FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
Another good rule is click-to-cancel. Just a couple of days ago I logged into my Dish Network account to cancel it (after they hiked prices). There is no way to cancel online. There is no way to cancel via chat. You have to call. As soon as you call you're told the wait time is over 45 minutes. There is no call back option. Why should a consumer have to be on the phone for 45 minutes to cancel? (Typically they will drop the call after 45 minutes and you have to call again.) If you call Dish to sign up service the wait time is 0 minutes: they answer immediately. If you then tell that you're actually calling to cancel, they forward you to the cancellation number with the wait. This is an abusive business practice, and banning it should not be controversial.
Years ago when signed up with them I opted to pay the extra service for local tv channels, which required an andditional antenna to install.
For some reason the installer couldn’t fit it securely on our house, and said to call Dish to remove the service since we cannot receive it.
Dish refused to remove the local service! They said since we signed a contract we were stuck paying for it even though they couldn’t fit the antenna.
I pointed out in a hundred different ways that the contract also required them to provide a service which they are not providing so we shouldn’t have to pay.
All of my attempts to reason with them were ignored, and their call staff refused to escalate to their manager.
Long story short we had to pay for twelve months for something they couldn’t provide to us.
Literally the minute the contract was up we cancelled (it was easier to cancel back then).
I would never ever go near this company again.
None of these shit companies will ever take you up on the offer though, because expecting to get paid for a service you don't provide (and can't provide in this case) won't fly in court.
Have you actually tried this? Because having not tried it myself, I'd bet a paycheck that you get sent to collections, get a ding on your credit report, and you're still on the hook for taking it to court if you want it resolve to your favor. (Assuming U. S.) And as a cherry on top of that shit sundae, it's probably in the contract that you have to go through arbitration anyway.
With any such service, I budget 1 hour. If I can't get cancellation within that time-frame I have a standard form letter that gets sent out.
Once the letter is sent, after the current billing cycle ends any additional charges from said service are disputed (either on the card or on bank account) as fraud.
On three occasions, I've been asked to provide proof of fraud.
I've emailed a scan of the cancellation letter. The fraud has never been further disputed even from a gym in Chicago that (via their contract's language) demanded an in-person cancellation.
Life is too short and time is far too precious.
Companies like to pretend that they can set the rules for all interactions with them when that's just not the case.
Genuinely, sometimes calls simply get transferred to the "wrong people", the CSR rep is brand new, the system itself gets backed-up (Poisson distributions can be a bitch), the company is going through a transition to a completely new CSR interface, or the general counsel just shoved an entirely new set of operating agreements up everyone's ass. Companies are made of people.
I consider 1 hour my botd (benefit of the doubt) tax for cancellation of consumer services.
Also note, that's not one continuous hour of time*attention.
The lawyer field is captured and they know they'd get taken to court by other lawyers if they "recommended" such a thing, because their industry has made them liable for things they "recommend".
We still get the same consumer-hostile practices from companies, but usually they give up if you send them one of those letters.
Ironically, that inherent dysfunction is the main reason to suspect that won't happen. But politically, every regulation as automatically partisan, even when it has overwhelming support.
(At least some of) the agencies brought this on themselves with their abuse of the goodwill/benefit of the doubt previously afforded to them. Most flagrant has been the ATF, for one example constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces, turning millions of citizens into felons with no oversight beyond drawn out and expensive court cases against them.
I never liked the smell of this power being afforded to agencies in the abstract, even for the "good guys" at the CDC or Department of the Interior. It's too rife for abuse. Federal regulations (whether you call it a law or a rule, the party van is coming if you break them) are supposed to be hard to pass. We once needed an amendment to ban alcohol before we forgot the definitions of interstate and commerce, but if my understanding is correct, under Chevron deference the DEA could have decided to schedule it without even asking congress.
> given that judges likely have even less knowledge of the subject than the ATF, probably worse and more inconsistent.
In the unicorn rainbow world where the regulatory agencies are omniscient saints only worrying about the common good, that may be an argument. In the real world, where the regulators are extremely politicized, extremely concerned with gaining more power and extremely happy to pass completely absurd and harmful regulations if it fits their particular agenda, it's not. And by now we all know this is the world we are living in.
Not on it's own, no. The bigger culprit there is the erosion of the nondelegation doctrine. But Chevron aggravated the problem by allowing agencies to stretch their authority beyond what even congress intended with little possibility of legal challenge.
Interpreting the law is and should be the role of the courts, not the role of the agencies that that law is supposed to be governing. It'd be like if we passed a law intended to regulate insurance companies, and the courts decided to give deference to the insurance company's interpretation of that law because "they're the experts on insurance".
