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FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

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Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything. Ironically, that inherent dysfunction is the main reason to suspect that won't happen. But politically, every regulation as automatically partisan, even when it has overwhelming support.

> There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything. (At least some of) the agencies brought this on themselves with their abuse of the goodwill/benefit of the doubt previously afforded to them. Most flagrant has been the ATF, for one example constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces, turning millions of c…

Your understanding is not correct. Chevron deference never meant agencies can just make up and pass law; it was a legal doctrine which merely stated that in places where the law is ambiguous (say a law declares water must be clean of pollutants, or bans pistol braces) that courts should look at any guidance from relevant agencies for guidance, since supposedly they should know more about the subject than the courts. It never allowed agencies to circumvent congress or prevented congress from further clarifying law. For example, the DEA doesn’t have the power to schedule drugs due to chevron, Congress includes provisions for the AG to reschedule drugs, which the AG historically has delegated to the DEA, the point being this was a power explicitly granted by congress. While it may sound nice to you right now that the Supreme Court did away with chevron due to your gripes with the ATF, now the definitions of machine guns or pistols or anything else are up to the whims of any judge in any jurisdiction, which could be better or, given that judges likely have even less knowledge of the subject than the ATF, probably worse and more inconsistent.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#372

This 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…

Agree to both. And both are incredibly easy problems to solve. For the first just have a law that says: > Any advertised price must include all mandatory taxes and fees. No exceptions. For the second just have a law that says: > An end user must be allowed to use the same method to cancel as they used to sign up for the service. No exceptions. Additionally, an end user cannot be required to perform more manual action…

But what's a mandatory fee?

Free airfare to Hawaii!

Fee for paying by cash: $1000 Fee for paying by check: $1100 Fee for paying by credit card: $1050 Fee for middle seat: $200 Fee for window seat: $300 Fee for aisle seat: $250

Note that no fee on this list is mandatory because you always have other options.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#373
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they could use geolocation, with a note that the tax is estimated So we'd go from the current regime where the displayed price is wrong to another regime where the displayed price is wrong? Allegedly, something like 40%+ of Americans use VPNs. They would pretty much always see the wrong price. In practice, the ramification of this would be that your local indie retailers (where we are much less likely to be persist…

40% of Americans using VPNs cannot possibly be true.

Sounded off to me, but I wasn't able to find a better number when I looked. Maybe it's counting work computers where the stack is maintained by IT staff?

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#374

This 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…

Mostly it comes down to the fees being presented at the end rather than at the beginning. You have to follow the process through to the end to figure out what it would cost which makes price comparisons much harder.

Occasionally this is unavoidable--shipping charges. If they simply pass through what UPS charges, fine. Otherwise, they should be listed up front.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ima…

Then put two freaking price tags: "pies to go" and "eat here". Problem solved.

There are zero legitimate reasons not to show true prices.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't print the price on a price tag because different customer pay different prices.

Bullshit. First, you absolutely CAN JUST PUT TWO PRICES on a price tag. Moreover, business customers (in a grocery shop, yeah right) can just get a discount at a point of sale.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#377
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A rule is proposed to require customers to be able to cancel any subscription on the vendor's website. Except that's not the proposed rule. The way this works in California (and the way the rule the FTC recently published works, I believe) is that a business is required to allow customers to cancel "in the same medium" that they subscribed. That doesn't require anyone to start running a website. The rest of your po…

[flagged]

No timers, no human interaction. And if the process takes time (there are times I think confirmations are warranted) once that's been done the cancellation takes place at the time of your original request. (Which you can screenshot.)

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree to both. And both are incredibly easy problems to solve. For the first just have a law that says: > Any advertised price must include all mandatory taxes and fees. No exceptions. For the second just have a law that says: > An end user must be allowed to use the same method to cancel as they used to sign up for the service. No exceptions. Additionally, an end user cannot be required to perform more manual action…

But what's a mandatory fee? Free airfare to Hawaii! Fee for paying by cash: $1000 Fee for paying by check: $1100 Fee for paying by credit card: $1050 Fee for middle seat: $200 Fee for window seat: $300 Fee for aisle seat: $250 Note that no fee on this list is mandatory because you always have other options.

To me that is totally fine. If there are electives, then elective them. Fix the mandatory ones first. Like the “resort fee” hotels charge. Or “cleaning fees”.

It becomes trickier when the fee is elective, but a significant part of the advertisement. Southwest Airlines complaining about having to advertise their fares, which come with two bags included, alongside other airlines who don’t include any bags comes to mind. I think there is probably some world where elective fees are included as well though this seems more nebulous.

However, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Even just including everything that is compulsory in the base price itself, including taxes, would be a massive improvement to the status quo. Fixing this elective fee ambiguity would be a next step

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#379
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local retailers would oppose this in very strong terms as a thumb on the scale in favor of online retailers. Online retailers would presumably still be able to show pricing before knowing a shipping address, so their pricing would be pre-tax. That would make the apparent price differential even greater, and on every item. I think this would make the marketplace less clear for consumers.

Oddly enough, the average EU consumer has no problem understanding that the label price is the full price of a purchase, while online prices might include extra stuff such as delivery. Maybe you're just less intelligent than the average consumer and need some more protection? Or is it something else?

> Maybe you're just less intelligent than the average consumer

I'm not one to police tone, but really? Did it make you feel better to say that?

> is it something else?

Yes, the something else is that you're missing the point that my comment was specifically about the disparity in the prices large online retailers would be able to display (e.g. without sales tax) versus what offline retailers would display (with sales tax).

If Amazon and a local retailer are both aiming for the same $1,000 for an item net of tax, this would mean that Amazon could display $1,000 as the price while my local retailer would have to list it for (say) $1,100. I don't think local retailers would like that very much, even though the consumer would end up paying $1,100 either way. You may disagree.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#380
post #358
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the income on the investment is taxed though. The capital isn’t double taxed. I’d love to abolish regressive sales taxes and return to 1950s level progressive income tax rates. You have my vote.

Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government. The idea of "Paying what you can afford" is BS everywhere it's been implemented - from school tuition to soccer camp to taxes. Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be. Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credi…

Our philosophies differ.

> Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government.

I think "pay what you can afford" is fair because the only way to make half a million dollars (or more) a year is to disproportionately reap the benefits of society. Marginal income tax is fair in the sense that everyone does pay the same. Your $11,001st dollar is taxed the same as everyone else, just like your $578,126th dollar. If you don't want to pay the highest rates then take advantage of deductions (aka incentives aka loopholes) and invest in creating jobs.

> Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be.

I definitely don't feel this way and I am happy to pay my marginal rates. I just don't think they go far enough.

> Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).

Do you propose a flat income tax or a flat wealth tax? Should capital gains be taxed as income?

> For a nation that got it's start in no small part due to being over-taxed, it's very interesting to see just how much tax shenanigans we tolerate today.

My understanding was that the issue was lack of representation or ability to levy local taxes but I admit my knowledge of that point in history is weak. The America of today is certainly different from revolutionary times. I would say it is better.

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