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Why limit this to live-event and lodging industries? Why not all the fees tacked on by cell carriers? For example, AT&T charges a fee to "recover certain aggre

Why limit this to live-event and lodging industries? Why not all the fees tacked on by cell carriers? For example, AT&T charges a fee to "recover certain aggregate expenses AT&T incurs, including, but not limited to, charges AT&T or its agents pay to interconnect with other carriers to deliver calls from AT&T customers to their customers and charges associated with cell site rents and maintenance" [1] [1] https://www.att.com/legal/terms.otherWirelessFeeSchedule.html https://www.att.com/legal/terms.otherWirelessFeeSchedule.htm...

mcmcmc 1y ago
Lobbying and regulatory capture
jfengel 1y ago
Regulations like this are written in consultation with the industries being regulated. There is a ton of wrangling and nailing down details. It's usually hundreds of pages long and specific to the industry. So they can't just write a single thing that rights all wrongs. And their staffing is extremely limited.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- autobodie 1y ago
  >they can't just write a single thing that writes all wrongs. Found the attorney! Nobody asked for "a single thing that writes all wrongs." Simple, broad laws can absolutely be written, they are especially easy to write, and they are usually the best laws for decent average citizens, but decent average citizens are not who laws are written for in the United States. Most people already know this.
  - kulahan 1y ago
    Isn’t it kind of helpful to have an attorney’s opinion on law? Anyways, it’s very easy to complain there isn’t a law which eliminates whatever fees you think are ridiculous across a large swathe of industries. What specific implementation would you suggest, though? I’ve not heard of these apparently simple approaches.
    - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
      > What specific implementation would you suggest, though? I’ve not heard of these apparently simple approaches. Good question! Thank you for asking, I will do my best to help provide the answer: One common implementation is to require that all marketing show the final price most prominently, which seems reasonable to me. "But wait," some may interject, "That final price may vary depending on jurisdiction!" Yes, that is true, and entirely possible to deal with, and requiring advertisers to account for that is a better solution than requiring all customers to deal with the alternative. Besides, nobody is forcing the company to vary the price. They can just charge a flat price that accounts for the average of all local fees, and/or eat the fees, which was the intent of the legislation in the first place.
      - kulahan 1y ago
        Thanks for answering! So you’re saying the solution is basically more clarity? I think I could agree with that. Probably effects similar to when we added calorie counts to menus here in America.
    - Spivak 1y ago
      I don't exactly want a law that eliminates the fees, just that displayed prices are the "out the door" price that can be broken down however you like internally. Without it it's much more work to comparison shop because you have to actually try and purchase from everyone to see the real price.
  - ncallaway 1y ago
    > Simple, broad laws can absolutely be written, This isn’t a law. It’s a regulatory policy. Simple, broad laws have another term that you can often use to describe them: “sweeping”. Those kinds of changes are better left to legislators, who are responsive to political pressure and subject to elections. I’m all for regulatory rulemaking by executives, but it should generally be careful narrow rulemaking. Simple, broad, sweeping changes should generally be left to the legislature.
    - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
      > I’m all for regulatory rulemaking by executives, but it should generally be careful narrow rulemaking. Simple, broad, sweeping changes should generally be left to the legislature. I would agree, if not for the empirical evidence showing us that legislators rarely make the changes that the people want. If they're not going to do it, somebody else has to. Narrower changes would be nice, but they require a correspondingly short feedback loop of decide-act-adjust, which does not currently exist for legislators or most government administrators. If one desires narrower changes, I encourage them to first ensure the government moves and responds to customer (citizen) needs, faster than it currently does. Either way, government structure and action should be what meets the needs of the people.
  - moomin 1y ago
    Broad laws and regulations have obvious problems that should be evident to anyone who works with code for a living. There’s a reason lawyers are cautious and precise.
