[HN Gopher] California AG and state senators introduce bill to b...
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California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees
Author : miguelazo
Score : 348 points
Date : 2023-02-20 18:01 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (oag.ca.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (oag.ca.gov)
| adolph wrote:
| Are hidden fees like the fuel taxes that get bundled into the
| stated price, or like sales taxes that are calculated at purchase
| time?
| criddell wrote:
| No.
|
| Hidden fees are for items that are broken out from the sales
| price and they aren't optional. A good example used earlier in
| this thread is hotel resort fees. Even if you don't use any of
| the amenities that the charge is for, you are still charged
| that fee and it isn't part of the advertised price.
| justinzollars wrote:
| [flagged]
| yumraj wrote:
| I hope this applies to like Airbnb, Ticketmaster and so on who
| disclose late service fees.
| gnicholas wrote:
| This is coming pretty hot on the heels of Biden's announcement.
| Does anyone know if this was already underway when Biden made
| this a key aspect of his SOTU address? It seems kind of weird to
| front-run the President (of your own party, in particular).
| switz wrote:
| Taxes and fees should be mandated for all prices up front.
|
| This is how it works in most of the world, there's no good reason
| it shouldn't work that way here in the US.
|
| Someone will come along and point out an edge case, but for the
| vast majority of retail situations this is doable.
| noveltyaccount wrote:
| Yes. Just require that the price you see is the price you pay.
| Full stop, no exceptions, not even tax or tip. But I guess I'll
| take this step in the right direction.
| sneak wrote:
| This obscures the tax burden from the end user, transparently
| blending it with the price of the goods and the merchant's
| profit.
|
| Consumers should be consciously aware of the split.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| So, the same reason we can't have the convenience of pre-
| filled tax returns from the IRS? People need to be able to
| feel the pain of the taxes they pay, because it might help
| bring them closer to the ideological conservative viewpoint.
| lockhouse wrote:
| Why would ensuring people know how much they are paying in
| taxes be a bad thing?
| zamadatix wrote:
| It's not so much the concept that's bad as the proposed
| execution. Bold the amount that came from tax next to the
| total on the receipt or similar, it'll have the same
| effect without requiring people agree it's more important
| than knowing what the actual price of something is going
| to be.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| 1) There are other ways to do that that don't annoy
| people so much.
|
| 2) Surveys about understanding of how taxes work, of
| personal or typical tax burden, and even about whether a
| given individual believes they were affected by some new
| high-profile tax law or other (versus whether they
| actually were...) demonstrate pretty damn conclusively
| that this approach has entirely failed, anyway.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You can do that without making them do all the paperwork.
| For nearly all taxpayers the IRS already knows how much
| you owe, and can give you a return that is already filled
| out. But people like Grover Norquist believe that
| anything that makes paying taxes easier will cause people
| to become more accepting of taxation in the first place.
| So we all need to suffer the pain of filling out a return
| from scratch, to make sure we have the right attitude
| towards taxes.
|
| Nobody is having the information _hidden_ from them in
| any case. Even pre-filled from the IRS, it would be right
| in front of you.
| twblalock wrote:
| If the taxes are just and sensible, you have nothing to
| fear.
|
| If the taxes are silly and ridiculous (which many are),
| then they _should_ be rolled back and people should know
| about them. That 's not conservative, it's just common
| sense.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Airlines are required to advertise total price, but break out
| taxes at purchase. This is a solved problem.
|
| https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-
| policy/airlin...
| [deleted]
| Schnitz wrote:
| It can be itemized on the receipt but the easily readable
| advertised price should be the number you pay, period.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Personally I find it very interesting that a $20 restaurant
| meal might only be netting $1 to the owner. Makes me feel
| like going out isn't actually that bad of a deal.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Lots of retail businesses have less than 5% profit margin.
| Even insurance companies, including health insurance, have
| less than 5% profit margins.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Nb. health insurance profit margins are now capped, in
| the US.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| At 15% to 20%. So smaller profit margins indicate
| downward pressure on pricing from competitors.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Well, in point of fact, the limit is actually a mandate
| on how much they must spend on medical care. Their own
| operating expenses, salaries, advertising, et c., have to
| come out after that. So they could theoretically make 15%
| under that limit--except in practice that's actually
| impossible. Which means margins aren't necessarily 5%
| because of competition.
|
| [EDIT] That is, I'm skeptical that if one removed that
| limit, competition would keep margins where they are.
| Forcing all profit to come out of 15% of revenue probably
| _does_ play a major role in keeping the actual margin as
| low as it is.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Well I do wonder about the exec compensation at insurance
| companies though. 5% profit but mega million compensation
| packages...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Why would insurance company executives have any more (or
| less) negotiating power than any other similar sized
| business?
|
| Cursory look at insurance company executive pay does not
| show any anomalies.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| A lot more of it goes to the landowner in the form of rent.
| It could be around 25-35%.
| earthnail wrote:
| Why? The business is built on infrastructure that is paid for
| with taxes.
|
| Tax is included in all end user prices in every European
| country I'm aware of.
| sneak wrote:
| No, the business is built on infrastructure that is paid
| for with a tiny fraction of taxes.
|
| They are not congruent.
|
| Taxes in Europe are also much higher in general. Perhaps
| this is a result of obscuring the amounts in the advertised
| prices--it never raises to the level of conscious
| consideration of the tax burden at point of purchase.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| If the government runs a deficit- which it does- then the
| taxes are literally too low to cover the infrastructure
| so it can't be "a fraction".
|
| Sure you can argue some of that goes to military (a safe
| nation is kinda infrastructure) and healthcare/Welfare
| (healthy and fed employees and customers are good for
| business too) but regardless your view on taxes, they all
| somehow end up back to helping the nation _regardless of
| how efficiently or directly that happens_.
| hiq wrote:
| In Europe I still haven't seen a bill without the VAT clearly
| shown in the final bill. I've also seen shops showing the two
| prices, one without the VAT, one with. But if only one is
| shown, it should be the one I will pay.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| That's because it's illegal in the EU to display or
| advertise a price to a consumer (ie not another business)
| without VAT added.
| vore wrote:
| As the average consumer, I would much rather see how much
| money I need to take out of my pocket on the sticker price
| rather than deeply considering what the tax burden of my jug
| of milk is.
| lockhouse wrote:
| We can have both. Sticker price can be all-inclusive price
| with taxes and fees required to be listed in detail on the
| receipt.
| arrrg wrote:
| Sellers can still make it very clear how much of the sum were
| taxes.
|
| Here in Germany every bill, every receipt will contain that
| information. (I mean, obviously, it's legally required.)
|
| Different sellers do this differently in terms of clarity,
| though I think this has little to do with any kind of price
| signal to the buyer or sticking it to the government or
| something like that.
|
| My feeling is that the more likely it is that the customer is
| a company (which do not have to pay VAT) the more clearly do
| sellers communicate the VAT part of the price.
|
| In fact, if you are not selling to consumers you can ditch
| that VAT altogether when you communicate your prices.
| Alternatively (when talking about online retailers) they may
| provide a toggle to switch between being a business customers
| or a private customer, e.g. here the toggle top left next to
| the Conrad logo: https://www.conrad.de
| crote wrote:
| So have them put both prices with and without taxes on the
| label if they want to. The total tax burden will be listed on
| the receipt anyways.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| Sales tax rates change too often in the US for this to work. I
| like the idea in concept, but I can understand why it doesn't
| work in practice in the US given the current tax regime.
| zamadatix wrote:
| How often is sales tax changing that it becomes infeasible to
| update the shelf price tags? The grocery stores seem to
| handle it just fine changing the "buy one get one" type tags
| every month!
| manquer wrote:
| A lot harder to do online without knowing the zip code .
| People are sometimes vary of sharing that just to see full
| price
| runarberg wrote:
| Two solutions:
|
| a) Universal sales tax within the state. Allow local
| governments some other varying taxes (such as income or
| paycheck tax)
|
| b) Put small bracket under the price _"(includes 9.5%
| sales tax for zip 98210 <a>change location</a>)"_
| zamadatix wrote:
| I think anonymous online price viewing would have to
| exclude tax for that reason but e.g. being logged into
| Amazon it would be best to display the default/selected
| taxes for ship address. I believe this is how most
| places, including Amazon, do shipping time estimates
| today - generic unless specified or you're logged in.
|
| In general though I think physical storefronts would be
| the shoe in. Virtual might require more thought or even
| changes to how we do taxes to make as much sense.
| ezfe wrote:
| Sites have already solved that for shipping costs - you
| just have a button that offers to include shipping (and
| then tax) with a location entered
| ensignavenger wrote:
| They aren't changing every single tag in the store.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I'd hope not every month! But even if taxes changed
| yearly is that really a large burden? How many things
| even stay in the same shelf at the same price for 1 year
| straight as it is, how many dozens of times was that
| shelf already restocked and inventoried compared to how
| often the price tag would need to be replaced due to
| taxes changing?
| ensignavenger wrote:
| In my state, taxes change at least twice a year, and
| usually 3 times at a minimum. Changing what shelf
| products are on is a continuous, incremental thing-
| changing every tag in the store for tax changes would
| have to happen overnight for all products, on specific
| nights each year.
|
| Many stores like to pre-tag each product package, either
| at the store or manufacturer- you couldn't do that if the
| tax had to be included in the price as the stores have
| many locations each with different tax rates. (I do think
| the tax rates should be prominently posted at the door).
|
| Sales tax compliance is already a massive PITA for retail
| stores. Making them include the sales tax on the tag
| would just be an even bigger PITA.
| zamadatix wrote:
| 3 times a year minimum does sound pretty insane - I'd be
| all for fixing that before fixing price labeling. Do you
| mind me asking which state that is? In Indiana we've
| changed the sales tax 4 times since introducing it in
| 1963 (and don't actually collect it for the grocery
| example like most states), I shudder to think what the
| point of changing it 4 times in a year would be.
| qwertygnu wrote:
| So what? I'd rather it be a corporate pain - in which
| people will get paid to deal with bs - rather than a
| buyer pain - in which all our lives are that much more
| frustrating. Plus, changing price tags? That's the pain?
| Changing tags??? Doing the math that's done at the
| register 1000x/sec and printing it on cards?
| ac29 wrote:
| Even if they were, Eink tags that can be updated
| wirelessly are dirt cheap (certainly not as cheap as
| paper tags, but you also dont have to pay someone to go
| around and change them).
| jgeada wrote:
| If they know how much to charge me at the payment step, they
| know what price to put on the shelf. Everything else is just
| making excuses for keeping it as opaque as it has always been
| in the US.
|
| Yes, it can get a bit more complicated for internet based
| stores, but even there they do already know how much to
| charge at the payment step, so again I say that it is a
| (customer hostile) choice not to show the real price up
| front.
| thewebcount wrote:
| > If they know how much to charge me at the payment step,
| they know what price to put on the shelf.
|
| On the shelf, yes, but then what's on the shelf wouldn't
| match what's advertised on the Internet, in the paper, on
| TV and radio, etc. Because each city can have its own sales
| tax, and each state can have its own sales tax, if you're,
| say, McDonald's, you can't say a hamburger is $3.00 in your
| TV ad because it'll be $3.18 in Michigan, and $3.30 in
| California, and even within the states, it can vary by
| city, if I recall correctly from my cash register
| programming days. It's a stupid system all around, but it
| does actually make it harder to do what everyone wishes
| they would do.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| Even within the same city you can have multiple different
| sales tax zones.
| weberer wrote:
| Or just abolish sales tax. If the states want the money, they
| can just raise state income tax, which they're already
| charging, by a few percent. As it is now, it just complicates
| things and disincentivizes consumers from making purchases,
| which slows down the local economy.
| tptacek wrote:
| Income taxes deter saving and investment, but are easier to
| target.
|
| Sales taxes are hard to make progressive (they're usually
| regressive) and can be harder to enforce (if they're local).
|
| It depends on your goals. It sort of makes sense that we have
| both, at differing rates.
| Jolter wrote:
| While I agree with you mostly, why wouldn't you call sales
| tax progressive? The more you earn, the more you will
| spend, so the more you pay.
|
| The big issue I have with sales tax is that it is a much
| worse solution to the problem than a simple value-added tax
| (VAT). Most countries have figured out that VAT is more
| difficult to cheat.
| kneebonian wrote:
| Yes that is generally common sense reasoning but it is
| called regressive because then poor people spend a larger
| % of their income.
|
| Honestly seems like some mental gymnastics to me to argue
| that regressive is about what % of income is spent on
| taxes rather than amount of taxes paid but that's the
| argument.
| [deleted]
| tptacek wrote:
| That's the definition of a regressive tax.
