Add-Ons Add Up

The Washington Post has a story about the proliferation of extra fees tacked on to just about every product or service under the sun. A couple of good insights make it worth the read.

Fuck banks

[Fastball]

I have been nickled-and-dimed with a diminuation of service by my bank, a bank we call Bank One, for too long now. They charge me $3 for "teller assistance" when I deposit a check. Then, my deposits aren't posted to my account sometimes until three or four days have passed. Like many other banks, they try to "order" my withdrawals and deposits in such a way as to attempt to charge me for overdrafts. And I typically keep a balance in my checking account at or above $500. Fucking absurd.

I've had it with Bank One. My next paycheck is going into a new checking account with a new bank that isn't going to hold me upside down and shake me for loose change.

Re:Per Transaction Fees Suck...

[Citizen of Earth]

My boss gets lots of complaints because we pass the 3% credit card charge on directly. Like somehow people who pay with cash or check should subsidize the credit industry.

If they don't like the extra 3%, then the ought to pay using a debit card. If they normally buy things with money that they don't have, then they should be used to being ass-raped by the credit-card companies.

Re:Fuck banks

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, my deposits aren't posted to my account sometimes until three or four days have passed

They don't give you a dated deposit slip? If I was being charged to talk to a teller I would practically demand they sign absolute liability in blood...

Re:bastards

[Galvatron]

What justifies it is that they don't need your space. If everyone brought 200 lbs. of bags, the plane wouldn't be able to lift off. If everyone brings exactly their weight limit, however, there shouldn't be a problem. So they need to create a disincentive for people to exceed the weight limit, but they don't need to create an incentive for people to go under the limitation.

Your argument might make sense if there were a lot of people who wanted to exceed the limit, but couldn't. Then, maybe, it would make sense for the airline to pay you for your weight allowance, so that they can sell it to someone else. As it stands though, they don't need to do that.

Seriously, I don't get what the problem is. United isn't a freight service. If you've got a lot of shit you want to take, ship it. If you want to take it on the plane with you, you have to recognize that not everyone can do that. The limit is pretty damn generous, too. I have to take all my stuff back and forth to college with me, and I only occasionally rub up against the limit (and even then I can almost always shuffle things around so that no one bag goes over).

buy vouchers

[g4dget]

For many services like car rentals, hotels, etc., you can buy "vouchers"--prepaid "tickets" that include a well-specified set of services: insurance, all fees, etc. Read the fine print and make sure that they state that they do include all charges that you care about and that they give you the coverage you need.

In general, people should have the option of negotiating specific, binding contracts with sellers or service providers, be it in the travel industry or anywhere else, with full disclosure of all fees ahead of time, and with a well-specified duration. On the other hand, doing business under contracts that give companies the option of changing their contractual obligations unilaterally at any time should simply be outlawed. Until it is, do business with companies that make commitments.

Re:Oh, the fees you'll pay!

[g4dget]

[...] Then there's the %50 fee on gas, that you never see because its built into the price- but is all tax [...]

You seem to have a problem with taxes that are included in the prices. I absolutely don't. I don't care what fraction of my gas money goes to the government when I buy gas; I care about that only when I go to the election box (and then, I think that gas taxes are actually too low).

And the value of the services you get from the government? Less than %10 of what you pay in taxes-- thats how much you're being ripped off.

Yes, and do you know where most discretionary spending is going? It's going into the defense budget. Those supposedly fiscally conservative Republicans are outdoing themselves in spending money. I agree I'm being ripped off by this, but what can I do?

At least let us invest our own social security money if we choose to-- there's no acceptable reason not to, unless it really is just a fund for the congress to raid whenever they want a raise.

Social security is not a retirement plan, it's a fall-back. It doesn't make sense for you to invest it yourself.

What about Taxes?

[koolB]

Amazing that no one complains about the fact that government charges most working people about 50% in "Fees" and few complain. Note: Income, Property and Sales Tax combined.

When a commercial entity charges 1-5% everyone raises hell.

Re:Happened to me...

[Silverhammer]

Blockquoth the poster:

On a side note: for the few who read this, it *really* pays to call your credit card issuer, act dumb, and ask them why their interest rates are so high(even if they aren't).

I'd like to second this bit of advice. I got one of my cards lowered from 14.99% to 9.99% in two calls using this very tactic.

TicketBastard

[skeedlelee]

You know, it always somehow made sense to me that ticket master could charge a convenience fee for tickets. The idea was that they had to charge a small enough amount that you didn't decide that it was too much and just go over to the actual box office and buy it without the service charge. However, the amount they charge these days is f'ing ridiculous.

