She has always been pro-worker and pro-consumer and unfortunately we are moving to someone that is more pro-business. There's a reason that billionaires urge Biden to get rid of her and now Trump is doing it for them. Hidden ticket fees and vacation rental charges banned in America CNN — The Federal Trade Commission announced a final rule banning hotels and ticketing and short-term rental companies from including hidden junk fees in their total price on Tuesday. Rather than consumers getting hit with “convenience” or “service” fees for hotel bookings and concert tickets at checkout, the FTC said its new rule will ensure that pricing information is presented transparently before consumers agree to pay. “People deserve to know up-front what they’re being asked to pay — without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan in a statement announcing the rule. “The FTC’s rule will put an end to junk fees around live event tickets, hotels, and vacation rentals, saving Americans billions of dollars and millions of hours in wasted time.” https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/17/business/ftc-junk-fee-ban/index.html
A couple key concepts in pricing: Partition Pricing: Splitting out the cost of different elements of a bundle (like your cell phone bill does). It is usually purposefully deceptive (customers not expending much in the way of mental energy will often underestimate the value of a partitioned price). However, generally, customers do a good job of regulating that themselves (they get mad at companies for doing it to them and simply don't buy, especially if it is an unusual surcharge. Drip pricing: Adding prices after initial pricing. This, customers struggle with initially as it is purposefully deceptive in a way not known until they have already committed. There is also a lot of grey area between these systems. For example, AirBnB used to hide the fees until after click-through, which, while still technically partition pricing as you saw all fees before service, had elements of drip pricing, where they were hoping you wouldn't notice or fully account for all fees as a customer.
If everyone charges the fee… what is the alternative?! You call to negotiate it and it’s a chatbot that can’t help you.
Looks like Trump's head of the FTC has decided to keep Lina Khan's merger guidelines. As we confront this merger wave together, I write to clarify the standards which should guide your review of transactions. Insofar as there is any ambiguity, let me be clear: the FTC’s and DOJ’s joint 2023 Merger Guidelines are in effect and are the framework for this agency’s merger-review analysis. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/ferguson-memo-re-merger-guidelines.pdf Lina Khan was the nemesis of the billionaires and they all wanted her out, but she was reasonable and looked out for the little guy. Bring her back.
This crap is everywhere. Last time we bought used car, it was all over the place ... one Hyundia dealership advertising low prices had like $5000 in hidden fees for things like "cleaning and restoration, Transporation, dealership fees, etc." and other stuff that should be built into the price. We just left and went someplace else when that sort of stuff started to come up. It really should be illegal. Put a price on it ... that's the price.