| KMag wrote:
| Poor people tend to spend a higher percentage of their
| income, and invest a lower percentage. So, they end up
| paying a higher percentage of their incomes in sales tax,
| on average.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| That's true but on the other hand if you never spend
| money then it's not providing you any advantage. Money is
| only useful if it's spent. In that sense a flat sales tax
| is the "fairest" since it reflects the actual chosen
| consumption of that individual.
|
| (I know this isn't true in practice because of exclusions
| from sales taxes, but we could imagine one that applied
| to all consumption.)
| tptacek wrote:
| No, another thing money does besides fueling consumption
| is fueling investment, which generates yet more money.
|
| There is some strange axiomatic derivation happening in
| this thread. The term "regressive tax" has a specific
| meaning; we can just start with that as an axiom, rather
| than re-deriving all of economics. A regressive tax is
| simply one that takes a higher percentage of income from
| low-income taxpayers than high-income taxpayers.
| [deleted]
| rudolph9 wrote:
| You're describing Oregon.
| kneebonian wrote:
| Income tax is generally state and federal, sales tax is
| usually municipal and county.
|
| It's a lot harder for a city to collect income tax than sales
| tax.
| wpietri wrote:
| And it's better for businesses too! They get to compete on
| honest things like quality and cost, not BS like tricking you
| into weird fees.
| lockhouse wrote:
| If it was better for businesses it would already be the
| common practice.
| baron816 wrote:
| No, it's a coordination problem. If you're the only one
| hiding your prices in fees, it can be an advantage since it
| looks like you're charging less. Everyone has to do it to
| keep up, but since everyone does it, no one really gets an
| advantage. With mandated transparent pricing, no one has an
| opportunity to "cheat" and everyone can specialize (in cost
| or quality or features/amenities, or some mix of those).
| wpietri wrote:
| Not at all. A great example is health codes.
|
| Serving good, safe food is something pretty much every food
| business wants to do at the outset. Nobody opens a
| restaurant thinking, "Let's see who we can get sick!" But
| imagine your hamburger stand is next to a guy who's willing
| to cut corners. Use the older meat. Buy from the dodgier
| supplier. Maybe spend less labor time cleaning. Suddenly
| his prices are lower and you're losing business. Other
| restaurants nearby are too. You're faced with a choice: do
| you cut corners, or go out of business?
|
| So if you talk with restaurateurs, you'll find that most of
| them are in favor of health codes and health inspections,
| because although they can be a pain, they're keeping
| competitors on a level playing field. They like food safety
| laws for suppliers even though they make prices higher,
| because they don't want to have to worry about giving their
| customers unsafe or suspicious food.
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| Great analogy, never thought of it this way.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's not an analogy, it's actually happening. I think you
| mean "example."
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| Great analogy, thanks!
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| This is a world wide problem. After traveling in Europe, I
| think it is a global issue and quite bad in Europe.
| Banks across the European Union slap customers with hidden
| fees, offer financial advice that can turn out to be harmful
| and provide inadequate information to consumers before they
| sign up for accounts, according to a report released Tuesday by
| the European Commission.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB125363506624231121
|
| https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187234-i138-k10962835...
|
| https://wise.com/gb/blog/transparency-an-open-letter-from-th...
| coding123 wrote:
| Yes I think CA should be the next state to rid itself of sales
| tax!
| russdill wrote:
| As an opportunity to move to a more progressive tax system?
| Helping to reduce the tax load on lower income folks and
| shifting it up the tax bracket?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I almost booked a Turo for an extended period of time, peer to
| peer rental cars, it gave me a 40% discount for that time length,
| but all of that discount was erased by fees and it was more
| expensive than the previous page said it would be.
|
| Curb stomp them please, thanks.
| nilespotter wrote:
| > Curb stomp them please, thanks.
|
| I'm not sure I've ever seen such a casual use of such violent
| imagery. I did not care for it.
| paul7986 wrote:
| im using hotels more and more often over Air BnB as their
| clickbait pricing reminds and makes me feel like Im dealing with
| a cable TV company such as Comcast.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| I wish they would treat sales tax as a hidden fee. Just show the
| actual damn price up front plzkthx.
| twblalock wrote:
| If we had a standard sales tax, sure. But when sales taxes vary
| by city and county, like they do in California, it's very
| painful to do that -- and that's only 1 of the 50 states!
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > it's very painful to do that
|
| Sure it's hard. Do I care? Not in even the slightest. I have
| not one picogram of care.
|
| The calculation is made at the point of sale. They can list a
| final price and work backwards. Does that make it harder for
| a business to set the price? Yeah maybe. I still don't care.
|
| It's a clearly solvable problem. It'd provide a superior
| consumer experience. It'd be slightly inconvenient for
| businesses. SHIP IT.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| It's also very painful for me to have to guess the final
| price with all these different sales taxes. I think maybe if
| it had to be included in the final price, then the cities and
| counties might standardize a bit more.
| 93po wrote:
| They're still having to make that calculation at the
| register. There's no reason they can't calculate it when
| making price tags.
| Alupis wrote:
| > like they do in California, it's very painful to do that --
| and that's only 1 of the 50 states
|
| Not all 50 states have a tax system as absurd as
| California's, where it matters down to the exact part of the
| street you're standing on when buying something.
|
| Other states are the example CA should follow, not the other
| way around.
| asdff wrote:
| Sales tax is at least easy to calculate back of the envelope.
| Alupis wrote:
| Sales Tax probably should be done-away with.
|
| In California, you are taxed when you earn a dollar, and taxed
| when you spend that same dollar.
|
| If you look at your bank account and it's balance is $100, you
| do not actually have $100 in purchasing power, but rather 7-12%
| less, because sales tax will be computed when you spend this
| money.
|
| Why not just charge the appropriate amount for Income Tax and
| be done with it...
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Sales taxes penalize poorer people, who spend a greater
| proportion of their income. They are regressive and unfair.
|
| In the UK we have two different kinds of income tax; one is
| called National Insurance, but it's not insurance at all.
| It's there so that the government can brag about reducing
| income tax.
|
| When the UK joined the EU, we had to introduce sales tax
| (VAT). Part of the VAT receipts were to fund the EU. Note
| that VAT is _much_ higher than US sales taxes (20%). Now we
| 're out: whoopee! No more VAT! Oh, hang on...
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > Sales taxes penalize poorer people, who spend a greater
| proportion of their income. They are regressive and unfair.
|
| It's only unfair if the collected tax revenue isn't used to
| benefit the poor.
|
| The US has one of the most progressive tax systems on the
| planet. Sweden has one of the most regressive [1]. A tax
| being regressive or progressive doesn't make it inherently
| bad or good. And if a country can't effectively utilize tax
| revenue then it doesn't matter who foots the bill.
|
| [1] https://www.vox.com/2014/10/8/6946565/progressive-
| taxes-are-...
| denton-scratch wrote:
| As a matter of cross-party practice over many years, UK
| sales tax (VAT) just goes into the government's general
| funds, same as income tax, national insurance, road tax,
| capital gains tax, inheritance tax and so on. There is a
| strong aversion here to hypothecation. That is: sales
| taxes are not used to benefit the poor, particularly.
| They are used to finance defence expenditure, tax cuts
| for bankers, and fees for pharma and consulting
| companies, same as other tax revenues.
|
| I think the only exception is local property tax
| ("Council tax"), which partially props up the funding of
| local government. But that's capped, and most local
| authorities charge the maximum. So it might as well be
| paid by central government, out of the general fund.
|
| [Edit] I take your point about regressive/progressive.
| The Vox article didn't use the term "progressive"; they
| said "broad-based". It's right that a tax-hike should hit
| everybody; but it's also fair that it should hit high
| earners harder than the poor, roughly in proportion to
| what they earn.
|
| Wealth tax, as a tax on savings and property, is
| iniquitous.
| mhb wrote:
| No mention of the ludicrous conglomeration of mobile phone fees?
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Yeah that is annoying as hell. Comcast mobile is actually very
| clear and open- they have no hidden fees. Surprising from them.
|
| Verizon can f off, 20%+ extra "fees" all the time.. glad I'm
| done with them.
| scarface74 wrote:
| T-mobile advertises monthly fees inclusive of all taxes and
| fees
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Yeah it's interesting that I find myself saying something
| positive about Comcast. Their Internet pricing is similar.
| Advertised at $72/month, that's exactly what I pay. No
| additional fees tacked on.
| jojohack wrote:
| As others have said, I hope this applies to "resort fees" What
| makes it worse is many hotels having this hidden charge in
| parallel advertise a "complimentary" breakfast.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| > The legislation -- the first bill of its type across the state
| -- would prohibit advertising a price for a good or service that
| does not include all required charges other than taxes and fees
| imposed by a government.
|
| I don't get it, so it's OK for government to hide its fees but
| not the business?
|
| I wish the government were to lead by example and also try to
| eliminate hidden government fees. Here in California, different
| cities can have different sales tax, and knowing the final price
| can seem like a guessing game.
|
| I would love if taxes, tips, and other business fees were all
| included in a final price that were stated upfront.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > I don't get it, so it's OK for government to hide its fees
| but not the business?
|
| Other way round; the bill would make it mandatory to include
| all fees _except_ the government 's fees.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Yeah, I think they'd have a stronger argument if they
| mandated all fees to be included, including government fees.
| Animats wrote:
| This over-regulation will interfere with the God-given right of
| companies to screw over the suckers. Next they'll be coming after
| payday loans for usury.
| themitigating wrote:
| I know this is sarcastic and if you didn't post it first I
| would have.
|
| The inconsistencies some people have when complaining about
| regulation, California, and Democrats is just irritating
| peyton wrote:
| What does a consumer protection bill have to do with
| regulation?
| Animats wrote:
| It interferes with the sacred Right of Contract.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Uh...
| megaman821 wrote:
| Regulation isn't a singular thing. People want more good
| regulations and less bad regulations. Even when good
| regulations exist, people want competent enforcement of the
| regulations.
|
| California passes a lot regulations, so there is a lot of red
| meat for either side of the regulations good/bad arguments.
| themitigating wrote:
| Republicans say they don't want more legislation, not "bad"
| legislation.
|
| Also good and bad are subjective
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Florida begs to differ
| megaman821 wrote:
| You can't think of a single thing that Republicans want
| to legislate?
|
| Of course good and bad are subjective. That is the whole
| point, the concept of regulations can't be generally put
| into a good or bad basket. No one is advocating for
| absolutely no regulations. You are arguing against a
| straw man that you made up.
| parasense wrote:
| So like... what about the way CA taxes people who live in other
| states...
|
| Seems kind of like hidden fees to me... folks livign out of
| state, but went on vacation to CA, or flew to the the bay area on
| a business trip, or whatever...
|
| The biggest hidden fee of all time is CA taxing out of state
| entities.
| tehranian wrote:
| >>> The legislation -- the first bill of its type across the
| state -- would prohibit advertising a price for a good or service
| that does not include all required charges other than taxes and
| fees imposed by a government.
|
| >>> "Californians are sick and tired of dishonest fees being
| tacked on to seemingly everything," said state Senator Bill Dodd.
| "It's an underhanded trick...
|
| Why do government-imposed fees get a special exemption these
| "dishonest" and "underhanded" tricks? :thinking:
|
| ;)
|
| Note: In Europe, the advertised price always includes the related
| taxes: https://www.quora.com/Do-prices-in-Europe-include-taxes
| tzs wrote:
| > Note: In Europe, the advertised price always includes the
| related taxes
|
| How does that work for prices in broadcast ads that reach
| multiple countries? VAT can vary from country to country so
| which country's VAT rate do you use in the ad?
| troad wrote:
| There really isn't a lot of multi-country advertising in
| Europe. You're going to run into bigger problems than showing
| correct VAT rates - language being probably the most obvious
| one, but also different regulatory requirements for things
| like mandatory warnings, watershed rules, etc.
|
| In practice, advertising is always going to need to be
| adapted for every European market.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Government taxes are at least fairly consistent so it doesn't
| matter for comparison shopping.
| russdill wrote:
| Because they vary based on the municipality you live in.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > The legislation -- the first bill of its type across the state
| -- would prohibit advertising a price for a good or service that
| does not include all required charges other than taxes and fees
| imposed by a government.
|
| I wish it included the taxes and government fees also. The whole
| hidden fee culture seems to be enabled by us all being so
| accustomed to paying extra at checkout.
| [deleted]
| grandmczeb wrote:
| Interesting that fees imposed by the government are specifically
| exempted in this bill.
| bialpio wrote:
| When the state has a monopoly on something, does it really
| matter? It's not like you can go to the competition to renew
| your driver's license...
| nxm wrote:
| Very Californian
| themitigating wrote:
| Yes, we should look at Texas where such a law doesn't exist.
| el_don_almighty wrote:
| Does this law include taxes like Social Security?
|
| Many people think they only pay 7.5% and the company pays the
| other 7.5% but this is wrong. The employee pays the whole 15%,
| they just don't see it come out of their check.
|
| Does that count as a "hidden fee?" What about VAT taxes?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| You could argue the same about corporate income taxes but
| everyone here seems to love those
| yadaeno wrote:
| The hotel industry has the most egregious fees in my opinion.
|
| You pay online, then you show up and they demand $90 for cleaning
| and other fees. I hope this goes through and moves us towards a
| sane direction.
| stall84 wrote:
| I'm sure every Californian, appropriately for this time of year,
| are taking a look at that state income tax return looming
| thinking "God what an amazing use of my tax dollars.. "
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| I don't use things like Uber Eats very much.. but I did last
| week. It would literally NOT SHOW ME the all in price before I
| had to click order. It only showed me what the restaurant was
| charging me. I think earlier in the process it did show the
| delivery fees of some sort, to be fair.
|
| But at the very final point they hide it from you, which is
| absolutely insane it's even legal.
| EGreg wrote:
| Does this mean hospitals will have to tell you what they charge
| upfront?
