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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

#381

Post by wpietri »

bagels wrote: post #371
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…

By that logic, they should also charge independently for: rolls of toilet paper used, water used, electricity, booking fee, advertising fee, email fee, listing fee...

Probably not, in that those are either too small to be worth the cost of metering or not representative of actual direct costs.

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

#382

Post by denton-scratch »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #362
denton-scratch wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmmm. Perhaps I'm using one or more of these terms incorrectly.

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

#383

Post by vineyardmike »

johngladtj wrote: post #352
vineyardmike wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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

In America this is absolutely false in every sense.

It’s not the majority of the budget. They aren’t punishing success and they don’t “reward failure”. If you don’t want to succeed because a subset of your income will go helping those with bad luck then you’re welcome to be a failure.

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

Hmm who said that was the core responsibility? I think you’re missing a bit in the list…

> We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

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

#384

Post by johngladtj »

vineyardmike wrote: post #383
johngladtj wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 In America this is absolutely false in every sense. It’s not the majority of the budget. They aren’t punishing success and they don’t “reward failure”. If you don’t want to succeed because a subset of your income will go helping…

If you're going to lie you should do so on things that aren't easily checked and disproved. [0]

If the 6820 billion spent by the US government in 2021, 4394 billion were spent on income security, social security, health and medicare. That's almost 65% of government expenditures going directly to wealth transfer programs.

Mind you that doesn't account for all such programs (notably that value excludes education, housing, agricultural subsidies,etc...) So the real rate is actually higher.

The us is not unique in these ratios in the western world.

[0] https://preview.redd.it/us-government-revenue-spending-and-d...

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

#385

Post by vkou »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #350
ncallaway wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think saying something is $199/night when the minimum you can pay for it is $250/night is lying. Can you think of another word for that? It’s an untrue statement about the price, that they know is untrue. I just can’t think of another word to describe that other than “a lie”. If the hidden fees were optional, I could see it being a closer call. If I can uncheck the cleaning fee and actually get $199/night, the…

According to your definition of lying/fraud, basically all of the following would count as fraud: 1. Pretty much every retail store in existence in the US, because sales taxes aren't calculated until checkout. The sign in the aisle says "3.99" but the minimum you can pay for it is 3.99 x .08 or whatever, so according to your definition that's lying. 2. Every online retail store that charges for shipping and handling,…

> 1. Pretty much every retail store in existence in the US, because sales taxes aren't calculated until checkout

Which is, of course, insane. There is no good reason for taxes to not be rolled into the price. What next? An 'employee wages' line item that gets added at checkout? Maybe a 'mall rental space' one? A 'shareholder dividend' one?

> 2. Every online retail store that charges for shipping and handling.

Depending on where they ship, those are at least unknown until checkout.

> 3. Even your cleaning fee example isn't as cut-and-dry as you make it out to be. Cleaning fees for vacation rentals are usually assessed only once per stay (i.e. for cleaning the room after checkout), so including the cleaning fee into the nightly rate isn't accurate, even if I enter my rental dates while searching.

Rental availability is only known when you enter a date range. If you've entered a date range, there's no reason the fees can't be included in the price. There's nothing fraudulent about selling 5 nights for $180/night, versus 4 nights for $195/night, just like there's nothing fraudulent about charging more for 2x2L jugs of milk than for 1x4L jug.

> 4. I've seen customers get irate and demand something was "fraud" when a vacation rental had parking fees.

Unlike #1 and #3 (Sales tax, cleaning fees), parking fees really are optional.

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

#386

Post by rlpb »

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…

> just fine as long as it’s advertised

I completely agree, but would like to make the observation that if they're forced to advertise it properly, then something different is likely to happen.

Businesses like to find places to give "discounts" to make their prices seem cheaper. This is an excellent opportunity. They would list a nightly rate, and offer discounts for multiple night stays.

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

#387

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

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'll restate what at least one other commenter pointed out. If I, a consumer, say "I want transparent pricing," and then given transparent pricing I'm less likely to buy your product, that doesn't mean I was mistaken. It means the truth is that I don't want to buy your product, and you would have to lie to me in order to make a purchase more likely.

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

#388

Post by logicalmonster »

> Sellers often hide these additional, mandatory charges by using small type, vague descriptions or misleading wording such as “service fees,” by bundling them with legitimate charges like taxes, or revealing them clearly only after the consumer has invested time in the transaction.

The tiny libertarian inside of me recoils at the description of taxes as legitimate, but that's a point for a different type of discussion. I'd just like to call attention to the concept of hidden fees being called out. And remember, that's fees, as in plural.

Government officials are pointing out that multiple end of sale charges can be confusing and misleading dark patterns? Ok, great, lets analyze that logic through for consistency.

Governments are engaging in the same bullshit.

Look at how many Government Fees and taxes are on my basic phone bill.

> City District Sales Tax - Telecom

> City Sales Tax - Telecom

> County Public Safety Communications Surcharge

> State Sales Tax - Telecom

> State Public Safety Communications Surcharge

There might be at least a few more, but I can't quite confirm if they're actually taxes or not.

You might say that paying a tax is a necessary part of a functional society. Again, I'm not here to debate that.

But why the bullshit with having an entire pile of random taxes given in a piecemeal fashion? If it's misleading and complicated for consumers to understand payments with 500 different surcharges and fees, certainly consumers also aren't understanding their true tax burden if they're nickle and dimed with tons of extra taxes that are only visible at the end of the process and not spelled out up front. If it's good for consumers to know about all of their commercial fees, shouldn't the same logic apply to taxation? Shouldn't voters be made to understand their true tax burden in the simplest fashion possible?

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

#389

Post by IncRnd »

amf12 wrote: post #345
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…

> because the fees are hidden and the total cost appears lower Consumers still understand the total cost, albeit at the end. We aren't tricked into accepting it most of the times. Take Airbnb for example. Consumers compare and find listings, but at checkout, the extra charges get added. They see what they will pay, but at this point they just "accept it", rather than starting over again.

> Take Airbnb for example. Consumers compare and find listings, but at checkout, the extra charges get added. They see what they will pay, but at this point they just "accept it", rather than starting over again.

That's the point. These sorts of hidden fees are used to trick consumers. A consumer who just read through two different website offerings, only to see a hidden fee at the end of each likely will give up, despite not actually understanding any more about which possible offering is the lower-cost offering.

Hidden fees are literally lying to the consumers. No the offering isn't actually $0.99, it's $271.

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

#390

Post by CMCDragonkai »

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…

Australian ACCC just basically regulates how prices are displayed for everything. It makes it simple. GST inclusive everything is fair.
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