What came before this was at least 15 years of tort action, a patchwork of civil rulings across a wide variety of jurisdictions, and generally, confusion and ambiguity. Not the stuff of efficient government.
From my perspective, this rulemaking is pretty close to ideal. I did not dream of getting such a clear, detailed direction from a federal agency. I think my jaw may have literally dropped as I read through it. I think the web accessibility is an interesting example, because it's not a bloated bureaucracy harassing some fishermen, it's an agency trying to prevent the government from violating your civil rights.
So, is the idea that Congress would have accomplished this instead? I just can't imagine that happening.
The sheer stupidity of that argument is mind-blowing. When you have a government agency with dedicated technical resources, but you will rather a bunch of couple hundred of people with different backgrounds make specific rules about everything. That's just madness
The ATF is simply going on function rather than form. It shoots like a machine gun it is a machine gun no matter what you call it.
That being said, bump stocks are a simple enough concept that banning them is stupid. We should quite our obsession over machine guns--there are few situations where it even matters.
The problem with it going through congress is that it will always be political rather than scientific. The agencies don't do a good job, but a lot of that is because of garbage they are saddled with by congress (think of the machine guns--the basic problem is that the legal and practical definitions are out of sync) and a lot of it is because politics manages to get in anyway.
How about a middle ground: agencies can make rules but they must give their reasoning and supporting evidence--and anyone can challenge such in court. You can't go after the ruling but if you can knock out it's supports it goes away. This would cut both ways--exempt something from a more general ruling and the reason for the exemption can be challenged. (And I'd like to see the same thing for laws.)
The part where it breaks down is pointing at a specific piece that enables automatic fire and calling that piece a "machine gun", even if it's just a tiny piece of metal or a specially-tied shoelace.
I think that's already true, except that you probably need standing - you need to show you're affected by the rule - to sue. There are many rules around rule-making including against arbitrary rules, guaranteed public comment periods, etc.
Everything is ripe for abuse.
———-
Right now, agencies are the defensive structures. Corporations which own media or parties that are effectively corporations - are the threat.
One of the specific defenses that’s employed by private forces is reduction in trust of agencies.
——
All systems are vulnerable. It’s a question of relative vulnerability.
Pistol braces was struck down not on second amendment grounds, but because the ATF failed to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act, specifically failing the logical outgrowth test. They proffered a comment period and then did a switch when publishing the final rule.
Similar shenanigans were afoot with the Trump area bump stock ban, which was ruled against by the Supreme Court itself in Garland v. Cargill. I think that had to do with the agency exceeding its authority beyond what the statute specifically specifies. In laymans terms, the legal details were not ambiguous enough to justify the conclusion that the agency came to stretching the statute through their interpretation.
It's hard to argue with this in principal. The rules as law BS has been a band-aid over dysfunction. It needs to go. It'll hurt in the short term but should be more sustainable in the long term. That people will get more angry at congress for doing nothing is icing on the cake.
I want to be optimistic about this. In practice it seems that the strategy created by McConnel to block any legislation at all has been doing/tricking the voter really well. As he predicted, credit for anything good goes to the current admin while anything bad also gets blamed on the current admin. I can see a likely scenario where "people getting more angry" will only make this strategy to block everything work even better. I hope I am wrong and the "nuance" that congress exists and isn't controlled by the president will finally get into people heads. I also hope that once it gets into their heads, the conclusion won't be that a authoritarian dictator is needed.
There are decades of rules in the federal register. How long do you imagine it will take the legislative branch to patch them?
Go skim some of them, and see if you feel the same way afterward:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/search?conditions%...
It's very easy to argue with this in principle. Congress can't be constantly updating every law as new technology or situations emerge. It's much better for laws to set general goals and leave implementation to agencies staffed with experts.
then being a renter would be quite an adventure.
Who is behind this move? What individuals, and what politicians? By what legal means is this happening? I've literally never heard of anything like this before - without further details, this is just political flame-baiting.
The supreme court. The removal of Chevron Deference this year means that the courts have given themselves huge amounts of power over any administrative decision that isn't specifically regulated by congress (rather than the prior stance which was to presume that agency decisions were reasonable interpretations of the legislation unless there was clear evidence to the contrary).
Three major developments from the courts in this direction have been:
- The overturning of Chevron gave courts the power to interpret portions of laws written by subject matter experts, instead of those experts themselves.
- The big questions doctrine has allowed the courts to decide when the legislature has deligated too much power.
- Cornerpost has removed the statue of limitations for challenge policies and rules out in place by agencies.
