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California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

oag.ca.gov

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Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#151

Post by tcmart14 »

rqtwteye wrote: post #105
wpietri wrote: post #20

Earlier 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…

The cleaning fee is part of doing business. I don’t pay my taxi driver for car registration or oil changes either.

You do, but it is apart of the charging model. They accounted for wear and tear on the car and baked that into their rate. if their rate is 10 cents a mile they transport you, maybe 0.01 cent of that that 0.10/mile is the cost of wear and tear. It isn't a separate charge. Which is how hotels should handle cleaning. Yea, your technically paying for it, but isn't a separate fee. It is just included with the price of the room just as project wear and tear costs are baked into the taxi service rate.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#152

Post by shagie »

skaushik92 wrote: post #103
shagie wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

As there are states that are 0%, this would mean "no sales tax at all" which would really hit states where they don't have any income tax and instead just have sales tax.

Under that approach, live in Texas and buy everything online from Oregon and you'll never pay any taxes.

States need to raise revenue somehow and playing that form of tax arbitrage shifts the burden of taxes to the people who don't have the resources to do that.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#154

Post by stillsleepy »

xbar wrote: post #150
IncRnd wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is also a case where consumers say they want one thing, but their behavior is a different matter. For example, pretty much everyone says they prefer the full price to be shown up front in search result pages. But, as someone who is privy to a ton of A/B testing in this area, the opposite nearly always results in higher conversion, where there is a lower up-front price and fees are only tacked on during checkou…

Agreed. It seems that the A/B testing proves that humans are easily tricked, not that they like hidden fees.

[flagged]

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#155

Post by lazyasciiart »

jrs235 wrote: post #126
rqtwteye wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cleaning fee is part of doing business. I don’t pay my taxi driver for car registration or oil changes either.

The cleaning is a one time fixed cost for a stay. It's the same for a one night stay or a week long stay. There is a one to one expense per "purchase". Not so with your taxi example.

Actually taxis handle this in their fee structure already: a fixed initial cost and a marginal rate for additional mileage/time.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#156

Post by weberer »

switz wrote: post #8

Taxes 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.

Or just abolish sales tax. If the states want the money, they can just raise state income tax, which they're already charging, by a few percent. As it is now, it just complicates things and disincentivizes consumers from making purchases, which slows down the local economy.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#157

Post by jobu »

eganist wrote: post #5

Tons 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…

> The feds doing this for airfare was the best thing to happen for consumers shopping for flights.

They need to redo it for airfare, because the airlines have figured out how to workaround it by splitting out things that used to be included (seat assignment, baggage, etc). Some airlines now have sliding rates for bags and so you have to know the exact flight to get the price for checked or carry-on bags. Even if it's split out from the total, all of those *potential* fees should be available up-front as well.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#158

Post by jghn »

IncRnd wrote: post #131
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #82

I 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 is also a case where consumers say they want one thing, but their behavior is a different matter. For example, pretty much everyone says they prefer the full price to be shown up front in search result pages. But, as someone who is privy to a ton of A/B testing in this area, the opposite nearly always results in higher conversion, where there is a lower up-front price and fees are only tacked on during checkou…

I interpreted that as suggesting people would wind up buying nothing if all the options are perceived to be too expensive. But sone people will continue down the rabbit hole if you get them in the funnel to start with

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#159

Post by spiffytech »

slg wrote: post #100
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #82

I 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 is also a case where consumers say they want one thing, but their behavior is a different matter. For example, pretty much everyone says they prefer the full price to be shown up front in search result pages. But, as someone who is privy to a ton of A/B testing in this area, the opposite nearly always results in higher conversion, where there is a lower up-front price and fees are only tacked on during checkout…

It doesn't need to be fraud. A common trick in designing restaurant menus is to make it harder to scan the price list, because people buy the food they prefer when price is one of many considerations rather than prominently highlighted.

> Centred Justification

> When prices are printed in neat, right-justified columns, everyone glances down the line to compare prices. Menu consultants recommend a centred justification that leaves the prices scattered. This gently encourages the diner to order what she wants, not pick the cheapest price. Another way of minimising attention to cost? Omit the pound signs.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/the-hidden-psychology-of-men...

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#160

Post by yamtaddle »

tomschlick wrote: post #109
yamtaddle wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are local sales taxes just a US thing? How do so very many other developed countries manage this just fine?
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