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New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

theguardian.com

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Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#271

Post by AnthonyMouse »

xp84 wrote: post #51
ryandrake wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, it's basically restaurant owners trying to get their customers involved in their political whining. Notice how you never see things like "Business License Fee" or "Restaurant Electricity Bill Surcharge" listed out as separate line items on customers' bills. Those are things restaurant owners have to pay, too, so why don't they get their own charges to customers? Why does only "Living Wage" get a line item on the…

Hey now, let's not get carried away, these jackass restaurant owners want to make it clear, the "Living Wage" guilt trip is the tip part, and the fees THEY put on are to pay for "benefits like healthcare" and you're not allowed to consider it part of the tip. Nevermind that California doesn't even have a lower "tipped" min wage like some states do, so by supporting tipping, we're just saying that servers simply "dese…

> Nevermind that California doesn't even have a lower "tipped" min wage like some states do, so by supporting tipping, we're just saying that servers simply "deserve" more money for some reason than people who stock shelves or pick orders at Amazon or Walmart.

Isn't this the thing the government is saying in California? They passed a law requiring restaurants to pay the same minimum wage as jobs where workers don't get tips, on top of the tips, essentially making it the law that people in tipped occupations have to be paid more than what can be paid to people doing any other kind of work.

Unless the point is to get customers to stop tipping because a) the workers are now guaranteed the same minimum wage as anyone else even if they don't and b) they can't afford the tip on top of the prices that now have the higher minimum wage priced into them anyway.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#272

Post by ThunderSizzle »

echoangle wrote: post #263
erentz wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not your property they care about. They usually want this because it includes liability insurance if you damage their property or someone else’s, or your negligence causes harm to someone.

But then it should be included in the quoted price, right? It’s mandatory after all.

I've never purchased rental insurance from a landlord or their recommended place.

I used my insurance company I already had.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#273

Post by pards »

stingraycharles wrote: post #260
xp84 wrote: post #45

I wonder if the bit about 'junk fees' will include undisclosed hotel fees. I just stayed there last week in a no-frills "hotel" which doesn't include daily room cleaning, has no staff at night, and has no amenities whatsoever, and they charged me a surprise-at-check-in $35 a night resort fee. This fee was not described in the booking.

What the hell is a resort fee?

Every hotel I've stayed at in Hawaii charges one - usually to the tune of $50+/day - even if the hotel has no resort-like facilities. It's a bullshit fee.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#274

Post by inigyou »

erentz wrote: post #210
SoftTalker wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should also be illegal. If I want to risk loss of my personal property that should be my decision to make.

It’s not your property they care about. They usually want this because it includes liability insurance if you damage their property or someone else’s, or your negligence causes harm to someone.

Then they should include it in the rent. My landlord wants a Porsche too, he doesn't get to add a separate Porsche Fee or mandate me to pay a Porsche payment, he has to take some of the money coming out of the rent and put it towards his Porsche.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#275

Post by inigyou »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #258
evolve2k wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia we have very strong consumer protection law, here it’s expected (by the bank usually) the landlord has at least a minimum “landlord insurance” that covers all that stuff. For anything not covered, where a tenant does damage thats what the bond is for. Renter insurance should be optional. Actually I’m surprised that landlord insurance is not already occurring, imagine a building with 100 apartments, I’m s…

If everyone is required to have an insurance - why not bury it in property tax/rates instead? In NZ we are not required to have third party medical cover because everyone is already covered by yearly car registration fee.

What about people without cars?

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#276

Post by Brybry »

trinsic2 wrote: post #246
ryandrake wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> proposed rule that requires sellers to “advertise the total price for any good or service, including all mandatory additional charges and fees, up front” This is going to be tough to enact, anywhere in the USA, even New York. There is nothing quite as American as "not knowing what you're going to pay for something until you have to pay." Whether it's your doctor bill, restaurant bill with tips and service fees, you…

Not me. I always get the real information before I pay. But you have to be persistent and have a desire to know. Medial fees is the same you have to contact them and have them look up the code for the fees. We are in this situation because people don't challenge this shit.

When you're in your doctor's office and discussing the tests they want to order you're very unlikely to be able to get the cost right there during your appointment.

You would probably need to have the doctor print you a list and then after the appointment contact the hospital/provider to find out... which could be a huge delay in getting the tests done and involve a lot of extra travel time. And I can only imagine the effort required to shop around for the cheapest place to have your blood drawn that also orders from the cheapest lab for whatever tests and that also takes your insurance.

The best I get is my PCP will be like "I want to do this test for this reason but it is usually more expensive so I won't order it if you're worried about cost".

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#277

Post by inigyou »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #121
forgetfreeman wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I was just following orders" is not, and has never been, a credible defense of unethical behavior.

Unless you were in the US. There it always worked.

It's always worked everywhere. It even worked for the original people who used it, except for a few of them.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#279

Post by inigyou »

bkeyes wrote: post #57

Funny this should come up today. I just got a notice from my credit card company that Evernote just charged my credit card after 2 'successful' cancellations of my subscription each of the last 2 years, and the complete deletion of my account several months ago. Hopefully these will become more widespread - I'm not in NY or CA.

Chargeback time! Hopefully they get banned from the payment networks for too many fraudulent payments.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#280

Post by inigyou »

puchatek wrote: post #77
summarybot wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharks will keep eating easy prey until they hit an iron bar. I also hate this fact about the world by the way :) Just a [hardwon] observation.

People who forget to cancel are easy prey. Cancelling then being charged anyway is something else. Something akin to being robbed IMHO.

Easy prey for this are people who don't dispute the charge with their bank and people who don't press charges.
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