These together clearly paint a picture. Any policy can be challenged (in any venue, allowing the plaintiff to pick their venue). This allows policies in place for decades to be challenged and brought to the supreme court. The most recent court has adopted the major questions doctrine, allowing them to strike down any policy they feel pertain to "issues of major political or economic significance." (no they didn't define it more than that). Or, if they can't make that argument, they can interpret the law to strike down the policy due to the overturning of Chevron.
We've seen an unprecedented shift of power to the supreme court in the last few years. They're using the disfunction in the legislature as an opening to gain power. Which is scary considering it's a group of 9 unelected people with lifetime appointments.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-dow...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_questions_doctrine
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/corner-post-inc-...
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-dow...
Article I, section 1 of the Constitution: ‘All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.’
It doesn’t say, ‘Congress may delegate its legislative Powers to the Executive.’ Arguably, the ‘shall’ language forbids that! Article I, section 8 does give the Congress the authority to pass laws necessary and proper to execute its regulation of interstate commerce (among other things), but … it’s not necessary to delegate legislative power in order to execute the law.
Here in Sweden, if the amount isn't clearly presented, there's no agreement to pay the specified amount, so there's no contract and no obligation to pay-- an agreement becomes binding because of the reasonable expectation of a party on the counterparty.
I don't understand American contract law, since I even see ideas like changing agreements, which are completely contrary to the very notion of a contracts as I understand it, so it's nice that something is done about these strange practices.
I don't understand how it's come to this point though. That courts have been willing to tolerate things that aren't in the contract (i.e. changes to contracts), provisions that aren't clear, etc., and complex and strange provisions even in contracts of adhesion and things presented to consumers.
Occasionally this is unavoidable--shipping charges. If they simply pass through what UPS charges, fine. Otherwise, they should be listed up front.
With regard to shipping charges, don't you choose your shipping options and get to see the price before buying?
Sales tax is also usually added in at the very end, again because it depends on where the buyer is.
The difference here is that the "hidden junk fees" are just extra money they charge, with no real defence. For example, Ticketmaster loves their arbitrary "convenience fee", Airbnb was long known for "cleaning fees" (though they've improved here), etc. These are things that the seller knows they're going to charge beforehand and clearly they do this purely to trick our brains into thinking things are cheaper.
If you just add a fine with a threshold it is actually much harder to pick the right fine amount. This way it has some sort of degree of scaling naturally. A small delay is less costly to you than a long delay rather than being all-or-nothing.
I agree that for simple things like unsubscribing a button can be mandated, but for other causes of calls to customer support it isn't that simple.
We left their crap in a room for ~6 months total at the advise of his estate lawyer. Eventually they did accept that he was dead and canceled the account as well as sent a box to send the equipment back.
They got their equipment back after it had all had an unexpected encounter with a hammer. Never heard a peep about it.
It's far from a good solution, but it should at least put you in a better position vis-a-vis the courts if it comes to that.
I've seen Americans living in Europe get bitten by this quite frequently in some countries, where sending something to collections is both commonly done and the collection agency will successfully take you to court and win in almost all cases even for pennies.
On the other hand, the EU has had "two-click cancellation" regulations for a while now, so there is a better alternative available for both sides (customer and company).
If you misrepresent that you have and they are just ignoring you, you might practically get away with it, but do know that that kind of misrepresentation might get you into trouble some day.
If however the merchant is actually unreachable for a bona fide cancellation request, that's totally on them.
They do this to increase profits.
A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost.
It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money.
To be fair, satellite TV has always been one of these even when it was a healthy business. High cost of acquisition, high commission for sales, high barrier to cancel.
Made the mistake of buying a boost mobile sim this year. It was “expired” upon opening it. Retailer refused to refund it.
Having not learned my lesson yet, I went elsewhere and ripped it open to check the expiration date this time before I bought it.
Well “it’s prepaid for 90 days and comes with 35 gigs” it says on the card.
Go to activate it, it puts a further $100 on my credit card and congratulates me for activating my 30 gig service plan.
Hokey frauds.
Shit flows downhill. Their owner, Charlie Ergan, wakes up every day thinking of new ways to defraud the government with DISH and Echostar: https://nypost.com/2024/03/22/us-news/doj-moved-to-dismiss-3...
I usually complain about his spectrum squatting with DISH, but there's so much more if you dig a little.
But you repeat yourself.
What percent? (Citation needed if it's anything greater than 1%) What does "virtually" mean? This statement has no details and just comes across as political dogwhistling as a result.
