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Over twenty percent of cable TV bills are bogus fees, study says
- dplgk 7y agoWhat stops McDonald's from doing the same? Advertising 99¢ burger and then charging 25% handling fee? Competition, I'd say. Seems that these abusive practices are evidence of a monopoly.
- drewg123 7y agoLess friction. Switching to a different fast food chain is as easy as walking next door in most cases. Switching cable providers is impossible for many (Comcast is my only choice), or may require hours lost from work while dealing with customer service, returning equipment, waiting for installers, etc.
- johndubchak 7y agoWendy’s, Carl Jrs, Burger King, local places that sell quality burgers. Remember people only choose McDonalds because of the consistent quality, for whatever definition of “quality” you want to ascribe to them, and low cost.
- oarsinsync 7y ago> people only choose McDonalds because of the consistent quality Indeed, this is the only reason I eat McDonald's when I do - it doesn't matter where in the world I am, I know exactly what I'm getting, and I can pay in USD cash (although change is returned in local currency)
- LeoPanthera 7y agoMcDonalds accepts USD in other countries?
- oarsinsync 7y agoIt's part of the terms of the franchise. Greenback accepted globally.
- LeoPanthera 7y agoDo you have a citation for that? A quick Google doesn’t reveal anything obvious.
- oarsinsync 7y agoI do not. However I’ve spoken to a franchise owner after visiting 7 countries where they accepted USD who explained why. Don’t take it as gospel, but try it yourself next time you travel and see what happens.
- skizm 7y agoThe hours lost are worth it in the long run though if a competitor is going to cut your bill by 20-25% per month. If there is a valid competitor that is (almost never in the US).
- yabadabadoes 7y agoWith 2 competitors, you essentially need to negotiate with a willingness to swich every year or 2 at the most. That ends up being a substantial amount of time.
- readams 7y agoAll the restaurants in the bay area now charge 3% living wage surcharges on their bills. So.... Yes. There's that.
- johndubchak 7y agoLiving in the Bay Area and knowing how far workers have to commute for that job - because they’ve been priced out of the area - is something I’m willing to pay to the extent that money is going to the workers.
- distances 7y agoThe point is though that this should be part of the list price, not a fee added on top.
- HarryHirsch 7y agoThe "living wage surcharge" doesn't count, it's a political gimmick from restaurateurs against minimum wage increases designed to stoke public outrage. The biggest share in operating costs for a restaurant is rent. Now if we could see a "the-rent-is-too-high" surcharge, that might spark a movement against excessive prices for apartment rents in the Bay. Fat change this will happen.
- joezydeco 7y agoBecause McDonald's can hide profits in other items. The $0.99 burger is a loss leader to get you to buy the $1.00 soft drink. Soft drinks are have incredibly high margins.
- jacquesm 7y agoI suspect the $0.99 burger still isn't a loss leader.
- scarface74 7y agoThat’s still not the point. McDonalds tells you on the menu how much everything costs.
- itcrowd 7y agoForget the bogus fees for a moment. $150-220 for cable TV per month is preposterous.
- johndubchak 7y agoThe other point, that the article fails to mention, is that oftentimes these providers have local monopolistic markets where the opportunity for consumers to choose a competitive provider are nonexistent. That allows them to increase fees 600%. I would dump Comcast in a heartbeat if I had an alternative. Their service is unstable and inconsistent in my area and we are forced to pay very high rates.
- ghaff 7y agoFor cable TV specifically, lack of competition is a harder case to make than for Internet given that al least most people with houses have the option to get satellite TV instead. (Or streaming TV services assuming they have broadband.)
- joshuaheard 7y agoLack of competitive choices is the reason they get away with this. My choices are 1 cable provider, Dish, and DirecTV. Not much competition. I have tried cutting the cord and streaming TV, but it's not ready for prime time yet. I also tried DirecTV and they had their own set of junk fees. At this point, I just pay the fees and hope technology improves enough to have ubiquitous choices.
- ghaff 7y agoI'm finally dropping cable TV entirely because my TiVo with lifetime subscription finally died. But I basically don't watch it so it's not that hard a decision even if the alternatives aren't perfect.
- Porthos9K 7y agoEspecially when pornography isn't included.
- Macha 7y agoThis kind of thing makes me glad not to be an American consumer. The article cites the example of CenturyLink's "Internet Cost Recovery Fee", which is a $4/mo fee not listed in your price that is supposed to cover CenturyLink's costs of network expansion. I don't know how you can argue this is not part of the rate which CenturyLink themselves are charging for the service. Some of the other examples, like Comcast's passing on of government fees outside of the headline price I could understand as political differences, the same way you do not include sales tax in advertised prices (which annoys me every time I'm in the US), but I don't see how the "Internet Cost Recovery Fee" is not actionable fraudulent advertising. In comparison, my ISP's advertised price is €80/mo. I pay €80/mo. In exchange, I get 400mbit/s broadband with no extra fees. This is technically a business plan, but the only extra price weirdness for consumer plans is the 6 month introductory rate.
