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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

#361

Post by balderdash »

meltedcapacitor wrote: post #209
yamtaddle wrote: post #183

Earlier 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".)

Maybe there are some 3 Michelin star restaurants where this is the case (~150 in the world), but otherwise these are not Veblen goods.

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

#362

Post by forrestthewoods »

denton-scratch wrote: post #327
forrestthewoods wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sales taxes penalize poorer people, who spend a greater proportion of their income. They are regressive and unfair. It's only unfair if the collected tax revenue isn't used to benefit the poor. The US has one of the most progressive tax systems on the planet. Sweden has one of the most regressive [1]. A tax being regressive or progressive doesn't make it inherently bad or good. And if a country can't effectively ut…

As a matter of cross-party practice over many years, UK sales tax (VAT) just goes into the government's general funds, same as income tax, national insurance, road tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and so on. There is a strong aversion here to hypothecation. That is: sales taxes are not used to benefit the poor, particularly. They are used to finance defence expenditure, tax cuts for bankers, and fees for pharm…

WRT the Vox article. The infographic the x-axis is from "least progressive" to "most progressive" with the United States most progressive and Sweden/Denmark as least progressive. That's what I was directly referring to. The y-axis is "least redistributive" to "most redistributive" with US least and Sweden/Denmark most.

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

#363

Post by ajsnigrutin »

robertlagrant wrote: post #285
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never seen the impressing part... usually if you want to eat cheap, you go somewhere cheap, if you want something more expensive, you're prepared to pay more, but you don't want to be surprised after. So, noone who goes to a place like this cares if one soup is $12 and the other $14 and then pick the cheaper one... but if you have a $79 bottle of wine on the menu and a $7900 bottle of wine on the menu, it's in the in…

"Sir, the wine is clearly marked as 0.0000000472c per cubic mile. How did you not see this coming?"

This is like listening to americans when they try anything to avoid using metric units, but the imperial ones suck with representation... So.. how many cubic lawnmowers is this?

example:

https://twitter.com/KSHB41/status/1158871610876682240?lang=p...

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

#364

Post by balderdash »

yamtaddle wrote: post #183
spiffytech wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 justificatio…

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.

Also there seems to be a more normal distribution of last digit prices as well e.g. main courses are $x2, $x1, $x6, $x8, $x5, $x4,etc.

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

#365

Post by ajsnigrutin »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #312
robertlagrant wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sir, the wine is clearly marked as 0.0000000472c per cubic mile. How did you not see this coming?"

That happened to me in Italy. I knew I was in trouble when the chef came out to shake my hand. I did not realize the steak was priced per ounce, was the biggest steak I’d even seen, ended up costing me ~$400.

This is also how shitty clubs scam tourists in many areas... There are bouncers infront of the clubs, "come on, come on, free welcome drink", tourists (mostly western european middle aged men) go inside, a "random, totally not hired by the club" hot girl or two join them, seemingly interested where they are from, flirt a bit, order a glass of wine, then leave.. and the tourists are left with 500eur+ bill for the wine.

Although, bouncers have to distinguish eg. solo german men from eg. balkan construction workers, because the scam is somewhat less effective on those.

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

#366

Post by rahimnathwani »

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.

"there's no good reason it shouldn't work that way here in the US"

There is a good reason for taxes to be shown separately: it draws your attention to how much the government is charging you.

Like you'd, I'd prefer prices to show the total amount I have to pay, but I accept that there is at least one good reason against the situation common where I'm from (the UK).

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

#367

Post by balderdash »

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…

The other thing is that, take airline pricing for example, 80% of consumers fly 0-2 round trips a year, and half of Americans don’t fly in a given year…which means that many consumers don’t do the repeat buying to get screwed and change their behavior, or want to spend several hours researching how to save $35…

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

#368

Post by digianarchist »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #366
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.

"there's no good reason it shouldn't work that way here in the US" There is a good reason for taxes to be shown separately: it draws your attention to how much the government is charging you. Like you'd, I'd prefer prices to show the total amount I have to pay, but I accept that there is at least one good reason against the situation common where I'm from (the UK).

VAT is still shown on receipts in the UK same as it is in the US.

What’s annoying in the US is sales tax isn’t applicable to a range of items depending on the state and often not at all on services. When it’s included in the price there’s no surprises at the register.

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

#369

Post by rahimnathwani »

digianarchist wrote: post #368
rahimnathwani wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there's no good reason it shouldn't work that way here in the US" There is a good reason for taxes to be shown separately: it draws your attention to how much the government is charging you. Like you'd, I'd prefer prices to show the total amount I have to pay, but I accept that there is at least one good reason against the situation common where I'm from (the UK).

VAT is still shown on receipts in the UK same as it is in the US. What’s annoying in the US is sales tax isn’t applicable to a range of items depending on the state and often not at all on services. When it’s included in the price there’s no surprises at the register.

  VAT is still shown on receipts in the UK same as it is in the US.
Even so, I'd bet that most Brits couldn't tell you what the standard rate of VAT is, or guess something between 17% to 23% (i.e. to within 15%). I'd imagine that a greater proportion of Californians could tell you that sales tax is about 10%.

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

#370

Post by cuteboy19 »

It is unfortunate that there is no group that sits down and harmonizes all these laws across state lines. Why should it be that the way to do business is slightly different in CA vs NC? If this remains the situation, then the only companies which thrive will be the ones with an army of lawyers. There is not much hope for smaller businesses in such an environment
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