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Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

oag.ca.gov

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Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#301

Post by Gibbon1 »

tacocataco wrote: post #120
menthe wrote: post #93

Ironic when the same day, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoe'd bill intended to limit the price of insulin, and thus access to essential health care for many.

Is that the same bill that would have decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms? Good thing California uses First Past the Post voting, making a two party system a inevitably. Must be cheaper to purchase the government for the 1%.

There used to be moderate republicans in California. But the cuckoo puff wing of the party pushed them out. Not the democrats cunning schemes. Democrats implemented a jungle primary in order to try and fix that problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#302

Post by WalterBright »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #50

Comments that are bringing up taxes (which are totally exempted by this bill anyway) and tips (with one small caveat) are completely missing the point. You can have a debate about how to display those items on a price list, but everyone knows about them and they are expected. The whole point of this bill is to prevent bait-and-switch, where loads of unknown or variable fees are tacked on after the price is initially…

In Washington State, Gov Inslee imposed the equivalent of a $.50 per gallon tax on the oil companies. The oil companies raised the WA gas prices by $.50 per gallon. Inslee blamed the price rise on the greedy oil companies.

The taxes should be a separate line item on all purchases, so people can see what the taxes are.

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#304

Post by stuckkeys »

astrange wrote: post #297
stuckkeys wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not their money that is for sure haha

It certainly does come from their money. When a bank goes bust, all the owners of the bank also go bust. The FDIC doesn't protect /them/.

You are right. I was wrong.

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#305

Post by lmm »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #133
seer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the UK there's no tip included by default. 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.

A lot of restaurants in the UK will add a "service charge" which is supposed to be a suggested tip, and you can ask for it to be removed from the bill (and then tip separately, or not).

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#306

Post by t-writescode »

WalterBright wrote: post #293
initplus wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the recent past, US banks were found to have specifically designed software to calculate how to best re-order customer transactions to maximise overdraft fees. Banks also generally make it hard/impossible to opt out of overdraft, something that would probably be preferable to many customers. Overdraft fees are a huge source of income these days.

When they'd do the reordering to me, I'd go visit the bank manager and point out how many years I'd been a loyal customer. Then she'd fix it.

Cool story. How does that help the hundreds of thousands of very poor people who are trying very hard to pinch pennies in dire straights?

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#308

Post by zlakdfljk »

astrange wrote: post #279
tacocataco wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the same bill that would have decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms? Good thing California uses First Past the Post voting, making a two party system a inevitably. Must be cheaper to purchase the government for the 1%.

Newsom is the same party as the legislative supermajority. This is a very bad way to analyze politics. Politicians actually believe in the things they're doing.

[dead]

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#309

Post by lmm »

pandaman wrote: post #229
oehpr wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.... And this is why we don't just add it to the price? This is the grand reason? Wouldn't it be far better to establish a rock solid precedent that the price there is the price you pay? Every exception that remains is an opportunity for weasels to justify why they are also the very important exception to the rule. You sure that's worth a rounding error?

>And this is why we don't just add it to the price? This is the grand reason? I don't think so, there are more apparent reasons listed in this thread already. I am just pointing that rolling a sales tax into price is not as simple as some imagine. I imagine VAT is accounted differently so it could be rolled into the price without this kind of error but I've never dealt with VAT so I can only speculate. >Wouldn't it b…

> I don't think so, there are more apparent reasons listed in this thread already. I am just pointing that rolling a sales tax into price is not as simple as some imagine. I imagine VAT is accounted differently so it could be rolled into the price without this kind of error but I've never dealt with VAT so I can only speculate.

Nope. VAT has complicated rounding rules too. Turns out it actually is still easy to roll it into the price.

> as somebody else noticed, the retailers are free to roll the tax into the price, the fact that they don't do this might be a pretty solid indication that it's not better?

It's a lemon market. It's better for the customer if the actual price is displayed up front, but the customer has no way of knowing which shops are advertising real prices and which aren't.

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#310

Post by bubblethink »

So now these fees will be presumably less hidden, but does it really change things ? The junk fees appear as a fixed line item on the bill. Instead, much like the side-effects disclaimers, they will appear somewhere on the first screen. Something like, "Uber adds $5 + 25% to your order" in tiny text somewhere.
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