Guess all of us outside of CA are going make up the difference via higher hidden fees. :(
I started writing this comment as a joke, but I no longer am sure that it is.
California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
301–310 of 396 posts
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> If they know how much to charge me at the payment step, they know what price to put on the shelf.
On the shelf, yes, but then what's on the shelf wouldn't match what's advertised on the Internet, in the paper, on TV and radio, etc. Because each city can have its own sales tax, and each state can have its own sales tax, if you're, say, McDonald's, you can't say a hamburger is $3.00 in your TV ad because it'll be $3.18 in Michigan, and $3.30 in California, and even within the states, it can vary by city, if I recall correctly from my cash register programming days. It's a stupid system all around, but it does actually make it harder to do what everyone wishes they would do.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#303I can’t wait to see the unintended effects of this bill on healthcare. If we’re lucky, this bill might actually accomplish something!
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. A…
> 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. Nah, it’s fraud. It’s a minor, lightweight fraud, but it’s still fraud. These companies are just lying to customers to get what they want, that’s fraud. There’s a veneer of legality to it, because they tell you the price before the “contract” is legal…
>>The entire point is to make the customer do enough work before you show them the actual price, that they just give up and deal with it.
I think a big part of the point is to compete on search (aggregate search like travel sites especially) with the company's competitors. The first company to start, say, charging for a carry-on realizes that they are forcing everyone to copy that, but for a while they'll have an advantage and make more profit. Any business leader doing this first is trying to dishonestly game the system. The others are just doing what they now have to do to keep the playing field level.
On aggregating vacation rental sites, the owners that choose not to do this (at least on sites like VRBO) can add "no service or management costs" to their listings, or maybe "no hidden costs", but it is not very effective because if you are charging $225 and the customer is searching in the range $100 - $200, you loose and the person advertising a $199.00/night charge (with management fee added later) wins.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's weird, at least in the US, is that the higher-end the joint, the easier it is to shop by price, generally. Tax-inclusive, whole-dollar-value (no "$7.99" crap, it's just "8"), all-prices-aligned menus are more common as one heads up-scale.
Makes sense: at the high end of the market, patrons need to be able to identify and get the most expensive option to impress their date/mates, and understandably restaurants want to be helpful. (See "Veblen goods".)
I don't think it's exactly about letting people order Veblen Goods, but I do agree that it is about signaling class.
The .99 pricing thing is associated with "trying to make it look cheaper", so a restaurant that puts round prices is trying to send the opposite message: we're not cheap, you're not cheap, we won't try to fool you.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#306>>> The legislation — the first bill of its type across the state — would prohibit advertising a price for a good or service that does not include all required charges other than taxes and fees imposed by a government. >>> “Californians are sick and tired of dishonest fees being tacked on to seemingly everything,” said state Senator Bill Dodd. “It’s an underhanded trick... Why do government-imposed fees get a special…
> Note: In Europe, the advertised price always includes the related taxes How does that work for prices in broadcast ads that reach multiple countries? VAT can vary from country to country so which country's VAT rate do you use in the ad?
There really isn't a lot of multi-country advertising in Europe. You're going to run into bigger problems than showing correct VAT rates - language being probably the most obvious one, but also different regulatory requirements for things like mandatory warnings, watershed rules, etc.
In practice, advertising is always going to need to be adapted for every European market.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#307As 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.
> tipping This has gotten ridiculous past 2-3 year. Buy a $3.00 coffee , $1 tip is expected. I hate those ipad type payment consoles.
I have started inputting a custom amount. Recently, I've noticed some places keeping the machine out of my hands and flat out asking, "what should I do here?"
It's way over the top aggressive now.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Heck, my barber now charges $25 for a haircut (which takes all of 15 minutes) and we're expected to tip for that too. It's been customary to tip barbers since forever, hasn't it? When I was just 8, my father gave me money to tip the barber. I think the principle is, you tip so that the server remembers you. With haircuts, that can make a difference. My hair is now so thin and wispy that no barber can make it look O…
The way barber shops/salons work is the barber typically rents a chair from the business, some proportion of the fee you pay goes to the house and it is expected that the barber will earn some proportion of their money via tips. They also provide their own tools and products. Tipping barbers goes back at least to the 80's if not longer.
It doesn't matter if that's how a barber typically works. Your average consumer doesn't and shouldn't have to understand how every business they frequent works behind the scenes. I shouldn't need a degree in economics just to get a freakin' hair cut.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
> tipping This has gotten ridiculous past 2-3 year. Buy a $3.00 coffee , $1 tip is expected. I hate those ipad type payment consoles.
The night after my first haircut in the US I was like “oh shit” and I googled “do you tip for a haircut” and realized I fucked up. The results were anywhere from 10%-50% tip. The next haircut I got I asked “what is a good tip” and the hair cutter would not tell me. I guessed 20% and went about my day. Then someone told me “that was too low”. I ended up cutting my own hair, or waiting until I was in another sane count…
20% is fine for a haircut. It's perfectly acceptable.
Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
#310Income tax also feels like a hidden fee since it's automatically deducted from your paycheck and is out of sight/out of mind for most people, despite it taking anywhere from a quarter to a third of your income. If people had to pay a monthly tax bill every month, I think they'd think very differently about their level of taxes. Note: I'm not actually advocating that, I think it sounds awful. But the hidden-fee experi…
I don’t know where you’ve worked but you can choose to not let your employer deduct anything. Normally it’s done automatically to ensure that you don’t get it with an unaffordable tax bill at the end of the year.