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| Guess all of us outside of CA are going make up the difference
| via higher hidden fees. :(
|
| I started writing this comment as a joke, but I no longer am sure
| that it is.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The Republican response: Smart politics, but
| bad economics. Ban baggage fees = higher ticket
| prices Ban resort fees = higher room prices Ban
| credit card late fees = higher interest rates These
| proposals just make some consumers pay more to cover the costs of
| other consumers.
|
| https://twitter.com/George_A_Callas/status/16233291827793182...
|
| There is a point hidden in there, in that banning optional fees
| makes the price go up for people who refuse the option.
|
| But when the fee is mandatory, hiding it is basically pure evil.
|
| Much more developed argument than my pure evil comment:
| https://www.slowboring.com/p/junk-fees
| xbar wrote:
| Consumers always pay the same. It's just not clear until it's
| too late.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It's not a terrible argument, except for resort fees. Tell me
| how I can opt out.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Every business has started doing this and I'm glad there is
| finally some consumer protection happening.. It's worse than the
| bronze/gold/platinum 'memberships' or 'package' schemes that have
| shown up everywhere. My dog's boarding place hit me with three
| fees on pickup (they also have like 200 permutations of packages
| that try monetize every possible marginal activity - taking
| pictures with your dog, letting them hang out with staff 'up
| front', allegedly watching movies with them, each individual toy
| or treat, etc).
|
| It's sad that we have to look to government to solve basic stuff
| like this. I'd rather not regulate everything to death but the
| alternative is annoying shit like this. Like I could try to go to
| another dog boarding place, but there just aren't that many of
| them and they probably do the same thing. I bet they're all owned
| by the same private equity firm anyway.
| MR4D wrote:
| I can't wait to see the unintended effects of this bill on
| healthcare. If we're lucky, this bill might actually accomplish
| something!
| jawadch93 wrote:
| [dead]
| 93po wrote:
| Income tax also feels like a hidden fee since it's automatically
| deducted from your paycheck and is out of sight/out of mind for
| most people, despite it taking anywhere from a quarter to a third
| of your income. If people had to pay a monthly tax bill every
| month, I think they'd think very differently about their level of
| taxes. Note: I'm not actually advocating that, I think it sounds
| awful. But the hidden-fee experience feels very similar
| tonightstoast wrote:
| I don't know where you've worked but you can choose to not let
| your employer deduct anything. Normally it's done automatically
| to ensure that you don't get it with an unaffordable tax bill
| at the end of the year.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Airfares are another big culprit for this. When oil was at a high
| price, airlines started charging "fuel surcharges". There's no
| such thing. That service simply costs more. I think they also did
| it to (further) erode awards redemptions because they still had
| to pay any additional fees.
|
| Uber famously did this with a safety fee when there was a string
| of negative news reports. What did this fee do? Literally
| nothing. They just pocketed it.
|
| Airbnb is an obvious one of course.
|
| Whenever I see anything like lack of transparent pricing and the
| necessary for such legislation, I have to chuckle at the expense
| of anarchists and libertarians because a strong government is
| necessary for any market to function. How are there any
| anarchists or libertarians at all?
| bagels wrote:
| I hope this applies to "resort fees" that hotels charge and the
| dozens of types of service fees that restaurants invent (one
| around here had an ACA surcharge for political reasons).
| grahar64 wrote:
| As a foreigner who lived in the USA for a few years, I always
| thought the US runs in hidden fees.
|
| From tipping, to taxes not in the sale price, to insurances not
| being able to give a price for a procedure, to hotel fees... I
| could never actually guess how much anything would cost.
|
| Either the wording of the law will have a ton of exclusions per
| industry.
| themitigating wrote:
| "Either the wording of the law will have a ton of exclusions
| per industry."
|
| Even if it does it's better than no law.
| scarface74 wrote:
| A complicated law only helps big business that has the
| resources to follow it.
|
| Look no further than the shit show of the 11 chapter 99
| section GDPR.
| dangwhy wrote:
| > tipping
|
| This has gotten ridiculous past 2-3 year. Buy a $3.00 coffee ,
| $1 tip is expected. I hate those ipad type payment consoles.
| grahar64 wrote:
| The night after my first haircut in the US I was like "oh
| shit" and I googled "do you tip for a haircut" and realized I
| fucked up. The results were anywhere from 10%-50% tip.
|
| The next haircut I got I asked "what is a good tip" and the
| hair cutter would not tell me. I guessed 20% and went about
| my day. Then someone told me "that was too low".
|
| I ended up cutting my own hair, or waiting until I was in
| another sane country.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I always tip $10 which is around 50%. But I'm only going
| every 2 months so it doesn't matter much and I'd rather not
| risk the disfavour of someone with sharp tools near my
| face.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Hmmm I guess a lot changed since my last vacation to the US
| 10 years ago.
|
| I remember all the travel advisories said something about
| 10 to 15 percent.
| aninteger wrote:
| 20% is fine for a haircut. It's perfectly acceptable.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| No it's not. Hair stylists should set there prices
| accordingly in a way that they make a livable wage.
| juve1996 wrote:
| 20% was fine when haircuts were a lot cheaper.
|
| My barber and most in the area have increased their
| prices significantly. 20% at $20 isn't bad. When my
| haircut is now pushing 35-40 range it becomes harder to
| stomach.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Not only that, but now everyone wants tips for things which
| never expected it before. Food cart? Tip. Fast food drive-
| thru? Tip.
|
| Heck, my barber now charges $25 for a haircut (which takes
| all of 15 minutes) and we're expected to tip for that too.
|
| Then there are tips that I apparently don't really know about
| but if I don't, I'm the jerk. I never knew I was supposed to
| tip the natural gas guy when he comes by to do some service
| (which is 'free', this is service from the actual gas company
| on the meter). My neighbor tips the garbage truck driver.
|
| If someone put an initiative on the ballot that explicitly
| banned tipping, I'd vote for it.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Heck, my barber now charges $25 for a haircut (which
| takes all of 15 minutes) and we're expected to tip for that
| too.
|
| It's been customary to tip barbers since forever, hasn't
| it? When I was just 8, my father gave me money to tip the
| barber. I think the principle is, you tip so that the
| server remembers you. With haircuts, that can make a
| difference.
|
| My hair is now so thin and wispy that no barber can make it
| look OK. I cut it very short myself, with electric
| clippers. I haven't been to a barbers in 8 years.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Yeah I guess I should be more specific. It's not really a
| barber, I think it's more 'hair stylist' I guess? Just a
| place that does all kinds of haircuts. No barber pole on
| the front or anything like that. Rarely get the same
| stylist twice, and they just pull up my cutting
| preferences from their computer when I check in.
|
| > My hair is now so thin and wispy that no barber can
| make it look OK. I cut it very short myself, with
| electric clippers. I haven't been to a barbers in 8
| years.
|
| Ha! I'm getting there fast. I can still get it cut so it
| doesn't look terrible, but it quickly grows out and
| starts to look patchy, and worse, like I'm trying to have
| some kind of hangover. I'm this ---><--- close to just
| taking the clippers to it myself and calling it good.
| willcipriano wrote:
| The way barber shops/salons work is the barber typically
| rents a chair from the business, some proportion of the
| fee you pay goes to the house and it is expected that the
| barber will earn some proportion of their money via tips.
| They also provide their own tools and products. Tipping
| barbers goes back at least to the 80's if not longer.
| thewebcount wrote:
| It doesn't matter if that's how a barber typically works.
| Your average consumer doesn't and shouldn't have to
| understand how every business they frequent works behind
| the scenes. I shouldn't need a degree in economics just
| to get a freakin' hair cut.
| willcipriano wrote:
| It's really only wait staff, bellhops, valets, catering
| for private events, hotel maids and barbers that need a
| tip historically.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Heck, my barber now charges $25 for a haircut (which
| takes all of 15 minutes) and we're expected to tip for that
| too.
|
| I think this comment perfectly encapsulates why tipping has
| exploded and why it's never going away. People say they
| hate tips, but they complain vehemently when the base price
| of those goods rises to a decent wage.
|
| In most urban areas I'd posit the reason for the explosion
| of tipping is because of the growing wealth inequality and
| explosion in housing costs. I'd bet that your barber is
| having a hell of a harder time making ends meet than, say,
| your average software developer compared to 10 years ago.
| [deleted]
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I think this comment perfectly encapsulates why tipping
| has exploded and why it's never going away. People say
| they hate tips, but they complain vehemently when the
| base price of those goods rises to a decent wage.
|
| I'm not complaining about the price of the haircut, per
| se. I guess I could have phrased it better. What's
| getting me is that they're raising the price steadily,
| every few months it seems. That's cool, inflation is
| real, they have to make a living, I get it. But if
| they're doing a good job ratcheting up prices to keep up
| with inflation, why do I need to worry about tipping them
| so they can make ends meet?
|
| Yes, they're not up to software developer levels. But
| they do get carpal tunnel, so there's that. And they
| require a bit of training and licensing before they can
| work. But at $100/hr, lets assume the stylist is getting
| 50% of that. They're not poor, they're more than 3x our
| local minimum wage.
|
| Even then, it would bother me that my tipping was
| required for them to make ends meet. I'd _much_ rather
| pay a fair price and not feel guilty based on how much I
| tip, wondering if it 's enough, etc.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Just because the option is there on the tablet doesn't mean
| it's expected. Counter serve food/takeout and basic coffee
| will 95% of the time not get a tip from me.
| dangwhy wrote:
| > Just because the option is there on the tablet doesn't
| mean it's expected.
|
| Yes i am too much of wuss to not tip when the person behind
| the counter is staring right at me making that choice.
| ddingus wrote:
| I have started inputting a custom amount. Recently, I've
| noticed some places keeping the machine out of my hands and
| flat out asking, "what should I do here?"
|
| It's way over the top aggressive now.
| gruez wrote:
| >Buy a $3.00 coffee , $1 tip is expected.
|
| Is this a fancy coffee shop thing? I admittedly don't go to
| cafes often, but my impression was that it's a "tipping
| optional" type of place (as opposed to something like full
| service restaurants which are tipping defacto mandatory).
| yamtaddle wrote:
| It's a side-effect (uh, or, deliberate feature) of modern
| POS systems. Defaulting to having a tip line on receipts
| for e.g. a carry-out meal from a restaurant, which people
| _never_ used to tip for, or showing a tip option on an iPad
| in a situation that never, ever called for tipping before
| _and the worker is standing right there watching you fill
| tap or fill out the receipt_ so you feel like maybe you 're
| being a dick (what's the norm now? Are you one of _those_
| assholes abusing sub-minimum-wage tip workers if you don 't
| tip? Who knows!) if you don't.
|
| Tipping was just _not even considered_ in these
| transactions, before.
|
| [EDIT] Oh, and percentage-tip defaults for situations where
| the norm before was maybe you toss your extra change or a
| $1 bill in the tip jar, and it was pretty normal not to tip
| at all _most_ of the time. "18%, 20%, 25%, Custom, Skip".
| ghaff wrote:
| And if the POS systems made you feel like a bit of a
| cheapskate before, they sure made you feel like one in
| 2020/2021 comfortably working at home while young service
| workers were pouring coffee or flipping burgers.
| shagie wrote:
| > to taxes not in the sale price
|
| This gets complicated and there's good reason.
|
| The taxes depend on where you take possession of the goods. If
| you purchase an item and walk up to the checkout counter, you
| pay the taxes there. On the other hand, if you are buying
| lumber in Kansas City, KS to be delivered in Kanas City, MO -
| you pay the MO taxes (4.225%) rather than the KS taxes (6.5%).
| So, putting the taxes on the lumber ($3.35) in KS would be
| $0.22 and if it was to be delivered on the other side of the
| state line, that would be $0.15.
|
| If you were to say "ahh! Lets solve this by having taxes paid
| for where you buy it instead" then everyone incorporates in
| Delaware and you get some sizable data centers in Oregon and
| sell everything online from there... and you've got other
| problems with states trying to collect sales tax on goods
| delivered there.
| [deleted]
| vineyardmike wrote:
| If you buy something in one state and drive it to another
| then you're supposed to be taxes based on the destination
| when you "import" it.
|
| If you sell to Missouri, you pay Missouri tax. It's not
| actually complicated. I'm not sure what you're trying to
| solve?
| shagie wrote:
| That the easiest solution is to have "tax not included" on
| the price of the item. If you buy it in MO and import it to
| another state, that is tax added on to the overall price of
| the item that is "hidden". Trying to put that on the
| sticker price gets complicated.
|
| I am not saying there's an easy solution but rather a "the
| easy solution misses every complicated case for which there
| are many."
