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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

The CEO is also ignoring that a lot of the original hotels to impose "resort fees" were also actual resorts. Offering a diverse range of services.

Whereas there are Marriott hotels that offer no services at all and still have the gall to charge a resort fee. I'm talking inner-city hotels with no pool, no gym, paid internet, and a fee for printing/faxing.

It might sound melodramatic but it should actually be illegal. If the fee isn't optional it should be part of the price (ditto for "fees" on Cable/Internet/Cellphone providers).

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Agreed. And I really feel like it is already legal, it just hasn't been litigated by the right people yet.

False advertising / bait and switch are illegal.

It's one thing to advertise a certain price, then have an optional upcharge for additional services. It's false advertising to advertise one price and then charge the customer something else.

Imagine if a store had candy bars for a dollar, but then charged a "candy convenience fee" of $5 upon checkout. (government fees like bottle fees are acceptable imo).

Uber Eats and most of the food delivery services are guilty of this as well. They will advertise a low fee for delivery. Then when you checkout, you see the advertised delivery fee, then an additional "service fee" that can be 2 to 3 times the delivery fee.

I have even noticed the service fee being higher on deliveries that they are offering "free delivery" for. I can't believe that isn't false advertising. Where is the ftc?

Exact same thing on Postmates and it drives me crazy: https://imgur.com/iWMyOUZ

I don't mind paying a delivery fee or tipping the driver. I do however take issue with pretending that there is no delivery fee despite that clearly being an outright lie. Not that I'm overly inclined to do so (at the current fees), but it also makes it nearly impossible to compare pricing & shop around -- because you aren't going to see the actual delivery fee ("service fee") on a "Free Delivery" order until you're at the very end of the checkout/confirmation process.

It's obviously not very ethical, though it's unclear to me if it's illegal or not. It probably should be illegal though, and they should have to declare "cost = $0 delivery + XX% service charge" or similar IMO.

This just reminded me to cancel postmates unlimited. I was very annoyed they had a large service fee after lying about free delivery.

Canceling was very easy (a credit to postmastes). They even had a "why are you canceling option" that said "because I am still being charged a fee on my order." Which I selected of course.

Haha, sounds like the process was: "A: do you think it will pass - what if people start going away because of the fees? B: Don't worry, let's try it and we can ask them if it's because of fees if they cancel. If people start churning, we turn it off for a bit, then back on in a couple of weeks - half of the chums won't even notice it!"

A bottle recycling “fee” is actually a deposit, because you’re expected to get it back upon return. A “fee” is something you don’t get back.

In CA they charge a bottle fee for plastic water bottles. If you can return those for a refund, I am unaware of it.

Depending on where you live. I live in Canada and my region you don’t get all your deposit back.

Then it's not a deposit.

The government calls it a deposit. The law that collects it and refunds it refers to it as a deposit. The charge on my receipt says deposit. The refund I get back is called deposit refund.

Except when I buy a can of Cola I pay 10 cents deposit. When I return it I get 5 cents deposit refund.

in germany it is illegal to advertise any other price than what the consumer will end up paying. that includes taxes and fees and also deposits.

i don't know if that extends to hotels as well or just consumer goods.

I stayed at a place once that had this resort fee. They had a nice indoor pool, spa, etc. But I couldn't choose to opt out. I paid for access to the pool and other services via the resort fee whether I intended to use them or not. So it doesn't just need to have "resort" stuff, those things need to be optional. Otherwise it's just the price of the room.

Even in the original case it’s dishonest. There a borderline area where it’s something that nearly everyone is going to want, like when an airline charges for both checked and non-checked bags, but in the case where the consumer can’t opt out at all there’s no gray area. That’s part of the cost and should be displayed as such everywhere.

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