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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

#551

Post by mulmen »

lxgr wrote: post #516
mulmen wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So currently they correctly advertise the pre-tax price but since that’s not the correct total price your proposal is to display an approximate price which is also not the correct total price. I don’t see how this reduces ambiguity.

It's gonna be a much better ballpark number than the before-tax number is in almost all practical scenarios. So yes, I do think that would be a massive win compared to the status quo.

Unless you live on the border of Oregon or Montana. Or in a city.

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

#552

Post by tradertef »

acuozzo wrote: post #510
mattlondon wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in UK. As a kid, having grown up in the UK I knew that if the price label said £1.99 and I had £2 in my pocket I could afford it, with £0.01 change. First time I went to the USA as a young teenager I remember being quite embarrassed when the thing I thought I was getting for $1.99 was actually not $1.99 but $2.17 or whatever, and I had to leave without buying. Felt quite deceptive and totally incomprehensible.

> Felt quite deceptive and totally incomprehensible. In the case of sales tax, it's deliberate propaganda. "Here's what we would have charged you if it weren't for greedy old Uncle Sam."

Propaganda? How is telling where your money is going is propaganda?

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

#553

Post by mrguyorama »

ensignavenger wrote: post #418
andreareina wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brick and mortar stores know exactly how much tax they have to pay, yet they don't show an all-inclusive price. It's clearly not a case of online retailers just not showing the tax because it's difficult. If they wanted to they could let you give your post code before checking out, and query the same database to show the post-tax price for everything.

Really, you expect them to go through every item in the store, multiple times per year, and update the price tags?

What do you think all the people collecting a paycheck in a store do? Stand around and look pretty?

Have you ever heard the term "Fronting"? In most stores, employees are required to individually ensure each and every item on the shelf is organized and pulled to the front for optimum display. They do this sometimes multiple times a day. In busier stores, you will have to restock high volume items multiple times per day.

The technology for digital pricetags has been cheaply available since the first kindle in the late 2000s. Most companies have avoided spending the money on buying them because the cost of labor in America is cheap enough that you can just have the normal employees do it every day. Digital pricetags are only now becoming common. Mostly because store companies are trying to figure out a way to charge you a personalized price that takes as much of your money as possible.

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

#554

Post by mulmen »

Alupis wrote: post #473
tzs wrote: post #404

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 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.

Doesn’t this imply that the government provides our income?

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

#555

Post by conductr »

n144q wrote: post #508
conductr wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is complicating things. A physical ticket can also be refunded prior to show time. It's not an option at all, it's just a fee. They are charging you to 1) pick your seat 2) not have to show up early 3) peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved - all of those things are conveniences in the purest sense of the word. In many cases, the fee is more closely related to a platform fee going to fandango or similar…

I think the "convenience fee" of online purchases is about the fact that if you want to buy a ticket days before showtime, you don't have to get a physical ticket at the box office in person. Not necessarily that I agree with it though -- in many parts of the world you have no such fees when you buy a movie ticket online.

I'd categorize that under my "2) not have to show up early 3) peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved" points.

I don't necessarily agree with them either. It seems mutually beneficial to the venue to allow me to buy tickets digitally. It made sense maybe 20-25 years ago when the move online was a significant update to the then status quo. Now, it's just a revenue stream they don't want to give up that consumers see as the status quo, so why remove it? (from their perspective)

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

#556

Post by FateOfNations »

gosub100 wrote: post #471
drewg123 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Surprisingly, neither Dish nor DirectTV has gone bankrupt. Satellites are pretty capital-intensive. They both faced challenges over the years but have managed to skate by. AT&T kept DirectTV afloat for quite a while. The proposed DirectTV + Dish merger fell apart for multiple reasons. While the government didn't explicitly reject it, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether they would bless it. The deal also required Dish's bondholders to voluntarily write off a chunk of their debt, which they ultimately got cold feet about.

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

#557

Post by Ajedi32 »

plagiarist wrote: post #534
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…

It would not be like that, since insurance companies are not government agencies.

That's an irrelevant distinction. Neither are part of the judicial branch, which is the relevant consideration here.

Consider: Congress passes a law which sets limits on the authority of an agency. You think the agency itself should get to decide what that law actually means? And the courts, the branch of government specifically granted the role of arbiter by our constitution, should be required to differ to that interpretation if anyone ever objects and brings a lawsuit? It's absurd, and no less so than if the law was concerning a private company rather than a public agency.

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

#558

Post by lxgr »

mulmen wrote: post #551
lxgr wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's gonna be a much better ballpark number than the before-tax number is in almost all practical scenarios. So yes, I do think that would be a massive win compared to the status quo.

Unless you live on the border of Oregon or Montana. Or in a city.

I live in a city, and I have no idea how much the total is going to be before going to checkout right now, so arguably that wouldn't be a change for the worse.

This is at a merchant that, to say it lightly, has some prior knowledge of me and even has a drop-down menu to let me select the shipping destination out of my saved ones.

So far, that's only used for determining shipping times and availabilities – so why not also display amounts post-tax?

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

#559

Post by FateOfNations »

coderjames wrote: post #194

Do restaurant service fees next! "Here's the bill, with a 10% service fee added so we can pay our staff more without raising menu prices."

We almost eliminated those here in California until they chickened out and exempted restaurants.

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

#560

Post by currymj »

conductr wrote: post #224
currymj wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when you buy a ticket online, you are actually buying an option on the ticket, because you can go in and refund it at any time before the movie starts. the “convenience fee” is the option premium. it would be fairer if this were opt-in. Some e commerce sites now allow you to pay a few extra dollars to have free returns, something similar would work for movies.

No, this is complicating things. A physical ticket can also be refunded prior to show time. It's not an option at all, it's just a fee. They are charging you to 1) pick your seat 2) not have to show up early 3) peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved - all of those things are conveniences in the purest sense of the word. In many cases, the fee is more closely related to a platform fee going to fandango or similar…

i guess it's technically true that you can go to the movie theater, buy a ticket, and then get back in line to refund the ticket and leave, but this seems like an odd thing to do.

whereas buying a ticket in advance online, and then later refunding it (but losing the convenience fee), is common. "peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved" is what i mean by an option on the seat.

now maybe i'm in fact wrong and all convenience fees are exactly passing through the credit card/fandango fees etc., but in practice it sure looks like an option.

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