> other than taxes and fees imposed by a government.
Why that exclusion? Why not require the price on the label to be the price you pay?
California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
101–110 of 396 posts
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you on almost all of this, but I think the cleaning fee is different. It represents an actual cost for an actual activity. I think AirBnb should show initial totals with it included, so you're never surprised by it. But it shouldn't be rolled up into the nightly rate because it really is a one-off. As an example, right now I'm looking at doing an extended trip, on the order of 2-4 weeks. I just need one…
> It represents an actual cost for an actual activity. It really doesn't. It's been a stealth way to increase your rates for a long time now. > I think AirBnb should show initial totals with it included, so you're never surprised by it. They do, but it makes comparing rentals (both within AirBnB and across services) a pain in the ass, because it's not factored into the initial rate-per-night that you see and that the…
It is factored in here in Europe. So the issue isn't the fee itself, but that in other jurisdictions it's hidden.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#103As a foreigner who lived in the USA for a few years, I always thought the US runs in hidden fees. From tipping, to taxes not in the sale price, to insurances not being able to give a price for a procedure, to hotel fees… I could never actually guess how much anything would cost. Either the wording of the law will have a ton of exclusions per industry.
> to taxes not in the sale price This gets complicated and there's good reason. The taxes depend on where you take possession of the goods. If you purchase an item and walk up to the checkout counter, you pay the taxes there. On the other hand, if you are buying lumber in Kansas City, KS to be delivered in Kanas City, MO - you pay the MO taxes (4.225%) rather than the KS taxes (6.5%). So, putting the taxes on the lum…
This is not necessarily a bad thing. This incentivizes states and districts to compete on taxation and would likely drive sales tax down nationally.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#104I think a lot of comments here are missing the reason as to why these hidden fees have become so much more prevalent in the past 20 or so years. The short of it is that comparison pricing is now much easier to do because of the Internet, and many, if not a majority, of shoppers will just sort by price ascending and pick the first result (or, only pick from the first couple results). Thus, there is a huge incentive fo…
> Heck, I think many businesses would support this change
Also being privy to A/B testing in this area, I can tell you that we developers would looooove this kind of regulation so we don't have to build these kinds of dark patterns while holding our noses and telling ourselves that at least the pay is good.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#105Tons of industries affected by this, though hospitality comes to mind as being particularly egregious. "resort fees" you can't get out of where they tell you what you're "getting" for those fees, Airbnb service fees, cleaning fees, things that should all be spread across the nightly rate. The feds doing this for airfare was the best thing to happen for consumers shopping for flights. Ideally we would take it further…
I agree with you on almost all of this, but I think the cleaning fee is different. It represents an actual cost for an actual activity. I think AirBnb should show initial totals with it included, so you're never surprised by it. But it shouldn't be rolled up into the nightly rate because it really is a one-off. As an example, right now I'm looking at doing an extended trip, on the order of 2-4 weeks. I just need one…
The cleaning fee is part of doing business. I don’t pay my taxi driver for car registration or oil changes either.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#106The Republican response: Smart politics, but bad economics. Ban baggage fees = higher ticket prices Ban resort fees = higher room prices Ban credit card late fees = higher interest rates These proposals just make some consumers pay more to cover the costs of other consumers. https://twitter.com/George_A_Callas/status/16233291827793182... There is a point hidden in there, in that banning optional fees makes the price…
It's not a terrible argument, except for resort fees. Tell me how I can opt out.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#107Taxes and fees should be mandated for all prices up front. This is how it works in most of the world, there's no good reason it shouldn't work that way here in the US. Someone will come along and point out an edge case, but for the vast majority of retail situations this is doable.
Sales tax rates change too often in the US for this to work. I like the idea in concept, but I can understand why it doesn't work in practice in the US given the current tax regime.
If they know how much to charge me at the payment step, they know what price to put on the shelf. Everything else is just making excuses for keeping it as opaque as it has always been in the US.
Yes, it can get a bit more complicated for internet based stores, but even there they do already know how much to charge at the payment step, so again I say that it is a (customer hostile) choice not to show the real price up front.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#108I think a lot of comments here are missing the reason as to why these hidden fees have become so much more prevalent in the past 20 or so years. The short of it is that comparison pricing is now much easier to do because of the Internet, and many, if not a majority, of shoppers will just sort by price ascending and pick the first result (or, only pick from the first couple results). Thus, there is a huge incentive fo…
> this ease of price comparison has resulted in unbundling of services in a number of industries - e.g. airlines where the base price is akin to "we let you hang on to the wing"
I'm literally just booking a trip with Ryanair, Vienna to London, in just less than a month's time. It's costing me a shade less than $20 for a 770 mile flight, no hidden fees during my purchase...
No, it doesn't include a large carry-on bag, never mind a checked bag.
No, it doesn't include priority boarding.
No, it doesn't include reserved seating.
No, I won't earn any frequent-flyer miles/elite status.
Also, the in-flight F+B will be overpriced, so it's safer not to waste money there either.
However, for a two-hour flight and a short trip, I don't need any of those things!
I just want to get from A to B, safely, and preferably on-time. FR is at least as likely to do those two things as any of the 'legacy' carriers I could pick instead.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agreed. I lived for a time in Australia, where all the prices included tax. The price you saw was the price you paid. When I got back to the US, I wondered what the hell was wrong with me that I spent my life seeing our much more confusing system as reasonable.
That and the way our income taxes work are two of the most annoying things that the anti-tax right have "won" in the US. Everyone's life is made a little worse all the time , in the name of some I-suspect-imaginary "awareness campaign" to increase resistance to taxes. In fact I doubt there'd be any less awareness if they'd just mandate that tax be itemized and given sufficient weight on receipts, and that the IRS mai…
It has way less to do with any "awareness campaign" and more to do with how tax rates are different in many municipalities that are very close to each other and how hard that makes advertising.
For instance, the famous "$5 footlong" from Subway couldn't be advertised that way nationally, or even within a single state or metro area due to different taxes on prepared food.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#110[dead]