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Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

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Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#251

Post by CydeWeys »

myself248 wrote: post #48
pjsg wrote: post #43

I always object to US retail adding Tax to the price of the items. In the UK (and I expect Europe) the price on the shelf is the price that you pay. VAT is included. In the US, you walk into a store and have to become an expert at understanding local taxes in order to figure out how much anything costs. Hotels often have four of five extra fees tacked on. I'd like "The price you see is the price you pay" to be the ru…

Most places in the US, the local tax is the same statewide. Not in Ohio, where it can vary by township, sometimes across invisible boundaries. I once attended a large flea-market where such a boundary cut through the fairgrounds. Taxes were different on one side of the line than the other. It's so bad that Ohio actually has a mobile app that uses your phone's GPS to figure out which jurisdiction you're in and show th…

> Most places in the US, the local tax is the same statewide

I don't think this is true. Sure, the state tax is the same state wide, but the county and city taxes aren't! To pick a random state: https://www.salestaxhandbook.com/kansas/rates

Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#252

Post by CydeWeys »

lxgr wrote: post #131
myself248 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most places in the US, the local tax is the same statewide. Not in Ohio, where it can vary by township, sometimes across invisible boundaries. I once attended a large flea-market where such a boundary cut through the fairgrounds. Taxes were different on one side of the line than the other. It's so bad that Ohio actually has a mobile app that uses your phone's GPS to figure out which jurisdiction you're in and show th…

It often even varies by item, or there are weird incentives/carve-outs for some products. For example, shoes are sales tax free in NYC (if they're less than $110). This can mean that the difference between a pair for $109 and one for $111 is close to $10. When grocery shopping, I'm always surprised which items are taxed and which are tax free. Other than most (but not all) produce and basics like pasta, bread etc. I'…

It's not just shoes, it's all clothing. Any individual clothing item below a certain cutoff is tax-free.

Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#253

Post by phpisthebest »

hansvm wrote: post #247
phpisthebest wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think simply putting on the reciept is a solution to #3, because people internalize pricing and make the choice to buy before the transaction. it would only work if the before Tax and After Tax price was displayed before purchase. Anything less is still hiding the taxation IMO Also I am intrigued by the people that say they are "Having to memorize the tax rates in every city" and "apply those accurately on the…

> what purpose would it have to calculate it in your head like that? Huge swathes of people in the US struggle to afford food, and an extra 10+% floating around makes a big difference. It's nice that you can afford to spend your time more productively, but that's a luxury a lot of people can't. As something of a side note, it's a bit of an odd position to take that taxe hikes are important enough to make it illegal t…

>US struggle to afford food, and an extra 10+% floating around makes a big

I am not aware of any us state that charges sales tax on staple food items. Also I feel sorry for anyone that lives in a place with 10% sales tax that is crazy high

>>a bit of an odd position

Not really one of the ways I believe we have to keep them low is by ensuring transparency. My state has less 7% sales tax less than 4% state income tax, less than 1% local income tax and a capped property tax of 1%

Transparency is key to keeping them low

Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#254

Post by [deleted] »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #201
crazygringo wrote: post #84

Note that drip pricing for restaurants (e.g. 10-20% non-tip surcharge) is illegal in many jurisdictions (if not "conspicuously advertised" before eating), but some restaurants try to do it anyways (claiming the policy is "conspicuously advertised" on the last page of the menu, or a tiny sign behind the bar). Sometimes you can just refuse to pay it and they'll back down because they want a repeat customer more. Someti…

When I was being trained to work at a McDonald's restaurant (like four decades ago) they had us watch an awesome PSA about "the customer". To this day I remember the closer spoken by the poorly treated customer in the video, "I don't get mad, I just don't come back." I've left notes on my bill explaining to "management" why I'm not returning to a particular restaurant. I don't like doing it, but I think someone needs…

[deleted]

Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#255

Post by kneebonian »

II2II wrote: post #165
ericmcer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same happens with my ISP. I just call customer service and tell them I want to cancel. They offer me a significantly better price for a year, I take the new price and after the year it goes up again and I call to cancel again.

The Canadian government compels the major telecommunications providers to lease their services to independent ISPs. Getting internet service installed with an independent ISP literally involves a visit from the major telecommunications provider and the service is pretty much equivalent to what the major telecommunications provider offers. The difference is price. Few of the independent ISPs try to attract customers w…

I've heard that the only thing worse for our friends to the north than their cell carriers is their ISPs. Is this the case?

Do you mind sharing your speeds and cost?

Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#256

Post by tzs »

The most memorable example I've seen of a business sneaking higher prices past consumers was an apartment building I lived in.

Let's say apartments were $1000/month. They announced that rent was going up to $1200/month, but if you signed a new one year lease the rent would be $0 for the first two months of the lease.

That meant that for the next year you would have paid 12 months @ $1000/month if the rate had stayed the same, and under the new rate you would pay 2 months @ $0/month + 10 months @ $1200/month. Those are both $12000, so you are still paying $12000/year.

A year later when it was time for people to renew their leases management said "Good news! No rent increase this year! Your rent is staying at $1200/month!".

I think I may have been the only tenant who realized that this was actually an increase of $2400/year over what we'd paid the previous two years. Everyone else seemed to actually think that the annual rent was the same as the year before and the year before that.

Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#257

Post by technofiend »

ryandrake wrote: post #203
myself248 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, once a year like clockwork. Call the ISP, play a game of brinksmanship to avoid being taken to the cleaners. Meanwhile my conflict-averse friend is paying $94/mo for less bandwidth than I get for $25. It's psychological discrimination, is what it is.

This didn't work last time I called Comcast. I told them I wasn't happy that my Internet bill went up again by $15 and that if they can't reduce it back to what it was, I wanted them to cancel it. They placed me on hold while I sat there grinning about my awesome negotiation skills. Expected to get sent on to customer retention where I could get a better deal. Then the rep came back on and said "As requested, your in…

Despite reservations, I've been looking at AT & T's fibre plan because 2 gigabit symmetrical service pre-tax is about what Comcast charges post-tax, which has slowly been drifting up every month. The truly irritating thing about AT & T's disclaimers is they say it could take a few billings cycles before your new customer discount pricing is applied. Yet I am quite certain your discount pricing will end precisely on time. So really the discount is whatever it may be averaged across some arbitrary range of time.

Still, it's tempting except AT & T also doesn't let you bring your own device. The best you can hope for is to put their device into bridge mode, rather than terminating the PON into one you own. Something you could used to do, but apparently they've made it much harder recently to extract the certificates needed to authenticate with your own hardware. IMHO, if someone is sophisticated enough to deal with injecting their own certs, they are arguable sophisticated enough to deal with a little troubleshooting.

Hopefully Comcast get off their butts and start rolling out DOCSIS 4.0, which will bring their service closer to parity with AT & T's.

Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#258

Post by spoils19 »

jgeada wrote: post #248
myself248 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most places in the US, the local tax is the same statewide. Not in Ohio, where it can vary by township, sometimes across invisible boundaries. I once attended a large flea-market where such a boundary cut through the fairgrounds. Taxes were different on one side of the line than the other. It's so bad that Ohio actually has a mobile app that uses your phone's GPS to figure out which jurisdiction you're in and show th…

They know how much to charge you at the till, therefore they know what price to put on the label. It is that simple. For webstores, require customer to disclose location so the right price can be computed; they have to do that when it comes to the billing page so it isn't novel work. Everything else is bullshit reasoning to get away with false pricing/false advertising.

Okay but what happens if the tax changes, do you really expect retailers to reprint their labels every few months?

Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#259

Post by michaelmrose »

1000100_1000101 wrote: post #126
michaelmrose wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can decline to charge payment for anything other than the full figure leaving you with the ability to walk out or pay. If you opt not to pay you are dining and dashing and subject to prosecution the fact that you offered to partially pay notwithstanding. Logically pay the bill then leave a negative review and never eat there again.

The advertised prices form part of a contract you're agreeing to. The drip fees are un-advertised extra expenses after the contract is signed and completed (you're fed). If you're willing to pay the agreed upon price, and they're unwilling to accept your payment, that should be their problem, not yours. They have violated the contract, added new fees after the fact. They have violated the contract, refusing to accept…

This seems like an expensive fight to have wherein the opposing parties lawyers probably already did the due diligence to ensure those fees are legally defensible by virtue of signage. Seems like you would probably be hiring a lawyer with a 3000 retainer to fight an 8 dollar charge.

Re: Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

#260

Post by TheCoelacanth »

michaelmrose wrote: post #103
MichaelNolan wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be able to do that with a card as well. They can’t charge your card more than you authorize. (And if they did a call to the CC company will get it all taken care of).

They can decline to charge payment for anything other than the full figure leaving you with the ability to walk out or pay. If you opt not to pay you are dining and dashing and subject to prosecution the fact that you offered to partially pay notwithstanding. Logically pay the bill then leave a negative review and never eat there again.

It's not dine and dash if they refuse to accept payment.
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