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > if you are buying lumber in Kansas City, KS to be delivered
| in Kanas City, MO - you pay the MO taxes (4.225%) rather than
| the KS taxes (6.5%)
|
| It gets even better. In some places (e.g. Washington) you pay
| use tax[0][1] if the use tax would be higher than the sales
| tax you did pay. So if for example you buy something in
| Oregon and bring it home to Washington, you pay all of the
| use tax. If you bought something in a state with a sales tax
| that is lower than the Washington use tax, you pay the
| difference. (It isn't immediately clear if you can try to
| recoup the difference if you buy something in a higher sales
| tax location than your local use tax rate).
|
| [0] It's the same as your sales tax rate.
|
| [1] https://dor.wa.gov/taxes-rates/use-tax
| shagie wrote:
| That was the case before and is still the case, just most
| of the time they ignore it. It is really looked at when a
| state borders another one with no sales tax.
|
| Some time back that was also the case with online sales.
| That you paid the tax of the state where you bought if it
| if that state had a tax nexus there - otherwise you didn't
| pay sales tax and were expected to self report the use tax.
|
| Except no one did. So sales tax was required to be
| collected by online sellers always.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/21/heres-what-that-supreme-
| cour...
|
| As to the use tax - when I bought clothes at Mall of
| America in MN (2010ish) and lived in northern Wisconsin I'd
| remember to add that to the tax reporting.
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, you're supposed to. I expect very few consumers pay
| the use tax except in situations like purchasing a car
| where they can't hide it.
| skaushik92 wrote:
| This is not necessarily a bad thing. This incentivizes states
| and districts to compete on taxation and would likely drive
| sales tax down nationally.
| shagie wrote:
| As there are states that are 0%, this would mean "no sales
| tax at all" which would really hit states where they don't
| have any income tax and instead just have sales tax.
|
| Under that approach, live in Texas and buy everything
| online from Oregon and you'll never pay any taxes.
|
| States need to raise revenue _somehow_ and playing that
| form of tax arbitrage shifts the burden of taxes to the
| people who don 't have the resources to do that.
| skaushik92 wrote:
| No; in fact sales tax is what's shifting the burden in
| that direction. Income tax on the other hand is a
| progressive tax that keeps impact more proportional.
| shagie wrote:
| If you have the resources to declare residency in Texas
| and pay sales taxes from Oregon you are able to avoid
| paying most taxes.
|
| I am saying that most people don't have the resources to
| play tax arbitrage. Those that do are the ones that
| should likely be paying the most taxes.
|
| Going to a system were sales taxes go to 0 based on where
| you buy it (online in Oregon) doesn't mean that states
| will abandon the sales tax but rather that the tax burden
| that local governments can collect (sales, property) will
| go up and disproportionately impact the people who can
| least afford it.
|
| As it is, that approach would be overturning South Dakota
| vs Wayfair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota_v._
| Wayfair,_Inc. --- https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/1
| 7pdf/17-494_j4el.pdf
|
| Sales tax is regressive and a worse option for taxation.
| It is, however, one of the few options that local
| governments have for raising funds.
|
| The tax system needs an overhaul (though frankly my
| confidence in congress not just doing another tax cut for
| the rich is low). Disrupting sales tax without a
| corresponding overhaul would likely make things much
| worse in many of the poorer areas of the nation and those
| where much of the economy is based on non-residents
| visiting.
| skaushik92 wrote:
| Interesting point; yeah, I agree that a significant
| population does not have the ability to move around. If I
| understand you correctly, you're saying that in a world
| where all sales tax is zero, the wealthier population
| will be able to arbitrage/optimize over the remaining tax
| types they pay more easily than those less wealthy,
| resulting in a larger wealth gap. This argument could
| also apply inductively in a sense over those remaining
| types as well, since the optimization problem gets easier
| as we have fewer dimensions of tax types to worry about.
| What I'm thinking then is the improvement here isn't to
| remove taxes entirely but to remove flat taxes like sales
| tax and replace them with more/varying progressive taxes
| that make arbitrage difficult?
|
| I hope I'm not coming off as rude--really appreciate the
| discussion thus far!
| shagie wrote:
| Yep - we're on the same page now.
|
| Also consider things like Nevada which has no income tax
| and one of the higher combined sales tax because they are
| able to extract money from out of state people as
| tourists there.
|
| California also shows up in the "rather high combined
| sales tax" in part because local governments arne't able
| to reliably use property tax (yes, its another regressive
| tax - and California is a special case there) to raise
| local funds. (
| https://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/sales-
| tax/unders... ).
|
| There are some progressiveish aspects to sales tax as it
| selects _which_ items are taxable. In Minnesota (for
| example), clothing is not taxed. On the other hand, from
| Wisconsin, its sometimes cheaper to shop online and have
| Ikea delivered rather than go to Chicago and pay local
| taxes there ( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm
| ons/a/ae/State_Sa... )
|
| In many cases, sales taxes try to tax the more "luxury"
| items though it gets complicated (food eaten in the place
| of purchase gets taxed while food that is not hot and to
| be consumed elsewhere is not taxed).
|
| This comes from experience working in the tax part of
| point of sales software a few years ago. The "it gets
| complicated" gets _really_ complicated... and even worse
| when you then start looking at it from the fiscal policy
| side for local governments.
| ec109685 wrote:
| While different, it irks me that there are a bunch of hidden fees
| with UberEats and DoorDash. Not only do delivery companies charge
| the consumer fees, but restaurants generally raise their prices
| by 50% if you are buying through an app. That delta is not shown
| anywhere.
| nanidin wrote:
| Include Instacart in that group that charges more than the
| price on the shelf at the store, then adds on service and
| delivery fees on top of that.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| And then they get half the items wrong anyway
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > other than taxes and fees imposed by a government.
|
| Why that exclusion? Why not require the price on the label to be
| the price you pay?
| russdill wrote:
| This makes sense for location specific services. If you are
| trying to compare two hotel rooms, by so means, they should be
| forced to include all the taxes they require since that doesn't
| involve your location and is important when comparing prices.
|
| But should not be a requirement for products where I would need
| to pay my local tax as that would require me to enter my
| location and would not provide any interesting extra
| information between products.
| iamdamian wrote:
| This is welcome news.
|
| An egregious example of what they are (hopefully) aiming to stop:
| https://passingtime.substack.com/p/perfidious-pricing
|
| Also, a 2021 story from the Times about how drip pricing is
| getting out of control:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/opinion/consumers-drip-pr...
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| I have always been disgusted by the AirBnB practice where they
| charge YOU a service fee and take out a % of the nightly fee
| the owner charges.
|
| Like who are they working for? Me? Or the b&b owner?
| causality0 wrote:
| I find it very hard to believe that in the long run companies
| actually profit from having such a confrontational relationship
| with their customers. Like is getting an extra five dollars a
| month from me really worth me hating you?
| paxys wrote:
| The problem is that shareholders and "activist investors"
| aren't exactly thinking about the long term. It's in their best
| interests to covert a company's goodwill into hard cash, do a
| series of share buybacks with the money, and then get out of
| the position.
| asdff wrote:
| A lot of it too is just lemmings being lemmings. There are no
| shareholder activist investors involved when your local
| brewpub tacks on a 25% service fee. That's just them doing
| what their other asshole small business owner friends have
| been doing and not a farsighted play or anything. I know they
| are assholes because I've overheard conversations of these
| types many times, especially during the pandemic complaining
| how none of their staff wants to return to work for the wages
| they are offering. For a lot of business owners, they end up
| looking at the numbers alone, weighing what they mean for
| their immediate cash flow much more than how those numbers
| impact their employees or even overall customer relations.
| asdff wrote:
| Companies know that the number of people who would boycott them
| for a small fee is extraordinarily small. Most people take
| their medicine and move on with their lives, since its not like
| you have an alternative for most of these goods and services in
| life, or the alternative operates the exact same way. If it
| didn't work well these practices wouldn't be so widespread.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > other than taxes and fees imposed by a government
|
| IMO, taxes need to be part of the advertised price.
|
| Part of the reason we tolerate hidden fees in the US is because
| we're used to paying more than the sticker price for something
| _because_ it doesn 't include taxes (and tip.)
|
| If I lived in CA, I'd contact my reps and ask them to redo the
| bill to also include taxes and tips. It's not right to eliminate
| some kinds of hidden fees while still keeping government hidden
| fees.
| jmugan wrote:
| I agree but worry that could derail this good legislation.
| [deleted]
| jawns wrote:
| "Californians are fed up with being bombarded by junk fees that,
| more and more, are making it unaffordable to attend a concert, go
| to a sporting event, take a vacation, or stay at a hotel."
|
| Oh, believe me, state Senator Nancy Skinner, requiring businesses
| to disclose these fees up front is not going to make these
| purchases any more affordable. Companies will either maintain the
| fees but comply with the disclosure requirement or remove the
| fees and jack up the base price accordingly. Either way, the
| goods and services they sell will not magically become cheaper.
|
| What it will do, however, is level the playing field, which is
| good for competition, and may have some indirect benefits for
| consumers. So I'm very much in support of requiring up-front
| pricing. (In fact, it would be lovely to see pricing that's
| inclusive of all taxes as well.)
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| increasing competition lowers prices.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Assuming the companies are not hiding the fees for shits and
| giggles, we should see an impact albeit not as large as the
| entire fees but not $0 either.
| lclarkmichalek wrote:
| Unbundling is a real thing, with some pronounced second order
| affects. The first order effect of charging for in flight food
| service and checked bagged is purely redistributive, but rise
| of low cost, heavily unbundled airlines has increased the total
| market for air travel, increasing net economic activity in the
| sector.
| 88913527 wrote:
| Leveling the playing field means increased competition which
| means better prices for consumers. It does make it more
| affordable. Your listed examples are discretionary purchases.
| So it might not matter much to higher earners, but I'm sure
| some median earners bounce when they make it to the final step
| in the checkout flow when all the fees are revealed and now
| it's out of budget.
| miguelazo wrote:
| Can't wait. AirBnB is one of the worst offenders here.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Airbnb isn't even cheaper or more convenient for most travel
| situations.
| themitigating wrote:
| Never?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Obviously you can never say never, but in my experience
| AirBnB is very rarely more economical than a full service
| hotel. And residential homes are rarely in as convenient a
| location as a hotel.
| 93po wrote:
| "most"
| sneak wrote:
| It wasn't always so, but the hotel industry is large and
| powerful.
| warning26 wrote:
| Interestingly, I believe Australia already did this, and so if
| you go to Airbnb's Australia site you see the real prices.
|
| Personally I hope this apppies to "resort fees" at hotels; it's
| ridiculous that hotels can have a _mandatory_ fee that they can
| exclude from their posted price.
| zihotki wrote:
| Indeed, in Australia it's already a law. It's a well-known
| hack - go to airbnb dot com site and append .au to get the
| the full price including all fees.
| granshaw wrote:
| Can we also mandate any included taxes in the listed price, like
| elsewhere in the world?
|
| kthxbai
| georgehaake wrote:
| read that as Canada dot gov
| jawadch93 wrote:
| [dead]
| eganist wrote:
| Tons of industries affected by this, though hospitality comes to
| mind as being particularly egregious. "resort fees" you can't get
| out of where they tell you what you're "getting" for those fees,
| Airbnb service fees, cleaning fees, things that should all be
| spread across the nightly rate. The feds doing this for airfare
| was the best thing to happen for consumers shopping for flights.