> What does "virtually" mean?
virtually /vûr′choo͞-ə-lē/ adverb Almost but not quite; nearly.
> Any advertised price must include all mandatory taxes and fees. No exceptions.
For the second just have a law that says:
> An end user must be allowed to use the same method to cancel as they used to sign up for the service. No exceptions. Additionally, an end user cannot be required to perform more manual actions to cancel than was required to sign up. No exceptions.
No one should be against this except greedy corporations. Easily solved, common sense rules that already have working examples in the real world. 1 is already the law in Netherlands and Australia and these countries aren’t falling over from the undue burden placed on businesses.
I’ll end with: two cornerstones of a free market are price transparency and the ability/mobility to switch services when a better competing offering emerges. Not having legislation like above to protect those values is anti capitalistic
Free airfare to Hawaii!
Fee for paying by cash: $1000 Fee for paying by check: $1100 Fee for paying by credit card: $1050 Fee for middle seat: $200 Fee for window seat: $300 Fee for aisle seat: $250
Note that no fee on this list is mandatory because you always have other options.
It becomes trickier when the fee is elective, but a significant part of the advertisement. Southwest Airlines complaining about having to advertise their fares, which come with two bags included, alongside other airlines who don’t include any bags comes to mind. I think there is probably some world where elective fees are included as well though this seems more nebulous.
However, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Even just including everything that is compulsory in the base price itself, including taxes, would be a massive improvement to the status quo. Fixing this elective fee ambiguity would be a next step
The (hypothetical) airfare was listed as "free", but it was impossible to end up paying less than $1200 for it.
The point being that even if you have a choice between several fees (making none of them "mandatory" by a narrow reading), you're still paying something beyond the advertised base price.
The logical good-faith rule in a case like this would be that you must advertise at least the minimum price anyone would end up paying based on the available "fee choices".
for many people, any kind of regulation that restricts companies abilities to make money, regardless of the consequences for average citizen, is "wasteful and discourages innovation". Elon would like to get rid of the FTC altogether for that reason, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was set up to help protect users from scammy behavior like this.
so yeah, don't hold your breath for the next 4 years (or longer if Elon manages to buy the next election too)
Making wage information more accessible to workers being a policy he- an Austrian School economist- supports.
This government ruling falls under that class of policies IMO. It makes prices much more available to consumers and does not on first inspection threaten to distort supply and demand.
Chargeback: "attempted to cancel via phone."
Done.
If the free market had it's way we'd still be under the yoke of Standard Oil and Ma Bell.
One key element of a free market is the "well informed consumer". How is the consumer supposed to be informed about what new cutting edge chemicals are toxic, for instance?
In a truly free market cancellation would be implicit by no longer paying.
There are primary indicators that you use to decide whether to make a purchase, and then there are other (let's call them secondary) indicators.
Primary is stuff like "the advertised price" and "the claimed features/service." Secondary is stuff like "have I ever heard that this company does shitty things" and "is there going to be a BS fee added to the total right before I click 'charge'?"
Once you're in their snare, a company benefits from being shitty. Plenty of people will pay the junk fee (did they even notice?) -- the important part is that your advertised price ranks near the competition. Plenty of people will sign up for a service that is difficult to cancel -- the important part is that the price starts out reasonable and that the service is adequate.
Even if the company is run by true saints, raising that sticker price to reflect the true price is anti-competitive! We can't be the only ones being honest! And they're right. That's why a law is needed to address it.
edit: Perhaps you were being sarcastic. Felt good to state my opinion, anyway :)
But require it to be practical to do online, with no delays and no requirement about when relative to renewals.
Better, in my opinion, is a clear and easy way to "uncancel" if you accidentally cancel. But even that can be abused: "Here's a button that looks like a confirmation, but actually it's a resubscribe button." It's just too tempting to make that "number of people who resubscribed after cancelling" number a target. You think you're reminding the customer of their mistake, but really you're just optimizing the dark pattern.
Well, depends which people, I suppose: subscribers or providers...
P.S. this is also a good summary of every all in podcast episode post election
The idea that these institutions, like FTC, are bad for consumers, and this new blind faith that things must be deregulated because the market will solve it for the better is going to be interesting.
By the way, when things turn bad, it's we who will pay the price again for this deregulation, not billionaires. It's like people are choosing fantasy and magical thinking over History... 2008 wasn't that long ago.
It feels like she's just against any acquisitions by large companies, and I think that's both too broad of a stance for the FTC to take (as opposed to really looking on a case-by-case basis of whether consumers would be hurt by an acquisition) and also harmful to new companies being created, since suddenly an important option for exits is a whole lot less likely as large companies hesitate to be acquisitive.