- weberc2 7y agoFor what it’s worth, cable companies are the rare exception in American consumerism in that there is very little competition. I wouldn’t regard this as emblematic. EDIT: I’d really like to know why folks are downvoting this.
- Causality1 7y agoBecause it's absolutely emblematic. Hidden fees riddle American life. "convenience fees" and "processing fees" for everything from movie and concert tickets to hotel rooms.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoTipping is another big one. Americans love price obfuscation.
- Pfhreak 7y agoCable, airlines, internet, insurance, food, cellular service, social networks, medical supplies, mattresses, search engines, and many more industries have very little competition. It's absolutely emblematic.
- simonster 7y agoThe DOT Full Fare Advertising Rule requires that airfare prices include all taxes and fees. Perhaps the cable industry needs a similar rule.
- oarsinsync 7y agoPerhaps retail generally needs a similar rule, so we don’t face this problem again in the future.
- seanalltogether 7y agoIt's pretty refreshing now that I live in the UK that I see full prices for anything I purchase. Even airline flights and other EU hotels bookings show full price throughout the transaction.
- stevesimmons 7y agoOn the whole, yes, the UK is way better. My current battle, though, is with Travelodge. I discovered the hard way their 'Flexible rate + Breakfast + Wifi' packagee refunds only the room and breakfast parts if you cancel. Despite the wording 'Cancel up until noon on arrival date', they withold the wifi charge if you cancel. This isn't mentioned on the confirmation email, nor at the T&Cs link. The agents who answer the booking phone number can't do anything. There is no email contact. And their customer service phone number costs 13p per minute. So anyone in the UK thinking of staying at Travelodge, don't! They are predatory scum...
- ghaff 7y agoHow awful. Unfortunately, hotels are also generally tightening up cancelation policies to require 48 to 72 hours notice--which of course does you zero good if the cancelation is due to travel disruption of some sort. (You also see a lot more pre-pay/no cancel rates which I admittedly have less trouble getting upset with although it's very annoying that there's often no refund window at all if you fat finger something when you make the reservation even if you notice immediately.) My most recent bitch with Travelodge--which I basically never stay at but it was the only last minute room I could get--was that they really didn't want me to check in without a government-issue photo ID which I lost at the airport. This was even though I had a wallet full of other cards and I had an online reservation.
- Nextgrid 7y agoDispute it with your card issuer. It not being mentioned anywhere seems like it's clear fraud on their part and you should win the dispute. If enough people do this it will put their merchant account at risk and make them reconsider this nasty behaviour in the future.
- 7y ago
- norin 7y agoWhy does the American consumer allow these companies to get away with it? Extortion like this won't fly in any EU country.
- radicalbyte 7y agoIn the USA they tend to have monopolies which have been exasperated by lack of action from the regulators.
- weberc2 7y agoThis is pretty much only true for cable companies. For the most part, we have lots and lots of competition, and things are generally more affordable here than in Europe (and salaries are quite a lot higher as well, even factoring in the social services that Europeans enjoy).
- NicoJuicy 7y agoNot agreeing with: even factoring in the social services that Europeans enjoy Nobody goes broke here when you get sick. And still, ISP for me is 43€/month, fixed, unlimited and stable.
- weberc2 7y agoYep, if you’re sick and poor, Europe is the better bargain for sure. I think it would be good for the US to have a stronger social safety net, but nevertheless, most things are more affordable in the US (my Internet is $60/month for fast speed as I live in one of the regions with ISP competition).
- NicoJuicy 7y agoLol, if sick and poor... We have much better benefits here :p I would never want to work in the bv US actually ( personal opinion)
- grecy 7y agoOf course, this is capitalism. A company will charge whatever they can get away with for a product or service. It's not "bogus fees", it's simply "profit". The fact it costs Nike ~a few bucks to make a pair of shoes has absolutely nothing to do with the selling price.
- tomohawk 7y agoThe pressures at play here have more to do with cronyism and politics than capitalism. They can charge what they want because: no competition. There is no competition because the regulators have decreed that the lack of competition constitutes competition in their view.
- p1esk 7y agoThere’s no competition because of lobbying (aka corruption).