|
| Ideally we would take it further and include restaurant fees
| post-covid for fair wages when instead they frankly should just
| be hiking the cost of food and paying their teams properly. Not
| sure if this bill affects the service industry specifically but
| the late tacking-on of mandatory fees is getting egregious.
|
| ---
|
| Edit: I'm staying at an IHG property right now that says I'm
| getting the following for my $29 amenity fee:
|
| * $15 credit for incidentals
|
| * "premium" wifi
|
| * newspaper access
|
| * tablet from the front desk
|
| * free Lyft within two miles (this is kinda useful if you're too
| lazy to walk)
|
| * free EV charging
|
| * wine reception
|
| * business center
|
| * gym
|
| * free calls within CONUS
|
| I used none of these and yet they won't refund the fee.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| The main reason for the resort fee is the 3rd party booking.
|
| 3rd party charges 14-18% commission, and a lot of big hotel
| uses resort fee to reduce the commission.
|
| I just wish the big brand uses the power like airlines (3%
| commission) and negotiate the commission down to 3%.
| amluto wrote:
| > cleaning fees, things that should all be spread across the
| nightly rate.
|
| The thing is, cleaning genuinely costs a bunch when a guest
| departs. It's a per-stay cost.
|
| This doesn't mean it's reasonable to hide it. Having a rate
| structure that has a nightly rate plus a per-visit rate or,
| equivalently, a first-night rate and an additional-night rate
| is just fine as long as it's advertised. And a search for a
| stay of a given duration should show the all-in price.
| nottorp wrote:
| > The thing is, cleaning genuinely costs a bunch when a guest
| departs. It's a per-stay cost.
|
| And how can hotels magically factor it in the room cost?
|
| Ok maybe not in the US.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I'm OK with the concept of cleaning fees as long as
|
| a) when I search for a place to stay for x nights, the
| cleaning fee should be amortized into the nightly rate
| (protip- Airbnb's website will do so if it thinks you're in
| Australia)
|
| b) I don't have to do chores. It's super irritating to pay a
| $300 cleaning fee, then check in and see that the host
| expects me to to wash the sheets, do the dishes, take out the
| trash, sweep the patio, and water the plants.
| eclipticplane wrote:
| Those resort fees are the absolute worst for corporate travel.
| E.g., the budget for a hotel might be $300/night so you get one
| for $290/night. Then they tack on a $45/night "resort fee" and
| suddenly you're getting yelled at by accounting for going over
| your budget. That is, if you even remember to expense it since
| they charge it to your incidental card ...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I have never been surprised by a resort fee. If I search on
| Hilton/Marriott/etc websites, the total price shown when
| making the reservation is always what I am asked to pay.
|
| I believe the resort fee is listed separately so that the
| hotel owner can reduce the amount of royalties paid to the
| hotel brand, since they get a 10% to 15% cut of revenue for
| accommodation charges, but presumably not for things like
| resort fees and whatnot.
| ketralnis wrote:
| Congrats. I have. Anecdote fight!
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The point is, presumably, the websites of major hotel
| brands work the same for everyone. I would be interested
| in seeing an example of a "hidden" fee at a hotel.
|
| Same with airline prices. Google flight search has always
| shown me the total price, as have the airline websites
| themselves.
| jplona wrote:
| My experience is the same as yours. However I think these
| fees are still hidden in the sense that they're not part
| of the rate that's advertised everywhere, shown in the
| thumbnail on the hotel website, etc. It would be better
| if we could just trust that the advertised price would be
| the actual price.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I agree, the total average per night cost should be
| displayed in the same price on the initial search
| results.
| astura wrote:
| >I would be interested in seeing an example of a "hidden"
| fee at a hotel.
|
| Every single hotel room on the Vegas strip has a resort
| fee, for example. Try it yourself - when searching
| websites will list, say $50/night but when you actually
| go book it you'll see an additional significant "resort
| fee" on top of that. It makes it hard to compare prices -
| you will have to go to the checkout page to see what
| you'd actually pay.
|
| Airlines have been required to list all mandatory fees in
| their prices since Jan. 26, 2012, by federal law.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would not call that hidden, but rather obfuscated
| prices. Although, legislation to make pricing clearer and
| easier to compare is always welcome.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I'm browsing the Marriot site right now and the hotels
| that are classified as a "resort" [1] all have a resort
| fee attached, in addition to the sticker price, after I
| select my room.
|
| That's the default behavior, but a point in Marriot's
| favor is that you can at least select a checkbox to
| include taxes & fees in the quoted price. However it then
| bundles them together and I still can't see how much is
| required taxes and how much is the hotel's resort fee. I
| can only see that breakdown once I actually select my
| room.
|
| [1] https://www.marriott.com/travel-experience/resort-
| hotels/
| yamtaddle wrote:
| We need something for pricing dishes differently based on pick-
| up or delivery. Stop hiding the actual cost of delivery in the
| prices of the dishes! You shouldn't have to look at two
| different menus to figure out how much delivery costs.
| wpietri wrote:
| I agree with you on almost all of this, but I think the
| cleaning fee is different. It represents an actual cost for an
| actual activity. I think AirBnb should show initial totals with
| it included, so you're never surprised by it. But it shouldn't
| be rolled up into the nightly rate because it really is a one-
| off.
|
| As an example, right now I'm looking at doing an extended trip,
| on the order of 2-4 weeks. I just need one cleaning at the end.
| If they inflate the daily rate to cover cleaning, I'll end up
| paying a lot more than the average weekender trip. Or if they
| hide it in a variable price, then I'll have a hard time
| comparing different lengths of stays across different places.
| antihero wrote:
| These people are making money hand over fist, cleaning should
| be on the hosts, it is their duty to provide clean
| accommodation.
| wpietri wrote:
| I don't even understand this.
|
| I show up at a clean place. After I leave, somebody needs
| to clean up after me to make it good for the next person.
| No matter who does the cleaning, the hosts or somebody they
| hire, this takes supplies and labor. The only person
| putting money in is me, so the cleaning obviously has to be
| on my dime. I just want the pricing to be transparent in
| the details and included in the headline numbers.
| acdha wrote:
| I read it as the person making the money being
| responsible for cleaning, which makes sense -- it's quite
| literally their job and they're way more familiar with
| the local market for cleaning services.
| paxys wrote:
| The point isn't that it isn't a real fee (it may or may not
| be), but that it isn't advertised up front.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > It represents an actual cost for an actual activity.
|
| It _really_ doesn 't. It's been a stealth way to increase
| your rates for a long time now.
|
| > I think AirBnb should show initial totals with it included,
| so you're never surprised by it.
|
| They do, but it makes comparing rentals (both within AirBnB
| and across services) a pain in the ass, because it's not
| factored into the initial rate-per-night that you see and
| that they sort by if you ask them to show cheapest-first.
| [EDIT] I glossed over the "should" when reading the parent
| for this part--whoops. I thought they meant it's included
| once you're into the actual listing, _not_ on the list-of-
| listings page, which is already, but which isn 't enough. I
| stand by the first part--cleaning fees rarely represent the
| "actual cost" of the activity, on US AirBnB.
| matsemann wrote:
| It is factored in here in Europe. So the issue isn't the
| fee itself, but that in other jurisdictions it's hidden.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Right, if it's factored in, that's fine. It'd also
| automatically remove the incentive to pad the cleaning
| fee, which is so common in the US that I expect it's hard
| to compete in listings without doing it (without hiding
| some of your margin in the cleaning fee, that is).
| wpietri wrote:
| > > It represents an actual cost for an actual activity.
|
| > It really doesn't. It's been a stealth way to increase
| your rates for a long time now.
|
| Two things can be true at once.
|
| Cleaning is an actual activity they actually have to do
| after I leave. There are actual costs. E.g., they might use
| a service that specializes in vacation rental cleaning:
| https://cleaningglow.com/san-francisco-services/vacation-
| ren...
|
| Do some people inflate the fee as a way of increasing your
| rates? Surely. But that's only a problem when the
| comparison price doesn't include it, a problem I agree we
| should solve. I'd just like the fee to also be listed
| somewhere, as it makes _other_ comparisons easier for some
| people, me included.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| It's so common on US airbnb that I expect it's
| practically necessary to shift some margin to the
| "cleaning fee" to stay competitive (you'll get out-"bid"
| by others who have).
|
| I objected to "actual cost", not "actual activity". Yes,
| they clean (usually...). No, it doesn't cost anywhere
| near what they're charging, unless you left the place
| such a wreck that you're getting a 1-star guest rating.
| wpietri wrote:
| Depends on the Airbnb, I guess. I've definitely looked at
| places where the cleaning fee struck me as about market
| price. And I'm much more likely to stay at a place like
| that as it increases my trust in the host, so maybe the
| margin-shifting doesn't work for everybody.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I definitely wouldn't mind it broken out in the details
| section but the main displayed price should always reflect
| all costs (including taxes!) IMO. If I'm going to need to do
| math on the pricing it should be for the corner cases like
| comparing the daily price of stays at different places for
| different lengths of time not for finding out how much
| something costs on its own.
| wpietri wrote:
| Totally agreed. I lived for a time in Australia, where all
| the prices included tax. The price you saw was the price
| you paid. When I got back to the US, I wondered what the
| hell was wrong with me that I spent my life seeing our much
| more confusing system as reasonable.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| That and the way our income taxes work are two of the
| most annoying things that the anti-tax right have "won"
| in the US. Everyone's life is made a little worse _all
| the time_ , in the name of some I-suspect-imaginary
| "awareness campaign" to increase resistance to taxes. In
| fact I doubt there'd be any less awareness if they'd just
| mandate that tax be itemized and given sufficient weight
| on receipts, and that the IRS mail out some tax-burden
| statement for the ~90% of people who shouldn't, in a
| well-functioning system, need to manually fill out and
| file anything.
| tomschlick wrote:
| It has way less to do with any "awareness campaign" and
| more to do with how tax rates are different in many
| municipalities that are very close to each other and how
| hard that makes advertising.
|
| For instance, the famous "$5 footlong" from Subway
| couldn't be advertised that way nationally, or even
| within a single state or metro area due to different
| taxes on prepared food.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Are local sales taxes just a US thing? How do so very
| many other developed countries manage this just fine?
| wpietri wrote:
| The US, thanks to being well, states that are united, has
| a history of devolved government. In a lot of places the
| power structures are much more unified, but here there's
| a tradition of independence within broad limits.
|
| There's a short history of California sales taxes here on
| page 3 (which is ~30 by PDF page count):
| https://www.ppic.org/wp-
| content/uploads/content/pubs/report/...
|
| But basically during the depression, state-level sales
| taxes arose in a lot of places. Some
| cities/counties/districts then got in on the action. This
| means that people got to decide their own levels of
| taxation (and spending) on a much more granular level.
| Which as somebody who lives in a high-tax/high-service
| area (relative to America, not to the civilized world) is
| great by me.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Careful what you wish for--it causes strong race-to-the-
| bottom effects and tragedies of the commons / free-rider
| problems--if tax districts are small enough, I can go
| enjoy the parks in a neighboring tax district while
| having chosen to live where taxes are insufficient to pay
| for such nice parks. Extend for _everything_ , not just
| parks, and you've got the situation in tons of major US
| cities, where low-tax suburban and exurban towns attract
| people who pay taxes in their little town but strain the
| public resources of the city proper, which city is the
| only reason those towns are 1/10 the size they are in the
| first place. City forced to raise taxes by all the free-
| riding, effect intensifies. It's not great.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| interestingly, sales tax in San Francisco (8.63%) is
| noticeably lower than in the Easy Bay (10.25%).
|
| replacing big ticket items such as a macbook pro 16" ends
| up being about $40 cheaper, especially for someone
| commuting into the city for work anyway.
| [deleted]
| wpietri wrote:
| I'm pretty skeptical there. Do you have any evidence that
| was a big motivation?
|
| I'll note that the costs of labor, space, and other
| inputs also can vary widely across a state, so tax
| differences don't strike me as unsolvable. And
| regardless, "prices and participation may vary" is an
| extremely common disclaimer for ads with prices.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Subway national ads & coupons (among other practices) in
| particular are notorious for immiserating or ruining
| their own franchisees. My nearest one keeps a sheet with
| the list of the ones they'll actually honor.
|
| I wanna say Little Caesars had kind of a similar
| situation. I think they actually had a fight at one point
| with their franchisees over their too-static-to-be-
| realistic very-low prices.
|
| In practice, these national campaigns seem to _kinda_ be
| a bad thing, anyway--either abusing franchisees who can
| 't evade them, or else not actually being offered
| universally (which is pretty damn close to false
| advertising, "participating locations" fine-print being
| more a bullshit dodge than something intended to truly
| communicate the truth of the offer).
