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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

#351

Post by johngladtj »

yamtaddle wrote: post #228
lotsofpulp wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 15% to 20%. So smaller profit margins indicate downward pressure on pricing from competitors.

Well, in point of fact, the limit is actually a mandate on how much they must spend on medical care. Their own operating expenses, salaries, advertising, et c., have to come out after that. So they could theoretically make 15% under that limit—except in practice that's actually impossible. Which means margins aren't necessarily 5% because of competition. [EDIT] That is, I'm skeptical that if one removed that limit, c…

It also encourages healthcare price increases, since the best way for them to increase profits becomes increasing revenues, rather than reducing costs

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

#352

Post by johngladtj »

vineyardmike wrote: post #175
sneak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the business is built on infrastructure that is paid for with a tiny fraction of taxes. They are not congruent. Taxes in Europe are also much higher in general. Perhaps this is a result of obscuring the amounts in the advertised prices—it never raises to the level of conscious consideration of the tax burden at point of purchase.

If the government runs a deficit- which it does- then the taxes are literally too low to cover the infrastructure so it can’t be “a fraction”. Sure you can argue some of that goes to military (a safe nation is kinda infrastructure) and healthcare/Welfare (healthy and fed employees and customers are good for business too) but regardless your view on taxes, they all somehow end up back to helping the nation regardless…

Infrastructure is essentially a rounding error on most developed countries state expenditures. In many cases it's even self-sustaining due to licensing agreements with companies that managed the infrastructure in return for the toll revenue.

The idea that the primary purpose of taxes is to provide infrastructure hasn't been true ever.

The bulk of expenditures are social welfare programs and other similar handout and wealth transfer programs intended to punish the successful and reward the failures for political purposes.

Social security, healthcare, education often comprise over 50% of expenditures in most first world countries. Interest and debt are also another major expenditure.

The "core responsibilities of the state" , that is the military, justice system and internal security, infrastructure usually consume less than 20% of government expenditures.

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

#353

Post by wpietri »

acdha wrote: post #320
wpietri wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even understand this. I show up at a clean place. After I leave, somebody needs to clean up after me to make it good for the next person. No matter who does the cleaning, the hosts or somebody they hire, this takes supplies and labor. The only person putting money in is me, so the cleaning obviously has to be on my dime. I just want the pricing to be transparent in the details and included in the headline num…

I read it as the person making the money being responsible for cleaning, which makes sense — it’s quite literally their job and they’re way more familiar with the local market for cleaning services.

Huh. I hadn't thought of that. Is there some circumstance in which the hosts aren't responsible for cleaning for the next guest? I was talking about cleaning fees charged by the host, which would seem to imply them responsible in that sense.

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

#354

Post by grahar64 »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #314
aninteger wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20% is fine for a haircut. It's perfectly acceptable.

No it's not. Hair stylists should set there prices accordingly in a way that they make a livable wage.

Some places hairstylists are more like contractors who actually pay to get a seat to cut peoples hair in. So tipping is a larger portion of their income.

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

#355

Post by themitigating »

megaman821 wrote: post #227
themitigating wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans say they don't want more legislation, not "bad" legislation. Also good and bad are subjective

You can't think of a single thing that Republicans want to legislate? Of course good and bad are subjective. That is the whole point, the concept of regulations can't be generally put into a good or bad basket. No one is advocating for absolutely no regulations. You are arguing against a straw man that you made up.

How is it a strawman? Republicans constantly talk about their dislike for excess regulation and big government. You need quotes, seriously?

Since every politician and person wants good legislation and not bad legislation there's no difference between republicans and democrats. Given that why have Republicans made is a core part of their party. It's like saying "I want what's best for America".

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

#356

Post by lotsofpulp »

johngladtj wrote: post #351
yamtaddle wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in point of fact, the limit is actually a mandate on how much they must spend on medical care. Their own operating expenses, salaries, advertising, et c., have to come out after that. So they could theoretically make 15% under that limit—except in practice that's actually impossible. Which means margins aren't necessarily 5% because of competition. [EDIT] That is, I'm skeptical that if one removed that limit, c…

It also encourages healthcare price increases, since the best way for them to increase profits becomes increasing revenues, rather than reducing costs

The fact that they settle for sub 5% profit margins means they individually do not have the pricing power to do that. Clearly, a competing insurance company will steal business via lower premiums.

I suppose one could assert they are all in cahoots and have a secret deal to accept low single digit profit margins to keep out of the news cycle, while simultaneously agreeing to pay healthcare providers more and more each year, but I would want proof.

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

#357

Post by spfzero »

ncallaway wrote: post #315
spfzero wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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 adv…

Yep, I understand why people commit this fraud. And, again, as far as fraud goes I think this is on the fairly low end of frauds. But, “hey, lots of other people are committing this fraud” goes into the bucket of “helps the person committing fraud sleep at night”. I do tend to hold the platforms themselves (AirBnB, VRBO) more responsible than the individual hosts that list on these platforms. It just shouldn’t be pos…

I agree with you directionally, it's a problem that VRBO et. al. should solve, perhaps in their search algorithm and UI. For instance, the fee-range search should include the hidden flat fees averaged over the number of nights, in the nightly rate.

I notice VRBO has a search by nightly rate and a search by total cost, so at least you can choose "deceive me" or "don't deceive me".

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

#358

Post by nexus7556 »

eclipticplane wrote: post #7
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…

Those resort fees are the absolute worst for corporate travel. E.g., the budget for a hotel might be $300/night so you get one for $290/night. Then they tack on a $45/night "resort fee" and suddenly you're getting yelled at by accounting for going over your budget. That is, if you even remember to expense it since they charge it to your incidental card ...

At Marriott they don’t charge resort fees for corporate rates.

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

#359

Post by WirelessGigabit »

grahar64 wrote: post #354
WirelessGigabit wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. Hair stylists should set there prices accordingly in a way that they make a livable wage.

Some places hairstylists are more like contractors who actually pay to get a seat to cut peoples hair in. So tipping is a larger portion of their income.

If they are employees they can negotiate a living wage. They all should band together and ask more if it is not livable.

In fact, we all should stop to frequent places that exploit employees by not paying them a livable wage. And if the solution to this means an increase in price, so be it.

The defense of 'they might be contractors', which rent a seat for a fixed price or on a % revenue sharing with the salon is even more ridiculous.

They are contractors, so they have all the means to set their own price.

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

#360

Post by 93po »

tonightstoast wrote: post #310
93po wrote: post #171

Income 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.

In the US, employers are legally required to withhold. You can only ask them not to if: "the employee must have had no tax liability for the previous year and must expect to have no tax liability for the current year."
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