- Broken_Hippo 1y ago
  In this case, it isn't "writing a single things that rights all wrongs" Its "Write something that helps consumers know what they'll be paying" It wouldn't even be changing the billing at all, but changing how they advertise pricing. Fees such as the example would need to be included in advertised total price of your bill. You wouldn't even need to change the bills. The companies have enough staff to do this in advertising. Government agencies' staffing would be stretched with or without such a rule.
- lozenge 1y ago
  I live in the UK and the policy on fees is effective and runs about a hundred pages. What you are describing is regulatory capture.
- londons_explore 1y ago
  The UK requires that all advertised prices include all extras and charges a typical customer will pay. Ie. If you charge £100 for a hotel room, but have a £5 fee for using the lights, you have to advertise it as £105 because nearly every customer will be needing the lights. Super simple rule. Works really well.
  - thechao 1y ago
    I'm in the US, so you'll have to forgive my ignorance, here, but isn't the UK's tax law pretty tightly unified at the federal level? I once got into an argument with the county (Travis, Texas) over how to account for a penny difference in the calculation of sales tax. The resulting form involved (like) 6 govt entities and 7 pages of calculations. EDIT: if I'd been in Burnet, it'd be almost completely different forms & calculations.
    - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
      In that case, you could charge a flat rate of 110, to account for the variability and your work dealing with it.
- ClumsyPilot 1y ago
  > hundreds of pages long and specific to the industry Very convenient how it works out For my behaviour the law is very short and clear - taking product or service without paying for it is theft. If I pay for 1 car but take an additional wheel, I am a criminal. But management of a company can wake up one day, take more money from my account and call it an additional fee for the same service.
ezfe 1y ago
Are those fees not included in the advertised price? The issue is not fees themselves but fees that are added on at the checkout screen.
- breadwinner 1y ago
  Nope. This is an extra fee that they add to recover the cost of making your phone calls work. This fee is not included in the advertised price.
- brewdad 1y ago
  Typically the will be advertised as BIG MONTHLY PRICE $50/mo Then an asterisk and tiny, tiny print somewhere below stating "plus taxes and fees" So it depends on how you define "fees not included in the advertised price" but the last time I had a postpaid plan, I couldn't even know how much those added taxes and fees were until my first bill arrived.
  - throwawaymaths 1y ago
    it's really never as bad as it is for hotels. I once booked a hotel stay in san francisco which looked like $300 on the website, but after I was done I was charged an extra $200 for various fees which was mostly a san francisco hotel tax.. I never saw it until I checked out. It doesn't even matter if every hotel in SF gets that tax, I don't care, I want to see it before I book the place. Ideally at the "price map" screen. As an aside, I don't know why AirBnB can't get their shit together and push all the fees to the map. My guess is that most of those fees are not per night? Well make the front matter say "$120/night + fees" and when you select your dates you know what the total cost is.
    - KennyBlanken 1y ago
      AirBnB doesn't put it on the map because they're competing against hotels, B&Bs, and services like VRBO. Everyone has an incentive to list as low a price as possible. For fucks sakes even car dealers are pulling this shit, listing EVs with tax rebates - that people may or may not qualify for - already deducted.
Spooky23 1y ago
Different regulatory body with jurisdiction.
noname120 1y ago
In politics you always need to do a first small step, and then expand on it. Attempting to pass a big paradigm shift in one-go is a receipt for failure.
A_Duck 1y ago
On 6 April, the UK banned all drip pricing, so it is possible "All mandatory fees, such as admin fees or ticket booking fees, must now be included in the headline price" https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fake-reviews-and-sneaky-hidden-fees-banned-once-and-for-all https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fake-reviews-and-sneaky-h...
ctkhn 1y ago
Corporate lobbyists. It's that simple.
- genewitch 1y ago
  Our founders said this was going to be a problem but better to have lobbying out in the open as the devil you know. Cui bono
FireBeyond 1y ago
Cellular and cable providers are the reasons that you (entirely reasonably) can’t call a fee a tax unless it is actually remitted to a government agency. They used to quite happily mislead customers into thinking line items were actually taxes and not arbitrary charges.