How does her term work?
Seats on the FTC are supposed to last for 7 years. She was nominated in 2021 and her term technically expired a couple months ago. Apparently she gets to remain in it until a replacement is appointed.
Has she just been filling in the remainder of someone else's term, like Laphonza Butler as CA Senator?
The prior chairman, Joseph Simons, had this same seat that Khan has now, so for him his term was also nominally set to expire September 2024. He resigned when the administration changed over in 2021.
But this looks genuinely good! It's basically banning fraud.
---[EDIT], since everyone is asking for reasons here are two libertarian/conservative critiques:
Pro-market: pro-market advocates for policies that enhance competition and market efficiency. Understands that god markets are made. Pro-market advocates believe in creating conditions where businesses can compete fairly without undue advantages from government favoritism. Government regulation can be essential to correct market failures and promote a level playing field.
Free market: and ideological stance where markets are without government intervention. Belief in ideal world where market failures don't exist and if they exists that's a good thing.
no, markets without government intervention are called "laissez-faire" markets. There would be no need for that term if that's what free market meant.
That was probably before the internet was invented. These days, a typical online libertarian opposes all government action as violence, but when you mention fraud, it's like: "but who decides what is or isn't fraud? if the customer signed a contract, it was their revealed preference to get scammed..."
Where the free market fans see child slavery and sexual slavery and rejoice (free to make any contract you want to after all), the pro market people believe that if you just put enough guard rails on it, greed will magically turn into a force for good.
Obviously I also have an ideology, but at least I'm honest enough to not pretend that capitalism (or communism/anarchy) are naturally occuring, instead of simply a choice we make.
to the contrary, she's great for free, competitive markets
she's just not good for winner-take-all M&A investors, and _that_ is a good thing
the average American - and even the average investor - will not benefit from her departure
The Reason piece is lazy drive-by snark. Calling the anti-trust standards of the 20c "hipster anti-trust" is just a-historical. Blocking consolidation of national chains is hardly some crazy innovation. In fact, it was Bork who was the rebel introducing the stricter "consumer harm" standard. People might argue which is the appropriate standard -- the one invented during the 1890s to break the most powerful trusts in history, or the one invented by a Regan appointee in 1980 to replace it. But the Reason snark does nothing except claim it.
At least the WSJ makes an actual argument about consumer harm. Unfortunately, their argument is: there has been so much consolidation in distribution, we need to consolidate retail to increase their bargaining power to balance. Given the geographical nature of grocery shopping, consolidation is likely to reduce consumer bargaining power further. That the WSJ fails to acknowledge the obvious fact that the greater power of a merged entity would act on both sides of the market is bad-faith.
The free market shouldn't allow monopolies, or duopolies to form. Bad businesses should fail, not absorb more capital and continue scaling.
But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace. But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline.
I totally understand why billionaires do, on the other hand. Worth watching Reid Hoffman embarrass himself on Jake Tapper on the subject of Khan recently for those interested
We're at an unprecedented levels of wealth inequality in America. Billion dollar businesses built on tax payer money, should contribute to the system. Instead we've designed a system where these companies would rather pay millions of dollars in campaign contributions and to lobbyists.
The paragon of good and sensible arguments like, "Legalize Insider Trading".
This author has not written one of those pieces, but she is in good company with the ones who did.
It says that she has been bad for them but there is no proof of this.
Instead it makes quite a comical attempt at trying to vaguely point at the sky and say she is evil or overreaching, but she is not and anyone whoa actually wants a free market can tell you that. I honestly just cannot understand what happened to Reason I checked some more or their side articles and wow the quality has dropped to a level that would make the NYT blush.
The main complaint is that the Khan FTC by default is against all mergers and acquisitions.
This is different from the previous standard that only mergers that harm consumers are bad. So now even mergers that benefit consumers are blocked.
EDIT: to make it easier here's a list of actions from perplexity:
Here are more explicit actions taken by the FTC under Lina Khan's leadership:
Lawsuit against Amazon (2023): The FTC filed a landmark antitrust case accusing Amazon of monopolistic practices in its online marketplace and Prime subscription service.
Meta (Facebook) lawsuit (2023): The FTC sued Meta to block its acquisition of virtual reality app maker Within Unlimited, citing concerns about monopolization in the VR market.
Microsoft-Activision merger challenge (2023): The FTC attempted to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, though it ultimately failed.
