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FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

#121

Post by genewitch »

ctkhn wrote: post #117
breadwinner wrote: post #50

Why limit this to live-event and lodging industries? Why not all the fees tacked on by cell carriers? For example, AT&T charges a fee to "recover certain aggregate expenses AT&T incurs, including, but not limited to, charges AT&T or its agents pay to interconnect with other carriers to deliver calls from AT&T customers to their customers and charges associated with cell site rents and maintenance" [1] [1] https://www…

Corporate lobbyists. It's that simple.

Our founders said this was going to be a problem but better to have lobbying out in the open as the devil you know.

Cui bono

Re: FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

#122

Post by khaoohs »

_blk wrote: post #86
Swizec wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. When consumers don’t vote in their own best interest with their wallets, legislation is the only option. Let’s do airlines next

Except that legislation is also not in their favor because companies will just find new ways to make money [as they should - I just wish they were more creative in providing value rather than just the "added fee shortcut"] In the end it's on consumers: People should just reward better service instead of picking the seemingly cheapest option and then cry that the world is unfair and someone has to fix it for them..

What is the better service option to Ticketmaster that consumers should be rewarding?

Re: FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

#123

Post by shawabawa3 »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #65
brewdad wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically the will be advertised as BIG MONTHLY PRICE $50/mo Then an asterisk and tiny, tiny print somewhere below stating "plus taxes and fees" So it depends on how you define "fees not included in the advertised price" but the last time I had a postpaid plan, I couldn't even know how much those added taxes and fees were until my first bill arrived.

it's really never as bad as it is for hotels. I once booked a hotel stay in san francisco which looked like $300 on the website, but after I was done I was charged an extra $200 for various fees which was mostly a san francisco hotel tax.. I never saw it until I checked out . It doesn't even matter if every hotel in SF gets that tax, I don't care, I want to see it before I book the place. Ideally at the "price map" s…

In the UK/EU that's exactly what happens

You see the full price of your stay on the map, when you click through you see the breakdown per night plus any fees

Re: FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

#124

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

ncallaway wrote: post #97
autobodie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they can't just write a single thing that writes all wrongs. Found the attorney! Nobody asked for "a single thing that writes all wrongs." Simple, broad laws can absolutely be written, they are especially easy to write, and they are usually the best laws for decent average citizens, but decent average citizens are not who laws are written for in the United States. Most people already know this.

> Simple, broad laws can absolutely be written, This isn’t a law. It’s a regulatory policy. Simple, broad laws have another term that you can often use to describe them: “sweeping”. Those kinds of changes are better left to legislators, who are responsive to political pressure and subject to elections. I’m all for regulatory rulemaking by executives, but it should generally be careful narrow rulemaking. Simple, broad…

> I’m all for regulatory rulemaking by executives, but it should generally be careful narrow rulemaking. Simple, broad, sweeping changes should generally be left to the legislature.

I would agree, if not for the empirical evidence showing us that legislators rarely make the changes that the people want. If they're not going to do it, somebody else has to.

Narrower changes would be nice, but they require a correspondingly short feedback loop of decide-act-adjust, which does not currently exist for legislators or most government administrators. If one desires narrower changes, I encourage them to first ensure the government moves and responds to customer (citizen) needs, faster than it currently does.

Either way, government structure and action should be what meets the needs of the people.

Re: FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

#125

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

thechao wrote: post #119
londons_explore wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK requires that all advertised prices include all extras and charges a typical customer will pay. Ie. If you charge £100 for a hotel room, but have a £5 fee for using the lights, you have to advertise it as £105 because nearly every customer will be needing the lights. Super simple rule. Works really well.

I'm in the US, so you'll have to forgive my ignorance, here, but isn't the UK's tax law pretty tightly unified at the federal level? I once got into an argument with the county (Travis, Texas) over how to account for a penny difference in the calculation of sales tax. The resulting form involved (like) 6 govt entities and 7 pages of calculations. EDIT: if I'd been in Burnet, it'd be almost completely different forms…

In that case, you could charge a flat rate of 110, to account for the variability and your work dealing with it.

Re: FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

#127

Post by mrguyorama »

timewizard wrote: post #83
bayarearefugee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. Lina Khan was appointed to the FTC by Joe Biden as part of a broader decision to allow Elizabeth Warren expanded oversight of economic regulation as a way to coalition build with the somewhat more progressive (but still pretty establishment) parts of the Democratic party. Lina Khan was Biden's pick because she was Warren's pick. To be clear about my own biases, I think Lina Khan was a fantastic pick and did an a…

> beyond, say, JD Vance throwing out some rhetoric on the campaign trail JD Vance. Matt Gaetz. Josh Hawley. Ken Buck. They literally started calling them Khanservatives. There is strong anti-trust sentiment in parts of the Republican party. Just like there are "somewhat more progressive parts of the Democratic party." > is revisionist history. Or the story is more subtle and nuanced than people care to admit.

They aren't in the mood for any trust busting. All they want is to punish "woke" companies. They yell about facebook and google because those companies were against letting you call LGTBQ people retards.

I'm still waiting for those supposed "anti-trust republicans" to demonstrate any actual awareness of the anti-competitive situation going on or any nuance beyond "These are blue state institutions therefore woke therefore we should attack them".

Where have any of these names made statements negative of other company's market positions for example? Where is their insistence that Amazon is a trust that should probably be busted?

Re: FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

#128

Post by FireBeyond »

breadwinner wrote: post #50

Why limit this to live-event and lodging industries? Why not all the fees tacked on by cell carriers? For example, AT&T charges a fee to "recover certain aggregate expenses AT&T incurs, including, but not limited to, charges AT&T or its agents pay to interconnect with other carriers to deliver calls from AT&T customers to their customers and charges associated with cell site rents and maintenance" [1] [1] https://www…

Cellular and cable providers are the reasons that you (entirely reasonably) can’t call a fee a tax unless it is actually remitted to a government agency. They used to quite happily mislead customers into thinking line items were actually taxes and not arbitrary charges.

Re: FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

#129

Post by FireBeyond »

_blk wrote: post #86
Swizec wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. When consumers don’t vote in their own best interest with their wallets, legislation is the only option. Let’s do airlines next

Except that legislation is also not in their favor because companies will just find new ways to make money [as they should - I just wish they were more creative in providing value rather than just the "added fee shortcut"] In the end it's on consumers: People should just reward better service instead of picking the seemingly cheapest option and then cry that the world is unfair and someone has to fix it for them..

Ticketmaster. There is no way to obtain a ticket that isn’t couched in a convenience fee: email delivery, venue pick up, snail mail, all “convenient” and chargeable.

Re: FTC rule on unfair or deceptive fees to take effect on May 12

#130

Post by FireBeyond »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #70
throwawaymaths wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's really never as bad as it is for hotels. I once booked a hotel stay in san francisco which looked like $300 on the website, but after I was done I was charged an extra $200 for various fees which was mostly a san francisco hotel tax.. I never saw it until I checked out . It doesn't even matter if every hotel in SF gets that tax, I don't care, I want to see it before I book the place. Ideally at the "price map" s…

AirBnB doesn't put it on the map because they're competing against hotels, B&Bs, and services like VRBO. Everyone has an incentive to list as low a price as possible. For fucks sakes even car dealers are pulling this shit, listing EVs with tax rebates - that people may or may not qualify for - already deducted.

> For fucks sakes even car dealers are pulling this shit, listing EVs with tax rebates

Following Teslas lead, who for a long time showed monthly prices that included “estimated gas purchase savings” by default (you could see the actual number but you had to flip a switch to do so. At least now they have to have the sensible default).

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