- neogodless 7y agoJust yesterday there was a related article, and I posted a similar comment, but I was right to be down-voted, to a degree. Capitalism is about growth and competition. When there's only one cable to your home, privately owned AND they act as a middleman for content, you do not have meaningful choice. The way to combat this is to only use that cable for internet. Ideally, there would still be competition (I'm very lucky to have cable and fiber to my home...) and go elsewhere for content. That being said, fees that are not included in the advertised price, are not actually government mandated taxes/fees but are added on to your bill and misrepresented? They should be fined for this behavior.
- fouc 7y agoIt's not part of the base definition of capitalism. But you're correct, there's nothing stopping companies from trying to make a profit at the expense of tricking consumers with hidden fees.
- the_mitsuhiko 7y agoThe US love hidden fees. After being charged an “Urban” and “Resort” fee that was not advertised I learned that there seems to be neither regulation nor interest in requiring a customer to be presented with the final price on advertisements. It’s bizarre.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoIf the final price was different that a written quote I was provided before (such as an email confirmation), I would dispute it with credit card. However, I’ve always seen all the fees listed in email confirmations along with a final total price.
- the_mitsuhiko 7y agoThe email price had a disclaimer about extra fees being charged on checkout. So that does not help. The resort fee i had to pay was for a gym in the hotel I did not use and probably could have negotiated, the urban fee was for the “SF urban experience” which I can only assume is non negotiable given the location of the hotel. You can’t dispute partial fees either and no bank lets you dispute a charge that is on your bill as far as I’m aware.
- GaryNumanVevo 7y ago"SF urban experience" charge now I've heard it all
- lotsofpulp 7y agoThe way a credit (or debit) card works in the US, is that the onus is on the merchant to prove the transaction was legitimate. This includes notifying you what the total price is and you accepting that. No bank in my experience (as a merchant or customer) would stand behind undisclosed or unspecified charges.
- the_mitsuhiko 7y agoMy point is that they can easily proven that.
- cpwright 7y agoCablevision/Optimum (now Altice) added a modem rental charge and network expansion fee, which was the impetus for me to switch to Fios after having Optimum for 15 years across 3 different homes. I ended up paying almost half for the triple play (it will go up after a year, but is still significantly lower overall even after the discount expires).
- danielrpa 7y agoWhat is "Cable TV"? :)
- topkai22 7y agoThe expensive live sports streaming I get with my internet :)
- Porthos9K 7y agoIt's read-only, video-only internet that doesn't provide pornography used mainly to deliver advertising and propaganda.
- dillonmckay 7y agoCATV originally meant community antenna television, and was a ‘shared’ coaxial line that allowed multiple users to share an antenna in order to receive over the air broadcasts. Now it is a legislative construct, used to bypass consumer protections.
- NearAP 7y agoComcast is quite guilty of this. I’m on a 2 year contract but within one year, Comcast has increased my bill by raising the Regional Sports Fee and broadcast TV fee TWICE. In the last 4 years, they have consistently raised these 2 fees each time effectively raising the final amount I pay which is higher than what is on my contract. When I call to complain, they point me to a section of my contract (in small letters) which say broadcast and regulatory fees may change within the contract duration. I wish the government would crack down on this (they are just being plain deceptive) or that they get some competition
- mjfern 7y agoDoes anyone know why cable companies are able to tack on all these fees to TV service but not to broadband service?
- topkai22 7y agoOh they do. The most common one is fees for renting a cable modem (which you can avoid by buying, but almost no consumers do). The article cites an "internet cost recovery fee" as well. Remember, in the US, your TV and internet providers are typically one and the same.
- dillonmckay 7y agoSo, a cable television franchise has special protections enumerated in state and federal law. They use this as a guise to provide internet, while only being responsible for the tv portion. Additionally, the FCC has specific rules which exempt cable modems from regulation at the municipal level, which is why you see fiber convert back to DOCSIS to attach a cable model at the end.
- patientplatypus 7y agoFuck'em. Just torrent whatever you want to watch.
- shrimp_emoji 7y agoDo that because it's a more empowering, tangible, and DRM-free format, but that argument also holds against streaming services who don't swindle you, so it's orthogonal to this.
- patientplatypus 7y agoIf movie stars want to get paid and I can get their products for free then I will. Maybe they should fight for a society where not only the rich can get by.
- time0ut 7y agoThe whole (US) cable provider industry needs to change. It is so anti-consumer. I was a Comcast customer for over 15 years. Once or twice a year I'd have to spend a couple hours talking to their customer service because they raised my rate, snuck some bogus charge on the bill, or signed me up for something I didn't want. They are borderline criminals. My experience getting rid of the TV portion of the package was so painful, I cancelled everything instead and switched to AT&T. Luckily, they had recently laid fiber to my house. I was wary as they weren't the best company to deal with back when I had a landline. I figured they couldn't be worse than Comcast though. To my pleasant surprise, they've been perfect. 10/10. Their pricing was transparent and stable. The service top notch. No idea what customer service is like because I've never had to call. I suspect it is only this good because there's competition here though. So YMMV. I'd love to see a heavy regulatory hand smack the whole industry.