Kroger-Albertsons merger: A U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of the FTC to block the proposed $25 billion merger between these two major supermarket chains
Nvidia's acquisition of Arm: The FTC sued to block this merger, though it's not explicitly mentioned in the search results
Amazon's acquisition of iRobot: While not explicitly mentioned in the search results, this is another high-profile merger that the FTC has challenged under Khan's leadership.
Enforcement against data brokers (2022-2023): The FTC took action against several data brokers for selling precise geolocation data that could be used to track people's movements.
Zoom settlement (2021): The FTC finalized a settlement with Zoom over allegations of deceptive security practices.
Right to Repair initiative (2021): Khan's FTC unanimously voted to ramp up law enforcement against repair restrictions that prevent small businesses, workers, and consumers from fixing their own products.
Made in USA labeling rule (2021): The FTC finalized a new rule cracking down on marketers who make false, unqualified claims that their products are Made in the USA.
Penalties for fake reviews (2022): The FTC imposed multi-million dollar penalties on companies for using fake reviews and suppressing negative reviews.
Action against "dark patterns" (2021-2023): The FTC has taken action against companies using deceptive design practices known as "dark patterns" to trick consumers.
Increased use of Penalty Offense Authority: The FTC has revived its Penalty Offense Authority to seek civil penalties for violations of FTC administrative orders.
Ban on hidden junk fees: The FTC announced a rule requiring companies to show full prices for items like hotel rooms, concert tickets, and sporting events upfront, rather than hiding fees until the end of the checkout process
Changes to merger review process: The FTC has altered principles, practices, and policies of merger review that had been in place for decades
Expanded scope of enforcement: The FTC has taken a more holistic approach to identifying harms affecting workers, independent businesses, and consumers, with a focus on addressing power asymmetries and unlawful practices
Rulemaking changes: Chair Khan has orchestrated wholesale changes in FTC rulemaking practices and policies
Proposed ban on noncompete clauses: The FTC has proposed banning noncompete clauses in employer agreements
Increased focus on data privacy: The FTC has sued multiple companies for allegedly sharing customer data and warned about the "hidden impacts" of advertising tools like third-party tracking pixels
I wish they banned all mandatory add-ons. If I don't have the choice it should be part of the base price.
The touristic railroad near me advertises a price, and then slaps on a mandatory Fuel Surcharge and Historic Preservation Fee.
Excuse me? How can I compare what I'm going to spend my money on if you're just allowed to lie to me?
Sidenote on fuel cost:
Fuel is almost back to pre-COVID costs https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=e...
and once you add in inflation it's even cheaper.
You're not supposed to, that's the point. It's frankly shocking (and also not, but you know) how much businesses in America are allowed to bullshit you.
I signed on with a telco for high speed internet when we bought our house for $65 a month and by the time we got fiber and I could finally tell them to kick rocks, the bill had soared to nearly $200 for the exact same service over the course of 4 years. Why? Because they can, and go fuck yourself.
A hotel stay for a vacation was supposed to cost $851, but they demanded a $300 pre-authorization on top of that. Why? Because they can. I wasn't notified ahead of time, absolutely nowhere was this information given to me. And I could take that on fine, but why is this allowed? What if I wasn't so fortunate and was traveling by air, do I just sleep in a box because the hotel can't guarantee I'll be able to pay for $300 worth of room service I have no intention of buying?
I feel like this just happens everywhere now, I just expect it. I expect to get fucked over in one way or another, and on the one hand I'm sure it's my anxiety, but on the other hand there is so much expensive arbitrary nonsense that's just plunked down in front of me, and yeah, most of it I can handle fine, because I work in tech and make good wages. So I guess just fuck everyone who grew up at the income level I got, because I am fucking sure that my single mother trying her hardest as she was, wouldn't be able to get by if I was born like 15-20 years later than I was.
Edit: Oh and FUCK every politician who has ever farted out words something like "responsible consumption of healthcare" because sweet Jesus, healthcare billing is an utter nightmare. I don't think I have EVER, EVER in my entire life had some kind of medical event where I knew the costs going in that were then reflected afterwards. It's just all made the fuck up on the fly with no respect for the patients, when they are already stressed out and scared.
There's actually an administrative code in Washington that furniture (and maybe other) stores are only allowed to have a "Going out of business" sale _once a year_.
Never bought anything from there since it seemed so incredibly sketchy. Then at last it went out of business properly and a U-Haul took over the space.
it would be fairer if this were opt-in. Some e commerce sites now allow you to pay a few extra dollars to have free returns, something similar would work for movies.
whereas buying a ticket in advance online, and then later refunding it (but losing the convenience fee), is common. "peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved" is what i mean by an option on the seat.
now maybe i'm in fact wrong and all convenience fees are exactly passing through the credit card/fandango fees etc., but in practice it sure looks like an option.
