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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

#211

Post by tptacek »

weberer wrote: post #156
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.

Income taxes deter saving and investment, but are easier to target.

Sales taxes are hard to make progressive (they're usually regressive) and can be harder to enforce (if they're local).

It depends on your goals. It sort of makes sense that we have both, at differing rates.

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

#212

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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…

I don't think fraud is a good analogy - the whole point with fraud is that you are getting something different after you agreed to it, when it's too late to back out.

Going back to the airline example, most people say they hate getting nickel and dimed on things like paying to pick a seat up front or paying even for the first carry-on, but they will still pick one flight over another if the base rate is $5 cheaper. And in that case there is nothing untoward, fraudulent or "dark pattern" about what the airline is doing, as they are just allowing people to only pay for the services they want. But it's still a clear case of consumers saying they want one thing, but by their actions they are incentivizing airlines to do something else.

But regardless of the underlying reason, I still agree that the best solution is for government to provide "ground rules" that most people agree are better. After all, most consumers would probably prefer cheaper products even if manufacturers used child labor or had no pollution controls, but it's the government's role to ensure these longer term societal goals aren't completely ignored in pursuit of the cheapest price.

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

#213

Post by nottorp »

amluto wrote: post #125
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…

> cleaning fees, things that should all be spread across the nightly rate. The thing is, cleaning genuinely costs a bunch when a guest departs. It’s a per-stay cost. This doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to hide it. Having a rate structure that has a nightly rate plus a per-visit rate or, equivalently, a first-night rate and an additional-night rate is just fine as long as it’s advertised. And a search for a stay of a gi…

> The thing is, cleaning genuinely costs a bunch when a guest departs. It’s a per-stay cost.

And how can hotels magically factor it in the room cost?

Ok maybe not in the US.

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

#214

Post by zamadatix »

manquer wrote: post #77
zamadatix wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often is sales tax changing that it becomes infeasible to update the shelf price tags? The grocery stores seem to handle it just fine changing the "buy one get one" type tags every month!

A lot harder to do online without knowing the zip code . People are sometimes vary of sharing that just to see full price

I think anonymous online price viewing would have to exclude tax for that reason but e.g. being logged into Amazon it would be best to display the default/selected taxes for ship address. I believe this is how most places, including Amazon, do shipping time estimates today - generic unless specified or you're logged in.

In general though I think physical storefronts would be the shoe in. Virtual might require more thought or even changes to how we do taxes to make as much sense.

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

#215

Post by HDThoreaun »

logifail wrote: post #108
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 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,…

> I just want to get from A to B, safely, and preferably on-time

I was surprised to see that spirit is one of the most consistently on time airlines in the US. They really do provide exactly the service I'm looking for.

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

#216

Post by wpietri »

yamtaddle wrote: post #160
tomschlick wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The US, thanks to being well, states that are united, has a history of devolved government. In a lot of places the power structures are much more unified, but here there's a tradition of independence within broad limits.

There's a short history of California sales taxes here on page 3 (which is ~30 by PDF page count): https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/content/pubs/report/...

But basically during the depression, state-level sales taxes arose in a lot of places. Some cities/counties/districts then got in on the action. This means that people got to decide their own levels of taxation (and spending) on a much more granular level. Which as somebody who lives in a high-tax/high-service area (relative to America, not to the civilized world) is great by me.

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

#217

Post by qwertygnu »

ensignavenger wrote: post #181
zamadatix wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd hope not every month! But even if taxes changed yearly is that really a large burden? How many things even stay in the same shelf at the same price for 1 year straight as it is, how many dozens of times was that shelf already restocked and inventoried compared to how often the price tag would need to be replaced due to taxes changing?

In my state, taxes change at least twice a year, and usually 3 times at a minimum. Changing what shelf products are on is a continuous, incremental thing- changing every tag in the store for tax changes would have to happen overnight for all products, on specific nights each year. Many stores like to pre-tag each product package, either at the store or manufacturer- you couldn't do that if the tax had to be included…

So what? I'd rather it be a corporate pain - in which people will get paid to deal with bs - rather than a buyer pain - in which all our lives are that much more frustrating. Plus, changing price tags? That's the pain? Changing tags??? Doing the math that's done at the register 1000x/sec and printing it on cards?

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

#218

Post by rudolph9 »

weberer wrote: post #156
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.

You’re describing Oregon.

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

#219

Post by wpietri »

yamtaddle wrote: post #201
wpietri wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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. Two things can be true at once. Cleaning is an actual activity they actually have to do after I leave. There are actual costs. E.g., they might use a service that specializes in vacation rental cleaning: https://cleaningglow.com/san-francisco-services/vacation-ren... Do som…

It's so common on US airbnb that I expect it's practically necessary to shift some margin to the "cleaning fee" to stay competitive (you'll get out-"bid" by others who have). I objected to "actual cost", not "actual activity". Yes, they clean (usually...). No, it doesn't cost anywhere near what they're charging, unless you left the place such a wreck that you're getting a 1-star guest rating.

Depends on the Airbnb, I guess. I've definitely looked at places where the cleaning fee struck me as about market price. And I'm much more likely to stay at a place like that as it increases my trust in the host, so maybe the margin-shifting doesn't work for everybody.

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

#220

Post by yanderekko »

fumeux_fume wrote: post #127
yanderekko wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the cleaning fee is e.g once per trip or once every few days, smear that cost across the cost of the stay for your effective nightly rate. This misses the point that it's useful to have the one-time costs separated from the nightly costs so that consumers can better understand if they can get a better nightly cost by extending their stay (or even ideally from having options over those fixed costs.) It's the same…

This misses the point that it's not useful to have the one-time costs separated from the nightly costs when trying to compare options.

Multiple people have explained how it's useful to them. Do you think these people are all jointly deluded in the exact same fashion?
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