- maire 7y agoAre you using the TV side of AT&T? We just dropped AT&T (directv) because of the bogus charges. We now only use streaming services. We are using Comcast for the internet and nothing else.
- time0ut 7y agoNo, just fiber internet. We only use streaming services now.
- Ascetik 7y agoSame. I have AT&T gig fiber after switching from Comcast. 3 Years in, no complaints. My 2yr old son ripped the fiber line out of the house, and they came the next day and fixed it in like an hour, no charge. Been very satisfied with AT&T.
- jrnichols 7y agoI recently switched from a 1000/50 package with Suddenlink (would rarely get over 400, even wired) to 1000/1000 with AT&T Fiber. I now easily get 950/950 wired consistently. It's $73/mo. The bill has been easy to understand. AT&T really surprised me with everything.
- thecardcheat 7y agoComcast may add a modem rental fee to your bill automagically even if you have your own modem (even if you have always had your own). This happened to me and the phone support told me they do this intentionally and they expect people to call and resolve it if it is not an appropriate fee.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoThere needs to be regulation here, and not just on cable. If you're going to charge it to me, you shouldn't be able to wait until checkout (or even worse, the first month's bill) to tell me what the price actually is. Comparison is the mechanism by which competition drives a healthy economy. There's less value in competition the harder comparing them is. It's really hard to compare when you have to dig all the way to checkout to find what you'd pay. Imagine you're at the supermarket and different brands of milk were listed at one price, but each had different fees when you get to the cash register. No one but the cashier can tell you what each option actually costs. How many people are going to get out of the line and go back and try another brand of mystery milk when they find out they chose one with a $1 "cattle fee?" It makes competition weak and needs to be illegal.
- danaris 7y ago> Comparison is the mechanism by which competition drives a healthy economy. I agree, and regulation of this type would most likely be quite beneficial. But for many if not most of us, it won't actually make a difference to cable/internet "hidden fees," because there is no competition.
- labawi 7y ago> it won't actually make a difference to .. "hidden fees" While, it might not change the final price, the proposed regulation should reduce hidden fees, in the sense could not lawfully be hidden anymore.
- sys_64738 7y agoIt's not regulation that's needed but competition. A good start would be to separate the infrastructure from the data delivery portion of the service like is done for Electricity and Gas. Introducing competition for the delivery portion will drive down rates.
- zbentley 7y ago> separate the infrastructure from the data delivery portion How is that achievable without regulatory action?
- sys_64738 7y agoThe craziest fee I saw was with Verizon where they charged you ground rent for the poles they had at the side of the road. FWIW, keeping just Comcast internet leads to no fees. Not sure how that's managed to stay that way.
- petilon 7y agoAnother egregious example: Frontier Communications adds a $3.99 "Internet Infrastructure Surcharge" for internet service, on top of the advertised price. But internet infrastructure is what the advertised price is for, so why isn't it already included in the price? The underlying problem is that the US does not have a true democracy. The government here works for big businesses, not "of the people, by the people, and for the people". EU is much closer to being a true democracy.
- golover721 7y agoTo be fair Comcast these days shows you a breakdown of the full cost of the service you are signing up for, which you have to accept. So the fees should not be a surprise. Would I prefer it was all included in the advertised price, absolutely.
- paul7986 7y agoI would say it's a small minority of readers here who actually still have/pay for cable. That industry hated and took/takes advantage of its customers that's it's finally getting what it deserves! Myself since I'm in a ATT family plan I pay $60 for unlimited data and it comes with ATT TV formerly called Direct TV now. I do use it but wouldn't pay for it or use it if it wasn't bundle in cheaply as it is now.
- newguy1234 7y agoI have a friend who works as a tax auditor and audits telecom companies to verify a specific tax. When he does the audit he gets the ENTIRE billing information. What is interesting to note is that there are certain taxes where the law allows the telecom to determine how much cost is required to comply with the tax (employees expenses) and then offload that cost on to the end-user. So the tax that the customer pays is actually the tax going to the government and some of that tax is also going to pay the employees hired by the company to comply with the tax. Without much surprise, the amount of employees required to comply with the tax seems to increase each year and most of these employees are never fired or let go. There is no incentive for the company to cut costs when the taxpayer is paying for the employee's salary.