' in the US??
I dont' really know how to describe what it means...erm....
for example, I did a search on google and came up with this news story:
"Marijuana smoker fobbed off with cabbage
A Belgian who was arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana was released after police found he'd been fobbed off with cabbage."
Also found this here
http://www.bartleby.com/68/70/2570.html:
"Foist combines with the prepositions on, off on, upon, and off, meaning ?to pass off as something else, to introduce sneakily? and ?to pass off as true what is false,? as in She foisted some excellent forgeries of Impressionist paintings on [off on, upon] the galleries that year. Fob off means essentially the same thing, ?to pass off something fake as genuine? (He was trying to fob off some fool?s gold as gold), ?to deceive by means of a trick? (She succeeded in fobbing her customers off onto a much more expensive appliance than the one advertised; She succeeded in fobbing it off onto her customers), and ?to put off or avoid what is not welcome,? as in When we called again, they fobbed us off with some excuse or other."
Anyway....I didn't really understand AralitaMullen's post either