131–140 of 480 posts
They missed an opportunity to make really transparent pricing by including tax in the displayed price.
> Hidden fees are fees in which a seller uses an artificially low headline price to attract a customer and usually either discloses additional required fees in smaller print, or reveals additional unavoidable charges later in the buying process. Like tips?
No, not like tips. Expected tips are known up front, they are variable, and I certainly think it's totally fine to not tip in places where it's not usually expected, "flipping around the iPad" be damned.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagree. Bait and switch is one symptom of the issue that the price is not what you'll pay. Which to be clear is awful. And that matters if you have to be careful about spending. Also, "everyone knows about them", really? If it's so easy to "know" the local tax rate for various things, why isn't it easy to label them? See the rest of the world, where even young kids can go shopping. If you give them 5 , and the item…
I really like how tips are done in most of europe, where the tip is included by default in the restaurant price. So now your choices are - add additional tip if you’re really satisfied with your service, or retract the default tip if you’ve been wronged in some way. Just by default you don’t have to think about it, and it shows up in all the places if should - government included.
Wages of workers is included, just like the other overheads are. If you want to give a gift to someone -- a tip -- how could that possibly be even known in advance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never understand this argument at all. Your shops have computers with label printers, right? At the Co-op supermarket in our little UK town (population 3000) they’ve even just replaced the shelf price tickets with tiny colour displays.
Yeah, so in the US that doesn't work. Most obviously for display, tv, or radio ads you cannot ensure correct taxes in the advertisement (this was a big eye opener when I first moved to the US). It also doesn't work for online sales, where the final price can depend on the final destination of the goods or service. e.g. the taxes cannot be displayed until you've been given a street level address. For me for example ev…
They really shouldn't be advertising false claims in the first place.
>It also doesn't work for online sales, where the final price can depend on the final destination of the goods or service. e.g. the taxes cannot be displayed until you've been given a street level address.
That one has an easy solution: Just ask for the destination.
I don't know why we can't just force everyone to show post tax/fees price upfront. It's complete bullshit that every restaurant bill comes with 3 different taxes.
Taxes are set at a multiple levels (federal, state, district, and city) so it's pretty much impossible to show the post tax price on the label. Hidden fees are a completely different issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taxes are set at a multiple levels (federal, state, district, and city) so it's pretty much impossible to show the post tax price on the label. Hidden fees are a completely different issue.
Almost every other country in the world has solved this problem. It’s always fascinating when Americans have problems other countries don’t have, and just throw their hands in air saying “welp nothing we can do about it”
For example: in most countries you include sales tax in your advertisement, because why wouldn't you? In the US there is no countrywide sales tax, there are some states with literally no sales tax, and then there are states with high sales tax to compensate for zero income tax (which is excitingly regressive taxation).
Then inside the states each county can have its own array of sales and service taxes, which can also vary according to the goods and services involved, and finally individual cities in those counties can also have their own.
Core to this is that the US constitution explicitly enshrines federalism in the tenth amendment (the last part of the "bill of rights"), that explicitly limits the power of the federal government.
> Hidden fees are fees in which a seller uses an artificially low headline price to attract a customer and usually either discloses additional required fees in smaller print, or reveals additional unavoidable charges later in the buying process. Like tips?
At least tips are expected. It's the 5% "employee support fee" that annoys me because it's a hidden fee, and it's not clear how it relates to tips.
Is that like "convenience fee" or that sort of crap such as on Ticketmaster? If so, this is amazing! Make it NA-wide please :) haha
Yes, it would include that kind of thing. It’s written broadly to include all fees except (1) taxes and government-mandated fees, and (2) shipping fees (which have to match the actual cost the seller pays for shipping).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never understand this argument at all. Your shops have computers with label printers, right? At the Co-op supermarket in our little UK town (population 3000) they’ve even just replaced the shelf price tickets with tiny colour displays.
It's not really a problem in brick and mortar stores. It's a problem in online stores because you can't necessarily give someone the right price with taxes until you have their address. And this problem is harder than some might think. I knew someone who lived on a street that was a "dividing line" for this stuff: same zip code, same city, but one side had a 9% sales tax, the other side had around 7%. We tested a lot…