An excellent change. It's unfortunate that stewardship of the committee will soon change hands as Khan has been a great advocate for fair contracts between companies and consumers during her tenure.
I'd be interested to see whether a movie theater is considered an event. Our local one charges a convenience fee when buying online because ... they can?
I wish they banned all mandatory add-ons. If I don't have the choice it should be part of the base price.
The touristic railroad near me advertises a price, and then slaps on a mandatory Fuel Surcharge and Historic Preservation Fee.
Excuse me? How can I compare what I'm going to spend my money on if you're just allowed to lie to me?
Sidenote on fuel cost:
Fuel is almost back to pre-COVID costs https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=e...
and once you add in inflation it's even cheaper.
The hidden fees is what turned me off from AirBnb...
Because it would display the nightly rate as $X.
But then at checkout, it would add in "house cleaning fees" etc (which I don't dispute is a fair fee to include) but it at times can grossly misrepresent what your true nightly cost is when searching.
Maybe this will be a step in the direction like Telco's have had to do with creating simplified & standardized "nutrition labels" for pricing.
They should ban hidden taxes too. The sticker price should be the final price.
I need this for my internet provider, advertised price is $25* ** ***
Network access fee: $2.65
Municipal upgrade fee: $16.30
Fees end up costing nearly 80% of the entire bill. There are no taxes or gov surcharges of any kind.
*(with autopay discount)
**(with autopay direct deposit discount)
***(will not be reflected on first 3 bills)
ETA: here's their current promotion: https://i.imgur.com/TfwsdQv.png $20 for service, $20.49 in fees! fees are 102% of the supposed price!
I’m not very confident this is going to survive our next “populist” administration. Whatever faults you can attribute to the current administration, the FTC has taken many actions that have been pro consumer over the past 4 years.
I wish that "Online Coupon Price Tags" in stores would also be banned. I'm talking about these yellow price tags that show lower than "Club" prices, which are only valid if you collect a coupon online.
Like FTC, I estimate that banning these would save U.S. consumers millions of hours they currently spend searching and clicking on pointless coupons on their phones before making purchases. It would also increase happiness, as it's extremely annoying to pay $20 extra, knowing that a lower price is available if only you spent ten minutes struggling with a store's website on your phone.
Whoever invented this is evil and is destroying happiness.
Lina Khan is my second hero in life after Evariste Galois.
Even if they throw her out it won’t change what she’s done: she put fear in the bellies of some truly terrible people who had almost forgot what the word “restraint” means.
Ms Khan, I salute you.
Wonder if this going to be permanent or will be reverted as soon as the new FTC head is in office.
I'm glad (if it doesn't get reversed by the next administration).
But I'm also baffled... how did this take this long?
Why wasn't it done way back when they did it for airline tickets, in 2012?
The fact that it was ever legal to combine "taxes and fees" into one line item is baffling.
One is a thing 100% under control of the business trying to sell me a thing, the other 0%. Why should anybody get to scalp me and legally be able to blame it on the state/city government?
I used to work for a major airline many years ago. I remember when they introduced these crazy fees e.g., seat change fee. I was really disappointed then and soon left. I learned Don Carty then joined Dell who soon started their Byzantine ordering process. I was again disappointed. I still buy Dell monitors because I like them but I never buy from their website.
I remember an episode of the TV show Happy Days when the restaurant owner started charging money to use the toilet stall. It was a sad joke and many businesses are following suit.
From the FTC (9 points, 1 comment) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42441347
This is great if it gets rid of the "resort fee" or "urban fee" that I have had to pay at hotels. Happened last week. An extra $40 a night. It is almost impossible to refuse and find a new hotel right when you are checking in.
Do restaurant service fees next! "Here's the bill, with a 10% service fee added so we can pay our staff more without raising menu prices."
Hopefully this does away with the fraudulent “cleaning fee” when you book a hotel for $200 and then get a charge for $450.
Seems like a no brainer. Can they tackle sales tax next?
WTF! Definitely paid corporate shill. Legalized corruption in the USA. "A judge in Texas blocked a rule that would cap credit card late fees, and an appeals court in New Orleans blocked a requirement that airlines disclose baggage and other fees upfront."
Great! My wife was reading me ticket prices for an event on Ticketmaster yesterday, I kept telling her she needs to add them to the cart and start checkout to know the real price. She did just that and to my surprise the price didn't change at all!
This is awesome. There's more to do, but it's a step in the right direction. This law should really apply to all merchants in all industries, as the original 2023 proposal stated (allegedly). Still, I'll take it.
Gotta love that TicketMaster convenience fee that is for online ticket purchases --- which you still have to pay if you get your ticket at the door, because that is also convenient!
This is still not addressing the main problem. Why can they add those fees and make their UX annoying and hostile to the customer, without fearing that the customers would just turn around and leave? Because the customers largely have nowhere to leave to. If you want to book a hotel, you have very small number of providers (most are owned by one of the very small number of giant conglomerates) to choose from, if you want a concert ticket, you probably have one single provider to choose from, and this is the situation in many other areas. Of course, absent competition, market mechanisms can't work. There should be a way to enable them to work again, and this is not being addressed.
Official release: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/12/...
Even the most fundamentalist of free market fundamentalists should be cheering transparency in pricing. The price signal works best when it's not obfuscated.
The FTC could ban crushing alive puppies into a homogeneous paste and feeding it to toddlers — there still would be people who don't see it beneath them to get enraged over the proposition and somehow frame it as a fundamental infringement of business rights if they arenmt allowed to crush alive puppies into a homogeneous paste.
I wonder what these people expect to get when they shill for corporations to whom they are nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Would love to see what gymnastics the incoming FTC head uses to undo this rule.
It’s a start. I’m bummed at how narrowly scoped this is. When the RFC period was open I wrote in to highlight how apartments charge surprise pet rent fees that don’t appear until the application process.
The fact that sensible and fair rules like this that favor the consumer don't get anywhere in the usa is proof of the regulatory capture by the corporate elite. The us isn't a democracy, because it isn't ruled by the people, it is ruled by the corporation and rich.
Americans keep voting for rich assholes who oppress them while telling them they are giving them freedom.
i can't remember the last time i paid face value for a concert ticket. the scalping is absurd. it's worse than any fees, by far.
Im all for this. I’m worried though that now the junk fees will just be added to the normal price without ultimately changing anything.
Doesn't look like they got to DoorDash hidden fees in this decision?
Can we be done with "resort fees" and "taxes" as well? Hotel prices should include all of this
Looking forward to all the freedom and efficiency the market will reward us with when Trump rolls this back.
Now waiting for a webapp that autoscans your bill for junk fees and can report them to the FTC.
Now do the same with airline companies. WizzAir charges the crap out of you for everything they can. Do not fly with WizzAir!
...for the next four weeks, anyways. Good effort nonetheless!
This shouldn't be controversial. FTC isn't banning these fees, it is only requiring merchants to disclose the fees. Why would anyone be against that?
Another good rule is click-to-cancel. Just a couple of days ago I logged into my Dish Network account to cancel it (after they hiked prices). There is no way to cancel online. There is no way to cancel via chat. You have to call. As soon as you call you're told the wait time is over 45 minutes. There is no call back option. Why should a consumer have to be on the phone for 45 minutes to cancel? (Typically they will drop the call after 45 minutes and you have to call again.) If you call Dish to sign up service the wait time is 0 minutes: they answer immediately. If you then tell that you're actually calling to cancel, they forward you to the cancellation number with the wait. This is an abusive business practice, and banning it should not be controversial.