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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

#471

Post by gosub100 »

drewg123 wrote: post #175
breadwinner wrote: post #140

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…

Dish is terrible. After my mom passed away, they were one of the few things that my Dad had trouble cancelling. Even with a copy of her death certificate, my Dad could not get the service cancelled. He just ended up throwing the bills (and their equipment) away.

I think they went bankrupt, so hope that's some consolation. I heard that an attempt to buy them by DTV got rejected on antitrust. But in the article it said they went bust

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

#472

Post by Ajedi32 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #459
Ajedi32 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chevron deference never meant agencies can just make up and pass law Not on it's own, no. The bigger culprit there is the erosion of the nondelegation doctrine. But Chevron aggravated the problem by allowing agencies to stretch their authority beyond what even congress intended with little possibility of legal challenge. Interpreting the law is and should be the role of the courts, not the role of the agencies that…

Is there a well functioning large country that doesn't effectively govern this way? The US isn't well functioning its just rich

I think most democratic nations have a similar principle of separation of powers, so... almost all of them?

The US is rich because it's well functioning.

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

#473

Post by Alupis »

tzs wrote: post #404
Alupis wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 Ok... > 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). Flat percentage ? A flat percentage means that if you earn N times what someone else earn…

A flat percentage means exactly that - everyone pays the same percentage. Everyone derives the same value from the government, ie. the same percentage of their income.

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

#474

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

tbrownaw wrote: post #325
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is behind this move? What individuals, and what politicians? By what legal means is this happening? The supreme court. The removal of Chevron Deference this year means that the courts have given themselves huge amounts of power over any administrative decision that isn't specifically regulated by congress (rather than the prior stance which was to presume that agency decisions were reasonable interpretations of…

This is not an accurate description of that decision. Agencies no longer get special privileges in interpreting the scope of what Congress delegated to them. Within the scope of what Congress delegated to them, they still have an much power and discretion as ever.

if Congress wanted to delegate decision making to the judicial branch they can pass laws that do so. they pass a law saying that the agency can make decisions, those decisions should be respected. this decision is right the equivalent of if the courts decided they had the power to block laws that the court thought were bad policy

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

#475

Post by gosub100 »

Centigonal wrote: post #197
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's controversial. They do this to increase profits. A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost. It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money.

Dish knows their satellite TV business is on the way out. Their strategy is to maximize the present value of that business by retaining and squeezing as many of those customers as much as possible, slowing the decline and pulling as much money out of that vertical for as long as they still have it, so that they can reinvest that cash into new verticals with more promise.

I swear these satellite services could eliminate live tv and go on-demand only using a hard drive DVR style, with maybe 10-20 live channels. Everything else would be a stream that would download and notify you when it was ready. The bandwidth of those dishes has got to be multiple gigabytes per second. They could broadcast everything and the viewers would just opt in to the specific shows or movies they want. Completely switch the business model.

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

#476

Post by idopmstuff »

munk-a wrote: post #3

An excellent change. It's unfortunate that stewardship of the committee will soon change hands as Khan has been a great advocate for fair contracts between companies and consumers during her tenure.

I think she's done such great work on the administrative side of things with junk fee bans, etc., but I feel like she has also burned an enormous amount of taxpayer money on lawsuits that don't have value (like suing Meta for acquiring the tiny VR fitness company).

It feels like she's just against any acquisitions by large companies, and I think that's both too broad of a stance for the FTC to take (as opposed to really looking on a case-by-case basis of whether consumers would be hurt by an acquisition) and also harmful to new companies being created, since suddenly an important option for exits is a whole lot less likely as large companies hesitate to be acquisitive.

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

#477

Post by rascul »

ewoodrich wrote: post #176
crazygringo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, it doesn't. IP geolocation is nowhere near precise enough. Remember, sales tax isn't something big like state-level. It's literally town -level, including tiny towns. Two sides of the same street can have a different sales tax. Not to mention all the extra rules, such as individual clothing items under $110 being exempt in New York.

Yep, where I currently live based on IP geolocation I would be quoted incorrect state sales tax 100% of the time. Though it's sort of the perfect geography to be problematic (Vancouver, WA side of the greater Portland, OR metro area spanning a sales tax/no sales tax state boundary).

I live in Mississippi and my geo ip used to say New York City.

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

#478

Post by gosub100 »

Aloha wrote: post #230
Centigonal wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dish knows their satellite TV business is on the way out. Their strategy is to maximize the present value of that business by retaining and squeezing as many of those customers as much as possible, slowing the decline and pulling as much money out of that vertical for as long as they still have it, so that they can reinvest that cash into new verticals with more promise.

The ironic part of all of this, I would have pay linear TV services if it was cheaper - 50 bucks a month for the whole house, and I suspect they could have 30%+ more customers.

Dish profit doesn't scale that way. They have to pay the channels for broadcast rights. More TVs per household means in theory more royalties paid to the networks.

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

#479

Post by noprocrasted »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #291
jeffwass wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dish is evil. Years ago when signed up with them I opted to pay the extra service for local tv channels, which required an andditional antenna to install. For some reason the installer couldn’t fit it securely on our house, and said to call Dish to remove the service since we cannot receive it. Dish refused to remove the local service! They said since we signed a contract we were stuck paying for it even though they…

Isn't this what small claims court is for?

You don't even need small claims court. You just don't pay, and point them to (small claims?) court if they want to get paid for the service they don't provide.

None of these shit companies will ever take you up on the offer though, because expecting to get paid for a service you don't provide (and can't provide in this case) won't fly in court.

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

#480

Post by rascul »

perfectstorm wrote: post #19
drdec wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want to put in your shipping address to every website before you can shop?

a reverse IP lookup should give you a good estimate and you can always ask the user to enter their address for more accurate price.

> a reverse IP lookup should give you a good estimate

Not really, no.

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