| runarberg wrote:
| Why is that an issue? Subway could easily find another
| campaign, such as " _$5* footlong_ (*or less depending on
| local taxes)", _"affordable footlong"_ , or whatever. If
| your advertising campaign depends on being deceptive, I
| find no issue with it becoming impossible.
| bombcar wrote:
| You can, you just do the math backward so it's $5
| everywhere (or $6 or whatever).
| Uvix wrote:
| From a compliance perspective that would work. However,
| that means that franchisees in high-tax areas like
| Chicago make 10% less per sale than those in Oregon or
| Delaware. That doesn't seem tenable in the long run.
| bombcar wrote:
| I mean franchises in high _cost_ areas already deal with
| this and survive. Or, as written, "at participating
| locations."
| NegativeK wrote:
| A company can throw whatever fees they want at me as long as
| it's in the up front cost.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| The cleaning fee is part of doing business. I don't pay my
| taxi driver for car registration or oil changes either.
| jrs235 wrote:
| The cleaning is a one time fixed cost for a stay. It's the
| same for a one night stay or a week long stay. There is a
| one to one expense per "purchase". Not so with your taxi
| example.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Actually taxis handle this in their fee structure
| already: a fixed initial cost and a marginal rate for
| additional mileage/time.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| You do, but it is apart of the charging model. They
| accounted for wear and tear on the car and baked that into
| their rate. if their rate is 10 cents a mile they transport
| you, maybe 0.01 cent of that that 0.10/mile is the cost of
| wear and tear. It isn't a separate charge. Which is how
| hotels should handle cleaning. Yea, your technically paying
| for it, but isn't a separate fee. It is just included with
| the price of the room just as project wear and tear costs
| are baked into the taxi service rate.
| eganist wrote:
| > I think AirBnb should show initial totals with it included,
| so you're never surprised by it. But it shouldn't be rolled
| up into the nightly rate because it really is a one-off.
|
| I disagree with this, and it's easily handled on the backend
| too. If the cleaning fee is e.g once per trip or once every
| few days, smear that cost across the cost of the stay for
| your effective nightly rate.
|
| Frankly, how much it costs to clean a unit shouldn't be a
| separate calculus when comparing rooms. What ultimately
| matters is how much I'm out of pocket by the end of the trip,
| and that's most easily compared by showing the customer the
| effective nightly rate for the date range being searched. Do
| the breakdown later, sure, but the effective nightly rate is
| what should be shown first. Or even just the total for the
| stay, but no weirdness with fees where those fees can be
| smeared.
|
| Last tidbit: cleaning fees are another profit vehicle for
| Airbnb sellers; rarely is the fee the same as what the seller
| is paying the cleaning service.
| yanderekko wrote:
| >If the cleaning fee is e.g once per trip or once every few
| days, smear that cost across the cost of the stay for your
| effective nightly rate.
|
| This misses the point that it's useful to have the one-time
| costs separated from the nightly costs so that consumers
| can better understand if they can get a better nightly cost
| by extending their stay (or even ideally from having
| options over those fixed costs.) It's the same logic as
| separating shipping costs from unit costs in online sales,
| because you can often save on shipping by spreading the
| cost across multiple units and it benefits the consumer to
| know this.
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| This misses the point that it's not useful to have the
| one-time costs separated from the nightly costs when
| trying to compare options.
| wpietri wrote:
| I think we all agree that the _totals_ should include
| everything, as that makes comparison better. But I am
| precisely saying that there should be someplace where the
| legitimate one-time costs should be separated out because
| it is useful _to me_.
| yanderekko wrote:
| Multiple people have explained how it's useful to them.
| Do you think these people are all jointly deluded in the
| exact same fashion?
| qotgalaxy wrote:
| [dead]
| ghaff wrote:
| >how much it costs to clean a unit shouldn't be a separate
| calculus when comparing rooms
|
| The cost to clean shouldn't. The fact that there's a large
| fixed charge that's going to be amortized across the number
| of nights you're staying is relevant though.
|
| Yes, by all means give me the total amount for the stay
| length. But show me any fixed charges so that I can maybe
| decide it makes sense to stay longer given part of the cost
| is fixed.
| wpietri wrote:
| Isn't this:
|
| > shouldn't be a separate calculus when comparing rooms
|
| Solved by this:
|
| > AirBnb should show initial totals with it included, so
| you're never surprised by it.
|
| The reason I put it that way is that the "smear that cost
| across the cost of the stay for your effective nightly
| rate" is hiding a number that I then have to reverse
| engineer if I'm looking at stays of different lengths.
| Since I work remotely, I could easily stay an extra week or
| two, but I won't do it in a place that is going to gouge me
| for cleaning I don't need.
| guelo wrote:
| Even better, show total price not nightly rate. They'd
| never do that though because showing the nightly rate holds
| off the total sticker shock until the user has their credit
| card in hand.
| jobu wrote:
| > _The feds doing this for airfare was the best thing to happen
| for consumers shopping for flights._
|
| They need to redo it for airfare, because the airlines have
| figured out how to workaround it by splitting out things that
| used to be included (seat assignment, baggage, etc). Some
| airlines now have sliding rates for bags and so you have to
| know the exact flight to get the price for checked or carry-on
| bags. Even if it's split out from the total, all of those
| *potential* fees should be available up-front as well.
| danudey wrote:
| I remember ages ago, Canadians were getting ads for airfare
| that was like $67 return to Las Vegas/Cuba/London, and then you
| get the total and it's "+ $550 in taxes, service fees, fuel
| surcharges, airport improvement fees" etc.
|
| All my friends found it pretty hilarious; there's such a thing
| as marking up a sale once the consumer is invested, but when
| the actual cost is several times more than the advertised price
| it's a lot easier to say nope, no thanks.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I think a lot of comments here are missing the reason as to _why_
| these hidden fees have become so much more prevalent in the past
| 20 or so years. The short of it is that comparison pricing is now
| much easier to do because of the Internet, and many, if not a
| majority, of shoppers will just sort by price ascending and pick
| the first result (or, only pick from the first couple results).
|
| Thus, there is a huge incentive for companies to lower the base
| price and then get it back with these types of fees. Even if they
| didn't add BS fees, this ease of price comparison has resulted in
| unbundling of services in a number of industries - e.g. airlines
| where the base price is akin to "we let you hang on to the wing",
| and everything else is an upcharge.
|
| This is also a case where consumers _say_ they want one thing,
| but their behavior is a different matter. For example, pretty
| much everyone says they prefer the full price to be shown up
| front in search result pages. But, as someone who is privy to a
| ton of A /B testing in this area, the opposite nearly always
| results in higher conversion, where there is a lower up-front
| price and fees are only tacked on during checkout.
|
| To be clear, I'm 100% in favor of this regulation because I think
| it's the perfect example of where what is good for any individual
| company leads to a dysfunctional market, and so government can
| provide a level playing field. Heck, I think many businesses
| would support this change, because they no longer need to try to
| one-up their competitors by overcomplicating their pricing
| structure.
| mattficke wrote:
| Airlines are an interesting an example because the FAA required
| them to advertise all-inclusive pricing a decade ago. The
| extras they charge for now (checked bags, bigger seats, nonstop
| flights) really are optional --- I routinely pack light and
| pass on any upgrades. People who need to check a bag can
| include that in their price comparison. For hotels, it's fine
| to charge extra for access to the pool or whatever as long as
| it's possible to decline.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| In my experience hotels are free to add daily "resort fees"
| that cover whatever they want, no option to decline.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| One interesting wrinkle is sitting next to another person on
| your ticket. By all rights it should be optional but person
| after person books the no assigned seat option and then is
| outraged that they are not seated next to their companions.
| qu4z-2 wrote:
| My expectation for a no-assigned-seat group ticket is that
| we should be seated together but not anywhere particular
| (front/back, window/aisle, whatever).
| bradleyjg wrote:
| At 2 that means a window or aisle seat, at 3 both. For
| the cheapest kind of ticket I'd expect they'd want to
| fill middles.
| mattficke wrote:
| There was an interesting article on United's new family
| seating policy, allows families traveling with children
| under 12 to sit together automatically with no added fees
| by default. Sounded like a decent way of identifying when
| sitting together actually would be optional for most
| people. https://viewfromthewing.com/uniteds-new-family-
| seating-polic...
| bradleyjg wrote:
| I'm fine with this solution, families can use a break in
| modern America. But if airlines had said from the
| beginning that bookings with a child under 12 are not
| eligible for basic economy, it'd hard to see what's
| unfair about that.
| cld8483 wrote:
| I've flown with South West for years where all tickets are
| "no assigned seat", and I've yet to see a _single_ person
| who 's 'outraged' by the result. I've not even overheard
| grumbled complaints. This doesn't seem like a real problem
| to me.
| amf12 wrote:
| I think the difference being, "the hidden" charges are
| usually not optional in other cases. Airbnb for example,
| hotel resort fees, ticket "pickup fees", etc.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >But, as someone who is privy to a ton of A/B testing in this
| area, the opposite nearly always results in higher conversion
|
| I suspect this might be the case initially, but eventually
| consumers will get fed up with being tricked again and again
| and refuse to deal with that particular industry (and A/B
| testing won't predict that).
|
| I know this is the case for myself and local services (e.g.
| cleaning, lawn mowing, appliance repair). I literally will not
| search for any of those things because I don't want to have to
| sort through bullshit.
|
| Same thing for restaurants that expect a tip. I might
| uncomfortably pay it, but would never go back there. (note:
| tipping culture is very different in Australia compared to the
| US, as are minimum wage laws. Your local barrista is probably
| getting $35+ an hour on a weekend.)
| lumb63 wrote:
| Heh, or they'll democratically decide to ban you from
| operating in their society if you use hidden fees. A/B
| testing won't predict that, either.
| IncRnd wrote:
| > This is also a case where consumers say they want one
| thing, but their behavior is a different matter. For
| example, pretty much everyone says they prefer the full
| price to be shown up front in search result pages. But,
| as someone who is privy to a ton of A/B testing in this
| area, the opposite nearly always results in higher
| conversion, where there is a lower up-front price and
| fees are only tacked on during checkout.
|
| That's completely wrong. People don't want hidden fees. They
| chose those options that have hidden fees, because the fees are
| hidden and the total cost appears lower. Your AB tests don't
| compare what consumers want but what consumers are tricked into
| accepting.
| amf12 wrote:
| > because the fees are hidden and the total cost appears
| lower
|
| Consumers still understand the total cost, albeit at the end.
| We aren't tricked into accepting it most of the times.
|
| Take Airbnb for example. Consumers compare and find listings,
| but at checkout, the extra charges get added. They see what
| they will pay, but at this point they just "accept it",
| rather than starting over again.
| xbar wrote:
| Agreed. It seems that the A/B testing proves that humans are
| easily tricked, not that they like hidden fees.
| stillsleepy wrote:
| [flagged]
| stillsleepy wrote:
| [flagged]
| yamtaddle wrote:
| It's because nobody actually has trouble understanding
| what "free" means in these contexts except the same small
| percentage of morons one can get to say any dumb thing
| one wishes to find someone saying, and people pretending
| not to understand it on Internet forums to passive-
| aggressively make a very stupid point.
|
| Everyone else gets it. You're not preaching some great
| message to the sheeple, you're just making noise.
| II2II wrote:
| In my neck of the woods, it is called _public_ health
| care or _public_ health insurance. Oddly enough, neither
| the government nor the media feel compelled to make it
| sound like you 're getting extra value by calling it
| free. Of course, this applies to a broad range of public
| services such as education and libraries. (As for why
| these services should be offered at no cost to the users,
| it has to do with accessibility to people regardless of
| their income. No one pretends that no cost to users means
| that it is free. Everyone understands that it is wrapped
| into their taxes and that taxes are tied to their
| income.)
| jghn wrote:
| I interpreted that as suggesting people would wind up buying
| nothing if all the options are perceived to be too expensive.
| But sone people will continue down the rabbit hole if you get
| them in the funnel to start with
| IncRnd wrote:
| How did you interpret the text to mean that? Higher
| conversion doesn't mean nothing was purchased.
| the opposite nearly always results in higher
| conversion, where there is a lower up-front price and
| fees are only tacked on during checkout.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Your parent meant _some_ people end up purchasing
| nothing, when the initial price shown is higher.
|
| Basically the top of the funnel is more price sensitive
| than after they have already progressed a bit towards the
| purchase.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Thank you. I do understand that, but that comment was in
| the context of being an interpretation of something that
| clearly didn't state that, which is why I asked for
| clarification as to how that interpretation had come
| about.
| acdha wrote:
| I wouldn't read the claim as "consumers secretly do like
| hidden fees" but rather "people say they don't like them but
| don't actually care enough to stop giving money to companies
| which use them". It's like how people might say they want to
| eat better food if you ask them directly but when you record
| what they actually eat it ends up looking quite different.