Not necessarily that I agree with it though -- in many parts of the world you have no such fees when you buy a movie ticket online.
Because it would display the nightly rate as $X.
But then at checkout, it would add in "house cleaning fees" etc (which I don't dispute is a fair fee to include) but it at times can grossly misrepresent what your true nightly cost is when searching.
Maybe this will be a step in the direction like Telco's have had to do with creating simplified & standardized "nutrition labels" for pricing.
Not including fees in the nightly rate makes sense as some are fixed rate, and having the option to see the cost for the total stay (including fees) solves the problem.
If you search for an area without dates, it comes up with some arbitrary dates and applies the fees and displays per night cost accordingly.
So it's technically possible. They just don't want to.
It can be done. Marriott show the total including taxes. Mind you, this was as a result of a legal settlement, so they get no credit.
At least on booking.com it depends on what settings you have.
We all know it is a scam fee. People wouldn't be as mad over a hold on some amount (usually returned) insuring the host against an egregious sloppy mess.
The price on the tag, is exactly what you pay (same with services, like hotels).
Since this is Japan, it's a high price, but no surprises.
Also, the service is amazing, and they won't accept tips. If you leave money on the table, they will chase after you, to give it back.
I visited Japan some years back and loved this aspect of the culture as well. An Australian ski guide (this was a winter visit) explained it like so: "the Japanese attitude is to want to do a good job by default. Tipping implies that a good job is only done because of pay. The Japanese see quality service as intrinsically valuable in itself."
As a kid, having grown up in the UK I knew that if the price label said £1.99 and I had £2 in my pocket I could afford it, with £0.01 change. First time I went to the USA as a young teenager I remember being quite embarrassed when the thing I thought I was getting for $1.99 was actually not $1.99 but $2.17 or whatever, and I had to leave without buying. Felt quite deceptive and totally incomprehensible.
The price excluding tax is the only one you can read at a distance, that draws you in. As someone from the UK who is used to seeing price tags show the final price you pay at the till, I was constantly disappointed that items weren't quite such a bargain as I'd first hoped.
On the whole there are still many things that are much cheaper than in the UK though :)
Also, while it is the norm in Japan to include the tax, there are some exceptions.
(Japan has 2 rates, 8% for certain items like food, and 10% for everything else).
That's the norm, not the exception, in developed countries.
The exception here is also the holiday surcharge (an extra fee on holidays and Sundays), which has to be "disclosed" before ordering. Usually there is a small sign somewhere that nobody pays attention to.
It's crazy to me that in the US I can never be sure how much I'll end up paying...
Nobody's trying to fool you by not including sales taxes. There's just no way to show them in advance, unless you want to start typing your address and zip code into every shopping website before you even browse.
If I'm signed in to the shop from making a previous purchase, they will use the location of the previous purchase.
There's a very small % of traffic that actually uses VPNs
Usually (across the world and across history) the power of taxation is very jealously guarded, and local government is usually only allowed to gather a limited range of taxes. Historically sovereigns have treated attempts by subordinates to raise their own taxes as tantamount to treason.
You guys can think of lots of reasons to justify why you can't do things like the rest of the civilized world does, be it prices and taxes, medical insurance or something else. The US is not some sprcial snowflake country.
But I guess that would outside FTC jurisdiction?
Most online shops have a good estimate of your location based on IP. And already use it to estimate shopping costs, right?
Mind you, I'm all for more up-front transparency in general, especially to the degree that comparison-shopping is inconsistent to the degree it displays or doesn't display often significant add-ons.
One for in-person shopping (like VAT) -- you pay the tax according to local rates, but it's factored in already.
one for online shopping, ("E-VAT") -- you pay a national rate tax and the seller is responsible for paying gross sales based on that percentage to the state and the rest goes to the IRS.
Problem comes with the Sin Taxes that have been established. For instance, in Seattle, sugared drinks MAY incur a tax depending on what kind of store you bought it from (e.g. the normal costco has to tax it but the business costco doesn't), but that doesn't affect some folks and then there's tax-exempt organizations like churches that can have their sales tax waived and then there's states where sales taxes are a majority of the income is from sales tax but only if you're local and
oh god it gets bad.
Good for me, my zipcode is the Walmart of zip codes. No so good for people who's zip code is the Whole Foods of zip codes.
God I wish this applied to buying cars as well
“Oh, sorry, looks like we’d already applied the undercoat to your car.”
“Ah, thanks!”
“That’s an extra $400 charge.”
