This is great if it gets rid of the "resort fee" or "urban fee" that I have had to pay at hotels. Happened last week. An extra $40 a night. It is almost impossible to refuse and find a new hotel right when you are checking in.
FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
241–250 of 691 posts
Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure Japan is the best example here. My experience is that most shops have the price excluding consumption tax printed very prominently in large numbers, and then price including consumption tax is printed in much smaller writing underneath. The price excluding tax is the only one you can read at a distance, that draws you in. As someone from the UK who is used to seeing price tags show the final price you pa…
I have a feeling that's optional. It may even be regional. My experience was almost exclusively Tokyo. I traveled to Tokyo for over 20 years, and always paid what was on the sticker. I was told that the tax was included in the price. I remember one of my bigger purchases, was a ¥75,000 Oceanus watch, and that was exactly what I paid.
If you go to a donqi the price tags list without the tax besides small text that either lists the full price or says "+10% consumption tax" or along those lines.
As a tourist you don't always have to pay the consumption tax though.
Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
#243They should ban hidden taxes too. The sticker price should be the final price.
If you're talking about sales taxes, they can't until you input your shipping address. Because they depend on where you live. Nobody's trying to fool you by not including sales taxes. There's just no way to show them in advance, unless you want to start typing your address and zip code into every shopping website before you even browse.
Every local store I walk into is trying to fool me by not including sales taxes, why would online stores be any different?
Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
#244This shouldn't be controversial. FTC isn't banning these fees, it is only requiring merchants to disclose the fees. Why would anyone be against that? Another good rule is click-to-cancel. Just a couple of days ago I logged into my Dish Network account to cancel it (after they hiked prices). There is no way to cancel online. There is no way to cancel via chat. You have to call. As soon as you call you're told the wait…
It's really basic contract law stuff.
Here in Sweden, if the amount isn't clearly presented, there's no agreement to pay the specified amount, so there's no contract and no obligation to pay-- an agreement becomes binding because of the reasonable expectation of a party on the counterparty.
I don't understand American contract law, since I even see ideas like changing agreements, which are completely contrary to the very notion of a contracts as I understand it, so it's nice that something is done about these strange practices.
I don't understand how it's come to this point though. That courts have been willing to tolerate things that aren't in the contract (i.e. changes to contracts), provisions that aren't clear, etc., and complex and strange provisions even in contracts of adhesion and things presented to consumers.
Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
It somehow works almost anywhere outside of NA? It's really not a crazy concept - estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address". The problem is, that genuinely negatively affect the sales because people see the true price of things.
> estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address". I appreciate this can be done and countries in Europe do it, I just don't see how this is any better at all than status quo: * Current State: we all know the quoted price doesn't include sales tax, which will be added to make the final price in checkout after we enter our address. * Final State: we all know the quot…
The only reason why status quo is there because people are less likely to remove items from their online shopping carts once they've added it. There are techniques and shopping check out flows that have been perfected over the years to drive up the online sales. Realistically, it won't move the needle for the people who are on this forum because of the average salary (a few dollars are usually not a big deal for us), but it can be a make it or break it choice for a good chunk of customers.
I'm not sure why one wouldn't want to know the real price before the checkout. It's a bit baffling to me. It could be a cultural thing as well, then I guess, there isn't really a right or wrong way of looking at it.
Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
#246They should ban hidden taxes too. The sticker price should be the final price.
I remember shopping in Japan. The price on the tag, is exactly what you pay (same with services, like hotels). Since this is Japan, it's a high price, but no surprises. Also, the service is amazing , and they won't accept tips. If you leave money on the table, they will chase after you, to give it back.
Japan has the exact same sales tax rate(s) across the entire country, and it rarely changes. In the US, we have thousands of different rates and they change multiple times per year.
Also, while it is the norm in Japan to include the tax, there are some exceptions.
(Japan has 2 rates, 8% for certain items like food, and 10% for everything else).
Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
No they cannot. Taxes are not uniform. Walmart probably won't deal with this, but in many states business (read farmers) do not pay sales tax on some items (read likely to be used on a farm) and so stores that want to sell to business will have the ability to verify you are a business to give that discount. It is worse for online where until you log in they have no clue what taxes will apply. If you are buying a gift…
If you sell a widget in a store, you MUST be able to compute the sales tax. Otherwise, you can't sell it. And if you can do that, then you might as well print it on the price tag (along with pre-tax price if you want). No buts. Ditto for online, after you get the customer's ZIP code.
My favorite example of this lunacy is the restaurant nearby that sells pies. If they box your pie for you to take home, it's a grocery item and not taxed. If they give you utensils to eat it in the store, it's a restaurant meal and therefore taxed.
They literally can't know the price until you tell them whether you'd like a fork with it.
Now, this restaurant works around it by having both prices listed, but I can imagine a million freaking variants of that for an online sale: "you have to pay our local taxes, but almost maybe yours, unless you check out on a Sunday between noon and 5PM, which is a tax holiday on your block (but not your neighbors' across the road), so understand that the price may change between when you add it to your cart and when you click the 'pay' button."
I'm only a little bit exaggerating.
Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean? Minimising monopolies is how you keep the free market competitive.
Free competition should mean that you don't get punished for winning. There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly. Imagine Schwarzenegger being banned from Mr Olympia or Gretzky being banned for life from minor league ice hockey. So that the other competitors are given a fair chance of winning. But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or be…
Most sports have a salary cap to prevent being able to buy your way to success. They recognize that having more money than your opponent gives you an unfair advantage and destroys competition.
Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean? Minimising monopolies is how you keep the free market competitive.
Free competition should mean that you don't get punished for winning. There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly. Imagine Schwarzenegger being banned from Mr Olympia or Gretzky being banned for life from minor league ice hockey. So that the other competitors are given a fair chance of winning. But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or be…
> There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly
Almost all North American sports have a player entry draft, where the weighting is based on your success. The best teams (eg the Detroit Red Wings of the 90’s and 00’s) are given garbage draft picks, while the bottom-feeders (eg the Edmonton Oilers of the late 00’s-early 10’s) are given (the opportunity for) superstars. This is clearly a punishment for doing well, and a reward for being terrible.
Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of my head, if I recall correctly, Australia, Japan, Denmark do local municipal taxes as well (some are more flat than others). Anyways, all I was saying that it's a solved UX problem, and the reason why you're not getting full price is because A/B testing has shown that when customers see the complete price, they get a shock and less likely to buy the item. This doesn't have much to do with websites caring about…
So are estimated prices being advertised in Australia, Japan, or Denmark? Why is North America uniquely susceptible to A/B testing? Municipal taxes are not an edgecase in the United States at least. They’re very much the norm, especially in telecommunications.
Because according to Japanese law, in most of the scenarios, the full price, to your best ability, has to be presented to the potential customer. Same goes for Australia, if I recall correctly. No clue about Denmark, I'm sorry. But assuming it's similar over there as well.
It's not that NA is the only one susceptible to A/B testing. It's more of a - it's-grey-area-to-illegal to not show full prices outside of NA.