|
| On HN you'll see a similar dynamic with privacy, business
| ethics, etc.: people say they don't like being tracked but
| won't even try using a browser other than Chrome or worry
| about local businesses but won't consist paying +-10% more
| not to buy through Amazon.
| 8note wrote:
| Yeah, it's that people can be successfully tricked.
|
| People don't like being stolen from, but if you can get
| away with it, it must be a good thing
| acdha wrote:
| I think the problem is that it's not actually stealing
| but something in between, like how we might say a
| salesperson is pushy and not like it but we wouldn't
| refer to them as a thief.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| People who've already wasted time getting to the point
| where they can see the fees, and are confident that all
| your competitors do the same thing anyway, aren't likely to
| bail over them.
|
| That's probably the most accurate way to state the
| "preference".
| acdha wrote:
| Exactly: there's a ton of psychology research around that
| effect and businesses use these techniques because they
| work. I applaud California for trying to make this
| illegal since something reliably profitable is not going
| to stop otherwise.
| brigade wrote:
| Incidentally, California mostly [1] already bans hidden
| fees for cars, and IMO the car-buying experience in
| California is better for it compared to other states.
|
| [1] the current workaround is dealers listing the MSRP on
| their websites and arguing that that isn't an advertised
| sale price... but at least that only works for new cars.
| dheera wrote:
| Yes please. Also kill tipping on food delivery apps. It's a
| mandatory fee, effectively. They ask for tips before service is
| even rendered. WTF? Just increase the displayed prices by 15%.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| For folks taking issue with my "consumers say one thing but act
| a different way" line, here is a perfect example:
| https://money.com/stubhub-fees-all-in-ticket-prices/
|
| StubHub _tried_ to do the right thing here, even touting their
| all-in pricing as an advantage over competitors - and customers
| still preferred their competitors ' more opaque pricing
| practices anyway.
|
| Point being, no company can afford to "do the right thing" if
| their competitors can do the "wrong thing" and be rewarded for
| that wrong thing. This is when government should step in.
| jasmer wrote:
| The other reason is continued civic moral debasement.
|
| We used to live in communities, whereing social mores were at
| least nominally respected or accepted. Even if they were
| broken, at minimum 'wrong was wrong' and in particular,
| reputation mattered.
|
| We later moved into larger corporate entities wherein mores
| could be sidelined, and now we've flipped the game entirely and
| there are few civic questions to contemplate. It's just "The
| Funnel" and that's it.
|
| Even if most people don't fully buy Milton Friedman's Chicago
| School 'the motive is only profit' stuff, the ideal set it.
|
| VC-land and the Valley never even talk bother about civic good,
| consumer surplus etc. other than maybe in some situations a
| kind of DEI/Climate specific kind of ideological way. The
| baseline assumption is 'the product must be doing some kind of
| 'good' and if not who cares'. Commerce is generally positive
| but it's pretty easy to see where the frayed edeges are.
|
| Dark Patterns abound, even by supposedly reputable companies. I
| don't think people realize how perverse this is and how it
| strongly degrades civil life. It's not good that we have to be
| worried about how we are being ripped off / misled by major
| companies we are supposed to trust.
|
| Paradoxically, in the long run, most of it is not worth it. A
| small optimization in the funnel is not going to change
| anything.
| jstarfish wrote:
| > This is also a case where consumers say they want one thing,
| but their behavior is a different matter. For example, pretty
| much everyone says they prefer the full price to be shown up
| front in search result pages. But, as someone who is privy to a
| ton of A/B testing in this area, the opposite nearly always
| results in higher conversion, where there is a lower up-front
| price and fees are only tacked on during checkout.
|
| You think your customers don't know what they're talking
| about...because the data you gleaned from abusing them says
| otherwise?
|
| Dictator logic: "My approval rate is 100%! People clearly love
| what I'm doing!"
| novok wrote:
| Extra fees later on is exploiting people who have invested time
| into the buying process and now have a higher price for saying
| no vs. whatever the extra fee is. It's rational consumer
| behavior, but it is not what you actually think it is.
|
| Vast majority of A/B testing schemes that do gotcha pricing
| cannot measure the 'credit rating' that your essentially
| burning by doing this, and it's only sustainable if they don't
| have any other choice of place that doesn't do this. It's
| classic short term PM metrics hacking in exchange for hurting
| the business or industry overall.
| twawaaay wrote:
| > this ease of price comparison has resulted in unbundling of
| services in a number of industries - e.g. airlines where the
| base price is akin to "we let you hang on to the wing", and
| everything else is an upcharge.
|
| The issue isn't that everything is an upcharge.
|
| I have no problem with having options. I actually like being
| able to pay less when I don't need the added options.
|
| With airlines, (at least here in EU) you pretty much know what
| the base price buys you and that everything is an option on top
| of it. And as long as the options are reasonable (like paying
| for additional luggage) and the UI isn't trying to mislead you
| to buying something you don't intend, I think this is very
| defensible from the standpoint of making product better and
| more affordable to people (who don't necessarily need
| additional luggage, for example).
|
| The issue is in many cases there is not even a possibility to
| buy the product/service for the advertised price and they will
| make difficult for you to find out what you are going to pay
| until it is too late or you have invested time/effort. It is a
| restaurant where the charges are added to your bill (the tip no
| longer being voluntary) or a shop where they try to recoup some
| of their losses with an exaggerated shipment fees. Or when you
| suddenly find out a critical part of your product is sold
| separately. Or you buy a printer and then they try to scam you
| by selling the ink/toner for more than the price of the
| printer. Or the website UI makes every effort to hide from you
| the fact you are buying something you don't need.
| nottorp wrote:
| > But, as someone who is privy to a ton of A/B testing in this
| area, the opposite nearly always results in higher conversion,
| where there is a lower up-front price and fees are only tacked
| on during checkout.
|
| This just shows how much of a bubble sales people are in. Just
| because your sales data shows a better profit it doesn't mean
| it's not fraudulent.
| gdprrrr wrote:
| I read it as "customers would prefer if everyone showed prices
| upfront", ehich makes sense to me.
| [deleted]
| pydry wrote:
| >But, as someone who is privy to a ton of A/B testing in this
| area, the opposite nearly always results in higher conversion,
| where there is a lower up-front price and fees are only tacked
| on during checkout.
|
| That is evidence that bait and switch works, not that people
| want it.
| 93po wrote:
| I think OP recognizes that, but is simply stating that
| product decisions are based on user behavior, which rewards
| bait and switch
| vkou wrote:
| Well, _of course_ bait-and-switch is going to result in a
| higher conversion rate than showing the price up front.
|
| I'd like to not be swindled, but if the marketplace is half-
| swindlers and half-honest people, it's highly likely I'll be
| taken in by the former. What the kind of heuristic am I
| expected to use to avoid getting swindled?
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >What the kind of heuristic am I expected to use to avoid
| getting swindled?
|
| Giant, bold text that says "price is all-inclusive. No
| additional fees!"
| IncRnd wrote:
| At checkout, when there are no additional fees:
|
| Customer: What is this extra fee on my bill?
|
| Business: There is no extra fee.
|
| Customer: It's this number right here. That's a fee. Why is
| it there?
|
| Business: No no no. That's not a fee. It's for your
| benefit.
|
| Consumer: What does that even mean?
|
| Business: That's a final emolument that is used to keep
| costs for consumers low and fee-free. Everybody pays it,
| since it is for your safety and benefit. Final emoluments
| like this are mandated, since we are completely free of
| hidden fees.
| slg wrote:
| >This is also a case where consumers say they want one thing,
| but their behavior is a different matter. For example, pretty
| much everyone says they prefer the full price to be shown up
| front in search result pages. But, as someone who is privy to a
| ton of A/B testing in this area, the opposite nearly always
| results in higher conversion, where there is a lower up-front
| price and fees are only tacked on during checkout.
|
| This seems to be very misguided logic to me. I can also trick
| people with fraud but that doesn't mean the victims are
| indifferent to the fraud. It being effective doesn't mean
| people like it. Consumers can still hate this hidden fee
| approach even, and perhaps especially, because it is effective.
| spiffytech wrote:
| It doesn't need to be fraud. A common trick in designing
| restaurant menus is to make it harder to scan the price list,
| because people buy the food they prefer when price is one of
| many considerations rather than prominently highlighted.
|
| > Centred Justification
|
| > When prices are printed in neat, right-justified columns,
| everyone glances down the line to compare prices. Menu
| consultants recommend a centred justification that leaves the
| prices scattered. This gently encourages the diner to order
| what she wants, not pick the cheapest price. Another way of
| minimising attention to cost? Omit the pound signs.
|
| https://www.wired.co.uk/article/the-hidden-psychology-of-
| men...
| yamtaddle wrote:
| What's weird, at least in the US, is that the higher-end
| the joint, the easier it is to shop by price, generally.
| Tax-inclusive, whole-dollar-value (no "$7.99" crap, it's
| just "8"), all-prices-aligned menus are more common as one
| heads up-scale.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| [dead]
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| Makes sense: at the high end of the market, patrons need
| to be able to identify and get the most expensive option
| to impress their date/mates, and understandably
| restaurants want to be helpful.
|
| (See "Veblen goods".)
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Never seen the impressing part... usually if you want to
| eat cheap, you go somewhere cheap, if you want something
| more expensive, you're prepared to pay more, but you
| don't want to be surprised after.
|
| So, noone who goes to a place like this cares if one soup
| is $12 and the other $14 and then pick the cheaper one...
| but if you have a $79 bottle of wine on the menu and a
| $7900 bottle of wine on the menu, it's in the interest of
| the restaurant to have the patrons know clearly that the
| expensive bottle is really really expensive, and having
| deceptive pricing there ("$7.9 per 0.7ml") only causes
| problems when the check arrives.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| "Sir, the wine is clearly marked as 0.0000000472c per
| cubic mile. How did you not see this coming?"
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| That happened to me in Italy. I knew I was in trouble
| when the chef came out to shake my hand. I did not
| realize the steak was priced per ounce, was the biggest
| steak I'd even seen, ended up costing me ~$400.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > I knew I was in trouble when the chef came out to shake
| my hand.
|
| That is hilariously brutal. Oh no!
| novok wrote:
| For the high end restaurant clientele, the difference
| between 10 vs 20 or 10 vs 9 is not much (which is what
| 19.99 and 9.99 tricks are exploiting), and they are
| optimizing for time and optimal experience, because they
| have 'less' of that compared to their money. Also seeing
| the tricks like that is indicative of being lower class,
| because $10 or $1 prices differences matter at that
| level.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Kinda, but it seems pretty common anywhere remotely
| "hip", not just fancy $150/head restaurants. It seems to
| be almost a cultural/class thing rather than being
| restricted to super-expensive places. You can find $9
| (exactly) burgers commonly-enough, and by the time you're
| up to $35/head being a common bill (without drinks) it's
| practically the norm. I'll grant the higher end of that
| range may read as impressive and the kind of thing some
| demographic might spend for the sake of spending that
| much money, but I don't think the lower end does. (exact
| range may vary, but that's what it's like in my city)
| whstl wrote:
| I don't think it's exactly about letting people order
| Veblen Goods, but I do agree that it is about signaling
| class.
|
| The .99 pricing thing is associated with "trying to make
| it look cheaper", so a restaurant that puts round prices
| is trying to send the opposite message: we're not cheap,
| you're not cheap, we won't try to fool you.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't think fraud is a good analogy - the whole point with
| fraud is that you are getting something different _after_ you
| agreed to it, when it 's too late to back out.
|
| Going back to the airline example, most people _say_ they
| hate getting nickel and dimed on things like paying to pick a
| seat up front or paying even for the first carry-on, but they
| will still pick one flight over another if the base rate is
| $5 cheaper. And in that case there is nothing untoward,
| fraudulent or "dark pattern" about what the airline is
| doing, as they are just allowing people to only pay for the
| services they want. But it's still a clear case of consumers
| saying they want one thing, but by their actions they are
| incentivizing airlines to do something else.
|
| But regardless of the underlying reason, I still agree that
| the best solution is for government to provide "ground rules"
| that most people agree are better. After all, most consumers
| would probably prefer cheaper products even if manufacturers
| used child labor or had no pollution controls, but it's the
| government's role to ensure these longer term societal goals
| aren't completely ignored in pursuit of the cheapest price.
| eastbound wrote:
| > but they will still pick one flight over another if the
| base rate is $5 cheaper
|
| The other flight _also_ tricks you with in-flight purchase
| of air, so, might as well choose the lowest base price.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > I don't think fraud is a good analogy - the whole point
| with fraud is that you are getting something different
| after you agreed to it, when it's too late to back out.