“I’m not paying for it. I didn’t want it. You can have it back if you want.”
> rings up as $121.41
> "Wow, I wasn't *highly aware* that the sales tax rate here where I live was 7.83%, thanks for helping me out by putting the wrong price on the sticker, shopkeep. Now I can calculate the actual price of things in your store, something I couldn't do before – I'll simply multiply every sticker price by 1.0783 in my head on the fly. What a great 'upside'!"
Until then, all you can do is quote a price.
Welcome to reality, kid.
If you're buying it for resale, you don't owe tax. How do you put that on a price tag?
There's use tax. Depending on what you use a product you buy for, you might owe a different tax rate. How do you get a final price out of that?
You don't. When you quote a price, it's a quote.
Network access fee: $2.65
Municipal upgrade fee: $16.30
Fees end up costing nearly 80% of the entire bill. There are no taxes or gov surcharges of any kind.
*(with autopay discount)
**(with autopay direct deposit discount)
***(will not be reflected on first 3 bills)
ETA: here's their current promotion: https://i.imgur.com/TfwsdQv.png $20 for service, $20.49 in fees! fees are 102% of the supposed price!
It still seems kind of new and I can't find one for Spectrum (my ISP) or I'd share it here myself, but: I pay exactly $59.95 per month, as the service is advertised in my area, and that's that. There are no itemized fees/taxes on my bill.
I don't remember the last time I had an ISP with weird fees associated with it -- it seems like it has had to have been around a decade now, at least.
(Cellular, too: My cheapskate all-you-can-eat cellular service costs me $35 per month, flat -- to the penny.)
Like FTC, I estimate that banning these would save U.S. consumers millions of hours they currently spend searching and clicking on pointless coupons on their phones before making purchases. It would also increase happiness, as it's extremely annoying to pay $20 extra, knowing that a lower price is available if only you spent ten minutes struggling with a store's website on your phone.
Whoever invented this is evil and is destroying happiness.
Which store is that with the yellow price tags?
because how are you ever going to stay in business doing something as niche as selling groceries without leaning hard into surveillance capitalism
Even if they throw her out it won’t change what she’s done: she put fear in the bellies of some truly terrible people who had almost forgot what the word “restraint” means.
Ms Khan, I salute you.
No, the investor class will arrive at the negotiating table one way or another on a long enough timeline. It will be up to them if they still have legs to walk on.
The really scary fascists aren’t stupid: Thiel and those guys are buying bunkers in New Zealand as fast as the checks clear. They understand something that the American public lost sight of for a moment: the American Public is terrifying, the American public is slow to wake but arbitrarily brutal once roused. Pushing the American public into a corner has been the last mistake of a great many men better than Elon Musk.
> Four of the FTC’s five commissioners voted to approve the rule. Commissioner Andrew Ferguson, – who is President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to replace Khan, was the one dissenting vote.
https://apnews.com/article/ftc-junk-fees-rule-hotels-tickets...
But I'm also baffled... how did this take this long?
Why wasn't it done way back when they did it for airline tickets, in 2012?
It passed 384 to 25 suggesting there is pretty good bipartisan support for ending such fees at least for hotels. Here was the vote breakdown:
Yeas Nays Not Voting
Republican 180 25 12
Democrat 204 0 9
Total. 284 25 21
But as far as under this administration, it seems like it took half the term to right the ship and get the leadership moving in the right direction. I think a second term would have been impressive.
One is a thing 100% under control of the business trying to sell me a thing, the other 0%. Why should anybody get to scalp me and legally be able to blame it on the state/city government?
I remember an episode of the TV show Happy Days when the restaurant owner started charging money to use the toilet stall. It was a sad joke and many businesses are following suit.
Wait staff reading this: bosses at restaurants like this are stealing from you if that doesn’t go straight to you. I tip very well, but I’m not tipping twice. And yes, if it’s a “service charge”, that’s the same as saying “tip” from the customer’s perspective.
Wondering, is there already US places that works without tips like in most other places ? (Owner pays a decent salary to its employees, include that in all products they sell and don’t expect tips)
I think you have to look at it wholistically:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Median_h...
Luckily some states (OR, AK, others) don't have a sales tax.
I wonder what these people expect to get when they shill for corporations to whom they are nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Americans keep voting for rich assholes who oppress them while telling them they are giving them freedom.
Hidden fees create market inequities.
Sounds like that's what will be happening if the rule sticks.
No checked luggage, probably only a small cabin bag that fitted under the seat in front, no priority boarding, no seat selection.
It's a budget service, but the advertised prices aren't deceptive.