mcmcmc 1y ago

Lobbying and regulatory capture

jfengel 1y ago

Regulations like this are written in consultation with the industries being regulated. There is a ton of wrangling and nailing down details. It's usually hundreds of pages long and specific to the industry. So they can't just write a single thing that rights all wrongs. And their staffing is extremely limited.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
autobodie 1y ago
>they can't just write a single thing that writes all wrongs. Found the attorney! Nobody asked for "a single thing that writes all wrongs." Simple, broad laws can absolutely be written, they are especially easy to write, and they are usually the best laws for decent average citizens, but decent average citizens are not who laws are written for in the United States. Most people already know this.
- kulahan 1y ago
  Isn’t it kind of helpful to have an attorney’s opinion on law? Anyways, it’s very easy to complain there isn’t a law which eliminates whatever fees you think are ridiculous across a large swathe of industries. What specific implementation would you suggest, though? I’ve not heard of these apparently simple approaches.
  - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
    > What specific implementation would you suggest, though? I’ve not heard of these apparently simple approaches. Good question! Thank you for asking, I will do my best to help provide the answer: One common implementation is to require that all marketing show the final price most prominently, which seems reasonable to me. "But wait," some may interject, "That final price may vary depending on jurisdiction!" Yes, that is true, and entirely possible to deal with, and requiring advertisers to account for that is a better solution than requiring all customers to deal with the alternative. Besides, nobody is forcing the company to vary the price. They can just charge a flat price that accounts for the average of all local fees, and/or eat the fees, which was the intent of the legislation in the first place.
    - kulahan 1y ago
      Thanks for answering! So you’re saying the solution is basically more clarity? I think I could agree with that. Probably effects similar to when we added calorie counts to menus here in America.
  - Spivak 1y ago
    I don't exactly want a law that eliminates the fees, just that displayed prices are the "out the door" price that can be broken down however you like internally. Without it it's much more work to comparison shop because you have to actually try and purchase from everyone to see the real price.
- ncallaway 1y ago
  > Simple, broad laws can absolutely be written, This isn’t a law. It’s a regulatory policy. Simple, broad laws have another term that you can often use to describe them: “sweeping”. Those kinds of changes are better left to legislators, who are responsive to political pressure and subject to elections. I’m all for regulatory rulemaking by executives, but it should generally be careful narrow rulemaking. Simple, broad, sweeping changes should generally be left to the legislature.
  - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
    > I’m all for regulatory rulemaking by executives, but it should generally be careful narrow rulemaking. Simple, broad, sweeping changes should generally be left to the legislature. I would agree, if not for the empirical evidence showing us that legislators rarely make the changes that the people want. If they're not going to do it, somebody else has to. Narrower changes would be nice, but they require a correspondingly short feedback loop of decide-act-adjust, which does not currently exist for legislators or most government administrators. If one desires narrower changes, I encourage them to first ensure the government moves and responds to customer (citizen) needs, faster than it currently does. Either way, government structure and action should be what meets the needs of the people.
- moomin 1y ago
  Broad laws and regulations have obvious problems that should be evident to anyone who works with code for a living. There’s a reason lawyers are cautious and precise.
Broken_Hippo 1y ago
In this case, it isn't "writing a single things that rights all wrongs" Its "Write something that helps consumers know what they'll be paying" It wouldn't even be changing the billing at all, but changing how they advertise pricing. Fees such as the example would need to be included in advertised total price of your bill. You wouldn't even need to change the bills. The companies have enough staff to do this in advertising. Government agencies' staffing would be stretched with or without such a rule.
lozenge 1y ago
I live in the UK and the policy on fees is effective and runs about a hundred pages. What you are describing is regulatory capture.
londons_explore 1y ago
The UK requires that all advertised prices include all extras and charges a typical customer will pay. Ie. If you charge £100 for a hotel room, but have a £5 fee for using the lights, you have to advertise it as £105 because nearly every customer will be needing the lights. Super simple rule. Works really well.
- thechao 1y ago
  I'm in the US, so you'll have to forgive my ignorance, here, but isn't the UK's tax law pretty tightly unified at the federal level? I once got into an argument with the county (Travis, Texas) over how to account for a penny difference in the calculation of sales tax. The resulting form involved (like) 6 govt entities and 7 pages of calculations. EDIT: if I'd been in Burnet, it'd be almost completely different forms & calculations.
  - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
    In that case, you could charge a flat rate of 110, to account for the variability and your work dealing with it.
ClumsyPilot 1y ago
> hundreds of pages long and specific to the industry Very convenient how it works out For my behaviour the law is very short and clear - taking product or service without paying for it is theft. If I pay for 1 car but take an additional wheel, I am a criminal. But management of a company can wake up one day, take more money from my account and call it an additional fee for the same service.

ezfe 1y ago

Are those fees not included in the advertised price? The issue is not fees themselves but fees that are added on at the checkout screen.

breadwinner 1y ago
Nope. This is an extra fee that they add to recover the cost of making your phone calls work. This fee is not included in the advertised price.
brewdad 1y ago
Typically the will be advertised as BIG MONTHLY PRICE $50/mo Then an asterisk and tiny, tiny print somewhere below stating "plus taxes and fees" So it depends on how you define "fees not included in the advertised price" but the last time I had a postpaid plan, I couldn't even know how much those added taxes and fees were until my first bill arrived.
- throwawaymaths 1y ago
  it's really never as bad as it is for hotels. I once booked a hotel stay in san francisco which looked like $300 on the website, but after I was done I was charged an extra $200 for various fees which was mostly a san francisco hotel tax.. I never saw it until I checked out. It doesn't even matter if every hotel in SF gets that tax, I don't care, I want to see it before I book the place. Ideally at the "price map" screen. As an aside, I don't know why AirBnB can't get their shit together and push all the fees to the map. My guess is that most of those fees are not per night? Well make the front matter say "$120/night + fees" and when you select your dates you know what the total cost is.
  - KennyBlanken 1y ago
    AirBnB doesn't put it on the map because they're competing against hotels, B&Bs, and services like VRBO. Everyone has an incentive to list as low a price as possible. For fucks sakes even car dealers are pulling this shit, listing EVs with tax rebates - that people may or may not qualify for - already deducted.

Spooky23 1y ago

Different regulatory body with jurisdiction.

noname120 1y ago

In politics you always need to do a first small step, and then expand on it. Attempting to pass a big paradigm shift in one-go is a receipt for failure.

A_Duck 1y ago

On 6 April, the UK banned all drip pricing, so it is possible "All mandatory fees, such as admin fees or ticket booking fees, must now be included in the headline price" https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fake-reviews-and-sneaky-hidden-fees-banned-once-and-for-all https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fake-reviews-and-sneaky-h...

ctkhn 1y ago

Corporate lobbyists. It's that simple.

genewitch 1y ago
Our founders said this was going to be a problem but better to have lobbying out in the open as the devil you know. Cui bono

FireBeyond 1y ago

Cellular and cable providers are the reasons that you (entirely reasonably) can’t call a fee a tax unless it is actually remitted to a government agency. They used to quite happily mislead customers into thinking line items were actually taxes and not arbitrary charges.