|
| Nah, it's fraud. It's a minor, lightweight fraud, but it's
| still fraud.
|
| These companies are just lying to customers to get what
| they want, that's fraud.
|
| There's a veneer of legality to it, because they tell you
| the price before the "contract" is legally complete, but
| only after making the customer jump through a few hurdles.
|
| The entire point is to make the customer do enough work
| before you show them the actual price, that they just give
| up and deal with it.
|
| It's a moral fraud, even if not legally fraud. Even if not
| on the dotted line, they're forcing the customer to spend
| their time on it under false pretenses, in the hope that
| the sunk cost is enough to trap the customer.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| You have a very odd definition of "fraud" in my opinion.
| But I'll just leave it at that, because this feels like
| the perfect example of the oft-quoted "99% of all
| Internet arguments are over semantics" line.
| ncallaway wrote:
| Sure, I'll agree that my definition doesn't line up 100%
| with the legal definition.
|
| My definition of fraud is: "lying to someone to induce
| them to do something they wouldn't have done without the
| lie".
|
| I think the hidden pricing lines up neatly with my
| definition.
|
| What's your definition? (We don't need to come to an
| agreement, just curious how you think about it)
| saurik wrote:
| FWIW, I don't even really feel like the "legal
| definition" is relevant: a lot of people on Hacker News
| seem to think the only thing that matters is the law, and
| then attempt to move every conversation into whether the
| law says one thing or the other, and yet fraud is a
| concept that no one has ever questioned exists even when
| the law isn't in question or involved. The definition
| from Oxford Languages (the one Google pulls from) has an
| "or criminal", but that's clearly elidable, so "wrongful
| deception intended to result in financial or personal
| gain" is what we are left with, and the question is then
| just whether or not it is "wrongful"... and frankly,
| you're going to end up there also, because I'm pretty
| sure the person you are arguing with is going to say
| "this isn't lying". I guess what I mean to say is: you
| are actually trying to have an ethical argument, but are
| being drawn into a silly semantic argument over the
| definition and source of a word you used not really
| because the definition matters but because it has a bad
| connotation and since they disagree that this is
| unethical behavior they want a happy word there, when the
| real problem is the ethical disagreement.
| ncallaway wrote:
| Sure, but I generally think when you get into the
| semantic discussion, it's useful to put my operating
| definition on the table, so that we can quickly get to
| either the semantic disagreement or the ethical
| disagreement (that I think knowing saying untrue things
| is lying, while others may think knowing saying untrue
| things isn't lying)
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| That is the normal definition of fraud. It seems the
| difference is you think hidden fees are lying, whereas
| most people don't think so as long as they are presented
| before final purchase agreement.
| ncallaway wrote:
| Yes, I think saying something is $199/night when the
| minimum you can pay for it is $250/night is lying.
|
| Can you think of another word for that? It's an untrue
| statement about the price, that they know is untrue. I
| just can't think of another word to describe that other
| than "a lie".
|
| If the hidden fees were optional, I could see it being a
| closer call. If I can uncheck the cleaning fee and
| actually get $199/night, then it's not as much a lie.
| This is the budget airline model. A super super cheap
| flight, but if you want to put a bag in the overhead bin
| that's an extra cost. I think there's something somewhat
| deceptive about that practice, but I wouldn't call it a
| lie.
|
| But, really, if they say a cost is $199/night when the
| minimum cost is $250/night and they know that to be the
| case, how can that be anything other than a lie?
| spfzero wrote:
| >>The entire point is to make the customer do enough work
| before you show them the actual price, that they just
| give up and deal with it.
|
| I think a big part of the point is to compete on search
| (aggregate search like travel sites especially) with the
| company's competitors. The first company to start, say,
| charging for a carry-on realizes that they are forcing
| everyone to copy that, but for a while they'll have an
| advantage and make more profit. Any business leader doing
| this first is trying to dishonestly game the system. The
| others are just doing what they now have to do to keep
| the playing field level.
|
| On aggregating vacation rental sites, the owners that
| choose not to do this (at least on sites like VRBO) can
| add "no service or management costs" to their listings,
| or maybe "no hidden costs", but it is not very effective
| because if you are charging $225 and the customer is
| searching in the range $100 - $200, you loose and the
| person advertising a $199.00/night charge (with
| management fee added later) wins.
| ncallaway wrote:
| Yep, I understand why people commit this fraud.
|
| And, again, as far as fraud goes I think this is on the
| fairly low end of frauds.
|
| But, "hey, lots of other people are committing this
| fraud" goes into the bucket of "helps the person
| committing fraud sleep at night".
|
| I do tend to hold the platforms themselves (AirBnB, VRBO)
| _more_ responsible than the individual hosts that list on
| these platforms.
|
| It just shouldn't be possible to even present listings
| with hidden fees on the platforms. So, in general I look
| at this as 90% AirBNBs fault, and 10% the individual
| hosts fault.
| californical wrote:
| I know I'm not an outlier, but this is why I've
| historically stuck with Delta as an airline. They're not
| perfect either, but they give you the main things you'd
| need for a flight in the base price, and are generally
| pretty flexible and reasonable with things like bag size.
|
| Unless they're _way_ more expensive, I'll still pick them
| for a slightly higher price over the others, because I know
| that I'll get a good experience and it'll be way less
| stressful. They also always have staff available in the
| airport when things go wrong.
|
| Frontier has been doing this thing where they make everyone
| put their backpack into the little measuring box so they
| have a chance to charge you $100 for being an inch
| oversized. They haven't gotten me on that personally, but
| I've sworn off of flying with them entirely because it's
| like they _want_ you to suffer. I have 40 other complaints
| about them but I'll save it for now
| novok wrote:
| Why stick with delta vs other majors, like united,
| southwest or american airlines? Frontier acting like that
| just seems consummate with their low price tier like
| spirit.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Honestly that backpack measurement sound pretty good to
| me. I'm sick of subsidizing people with oversized bags
| while I travel super light.
|
| I don't support hidden fees but I think price
| discrimination based on usage is totally reasonable. Just
| make the costs up front.
| jameshart wrote:
| The problem is when the customer chooses the lowest price
| only to find it stacked with fees before checkout, they
| don't think 'wait a minute, this is more expensive than
| some of the other flights I saw on the original search
| page. I'd be better off going back and trying one of them'
|
| The customer assumes that all those other prices would
| _also_ be lowballing them and that if they went back and
| chose one they'd end up with an even higher final bill.
|
| Starting with the lowest base price seems like a good
| strategy to get the lowest total price when all the prices
| are up charged the same.
| novok wrote:
| This only happens in non competitive markets, or markets
| where fraudy behavior becomes the norm because profit
| margins are too low and they can't innovate their way
| into better profit margins. It's an act of desperation
| essentially.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| This is exactly right. It's not hard to get better A/B
| results by using dark patterns and consumers will still
| rightfully hate it.
| fortituded0002 wrote:
| > pretty much everyone says they prefer the full price to be
| shown up front in search result pages. But, as someone who is
| privy to a ton of A/B testing in this area, the opposite
| nearly always results in higher conversion
|
| That may be true, but those are measuring two separate things
| - customer desires and customer behavior. Just because it
| results in more sales doesn't actually mean the customer
| still wants that. I know I didn't when I rented a car
| recently but I was pretty much stuck when picking up the car
| at the airport. I would have definitely found another
| solution if I knew upfront how much the real cost was going
| to be.
| [deleted]
| foobarian wrote:
| > Heck, I think many businesses would support this change
|
| Also being privy to A/B testing in this area, I can tell you
| that we developers would looooove this kind of regulation so we
| don't have to build these kinds of dark patterns while holding
| our noses and telling ourselves that at least the pay is good.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Basically, bait and switch is an effective tactic, especially
| after factoring in the sunk cost fallacy.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| It's not just comparison pricing. The online booking portals
| take a percent of the revenue. The Expedia tax is not very
| different than App Store taxes.
|
| By requiring part of the fee to be paid directly to the hotel
| at check-in, it means the hotel gets to keep more of their
| revenue.
| SnowingXIV wrote:
| It's become rampant in travel. Booked a simple vacation to
| Vegas recently. Between flights with their multiple fees you
| mentioned, hotels that almost are always charging a per day
| resort fee, and then ticket sales to any event that has
| multiple processing fees. I don't know how this happened but
| it's horrible.
| logifail wrote:
| > this ease of price comparison has resulted in unbundling of
| services in a number of industries - e.g. airlines where the
| base price is akin to "we let you hang on to the wing"
|
| <cough> I'm literally just booking a trip with Ryanair, Vienna
| to London, in just less than a month's time. It's costing me a
| shade less than $20 for a 770 mile flight, no hidden fees
| during my purchase...
|
| No, it doesn't include a large carry-on bag, never mind a
| checked bag.
|
| No, it doesn't include priority boarding.
|
| No, it doesn't include reserved seating.
|
| No, I won't earn any frequent-flyer miles/elite status.
|
| Also, the in-flight F+B will be overpriced, so it's safer not
| to waste money there either.
|
| However, for a two-hour flight and a short trip, I don't _need_
| any of those things!
|
| I just want to get from A to B, safely, and preferably on-time.
| FR is at least as likely to do those two things as any of the
| 'legacy' carriers I could pick instead.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| These are all optional - you don't have to pay them if you
| don't use those services. They wouldn't be affected by this
| bill.
|
| "Resort fees" or "amenity fees" are not optional. Even if you
| don't use the services in those fees, you still have to pay
| them. Those are what are being clamped down on.
| logifail wrote:
| > These are all optional - you don't have to pay them if
| you don't use those services. They wouldn't be affected by
| this bill
|
| I was responding to the comment about what the airlines'
| base price includes - at least here on this side of the
| pond, the base price is for safe travel (with a small
| carry-on bag) from A to B, and if that's all you want, it's
| all you need to pay.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| For legitimately separable things---like a carry-on bag or
| assigned seats---I think unbundling is a good thing. Sure it
| feels a bit annoying to see the price go up and up, but
| sometimes you don't need those things and the search engines
| should be able to get you an apples to apples price with a
| bit of elbow grease.
|
| It's the non-optional fees--- resort, regulatory compliance,
| or living wage---that are truly pernicious.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| > I just want to get from A to B, safely, and preferably on-
| time
|
| I was surprised to see that spirit is one of the most
| consistently on time airlines in the US. They really do
| provide exactly the service I'm looking for.
| nostromo wrote:
| > airlines where the base price is akin to "we let you hang on
| to the wing", and everything else is an upcharge
|
| This legislation wouldn't stop that, nor resort fees, because
| they're not required.
|
| It would however effect Airbnb, one of the worst offenders,
| because their fees are mandatory and not shown until checkout.
|
| It's funny the government has exempted its own taxes and fees
| (the largest last minute fees we all pay everyday) from this
| requirement.
| kyrra wrote:
| While i agree with you on the taxes front, one hard thing is
| that not everyone pays it. Depending on what's being sold and
| who the buyer is, the buyer may have tax exempt status, which
| may not be known until checkout.
| lumb63 wrote:
| I have lived in areas with sales tax all my life, and with
| the exception of gasoline, prices being shown with tax is
| exceedingly rare. At least these could be covered!
| binoct wrote:
| > This is also a case where consumers say they want one thing,
| but their behavior is a different matter. For example, pretty
| much everyone says they prefer the full price to be shown up
| front in search result pages. But, as someone who is privy to a
| ton of A/B testing in this area, the opposite nearly always
| results in higher conversion, where there is a lower up-front
| price and fees are only tacked on during checkout.
|
| Consumers are very consistent here. You are comparing what
| consumers want: clear, upfront pricing so they can pick the
| lowest cost option, with what companies want: more sales. The
| fact that putting your pricing upfront causes you to lose
| customers because your competition is hiding costs is as you
| point out a dysfunctional market problem. But the consumers
| involved are not being hypocritical.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > airlines where the base price is akin to "we let you hang on
| to the wing", and everything else is an upcharge.
|
| This would actually be a better situation. Instead the base
| price is "this would be what we would theoretically charge you
| to hang onto the wing, but since that's not legally allowed
| there's no possible way anyone could buy a ticket for this
| price." If they were selling food like that, there would be a
| "state-inspected and legal to sell quality upcharge."
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I love how this January, my ISP added one new fee and increased
| the price of an existing fee and the rental cost of my modem
| (which was bought by a previous ISP to begin with, it's pure
| profit until it breaks), and those three random fee increases
| magically total to increasing my bill by exactly ten dollars.
|
| While it was framed as three little fee changes, it's obvious
| there was a directive to up the bill by $10 a month, and then
| they just found lines to bump without touching the actual main
| one.
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