I wanted to go to a show recently where the venue is 200 yards from my house. I figured, ha! here's a chance to actually go to the box office and avoid the surcharge! It turns out that they have closed their box office, because no one was using it, you can only buy tickets through ticketmaster/bass or whatever. And the fee is like 35% of the cost of the ticket! When there was actually an alternative I would blissfully accept Tm's business model (and bend over), but now that there isn't an alternative at all. Anyone else have this happen (ie. tried to buy from a box office, when there no longer was one)? Alternatively, anyone ever get charged by ticketmaster when buying the ticket AT THE BOX OFFICE?

Total $ amount

[PeterJFraser]

The addons do not directly bother me. I can easily see why a airline would like to show how much money it recieves versus the amount of taxes that are collects. What does bother me is not knowing what the total bill will be, and even if you ask it quite often is hard to find out. It would be so nice to see something for sale in a store that costs a dollar and then just having to pay a dollar.

Re:My phone bill

[Dolohov]

I wonder if you could get it transferred to a cell phone.

Re:Vancouver Airport

[MvdB]

As much as I despise fees and levies, there's another aspect of the Airport Improvement Fee.
If for some reason you can't make your flight (e.g. cancel your ticket) you don't have to pay the fee. Compare this to places where an airport tax/fee/levy is included in the price. Try getting the money back from the government on this one if you decide not to fly. You will probably conclude it's not worth the trouble.

Mark

Re:Ahhh, the old screw you foreigner tax.

[lordaych]

While it is apparently true on the surface that many foreign police agencies are obviously corrupt, the situation isn't really much different here, it's just done in a much more civilized manner. In clearly poor countries such as Mexico, profit must be generated at the individual level. It is up to the underpaid policemen to subsidize their own life style, whether that means supporting a family or a cocaine habit.

In countries such as Mexico and Colombia where a lot of illegal drugs are produced / manufactured / distributed, the value of the drugs themselves is miniscule compared to what it is once it reaches our shores. We say that "other governments" have "corrupt" police forces, but consider that our own police agencies directly profit off of the drug trade. How so?

Duh. Through property forfeiture and seizure, of course. In some states, you can lose your car for simply having a joint in your possession and getting pulled over for a minor offense. You can just as easily lose your house and other assets if they can claim that you couldn't afford it without illicit drug sales. In most cases, no due process or even conviction is required. And what happens once that property is seized? It gets sold, and the money goes back to the police force. In many cases, this property was in fact purchased with drug money, and the police essentially turn that drug / blood money into their own, profiting from it. In many cases, this property was not in fact purchased with drug money, but it is still seized and auctioned anyway, and nobody is the wiser. Nothing can be done about it until enough people support ballot initiatives to reform this horrific practice.

Some might not call this "corruption" but the fact remains that by perpetuating this cycle, the police are essentially profiting directly off of the incredibly inflated drug trade in the US. As long as they continue to do so, there will be no true incentive to "end the war on drugs," but to perpetuate it for eternity. That's whole idea, isn't it? Not to actually "win a war," but to constantly justify a war either by pointing out its meager successes, or its persistent failures. "We can't give up now...almost there." Even if there was a way to win this "war," the government truly would not want to do so. Do you have any idea of how many electronic appliances, among other things, are purchased directly by foreign nationals with obvious drug trafficking connections? Our entire economy rests on a foundation of illegitimacy, of corruption, what have you. There's no turning back, at least from the perspective of those with the power to make a difference.

Not only is corruption inherently built into our system in this way among many others, but there are plenty of cases of "truly," directly corrupt officers who look the other way in certain cases, plant evidence in others, or just wreak havok in general on the so-called justice-system by looking out after their own interests before all others. It's human nature, after all.

So in the US we are fleeced in that we pay monstrous taxes to subsidize the federal and local police forces, who spend much of our money fighting a losing war in order to justify their bloated existence. Not only that, but we pay taxes to subsidized tobacco farmers, who produce one of the most addictive and dangerous (and widely used drugs) known to man! We constantly are asked to pay extra fees to support supposedly capitalistic enterprises that cannot support themselves due to their excessive, bloated, inherently un-capitalistic nature. We must subsidize failure on a regular basis, in order save face for those who would rather not admit such.

In Mexico it might be common to get shaken-down at the individual level and be forced to part with some hard-earned cash. In the US, we are fleeced systematically, every day. I have a Discover Card with "no annual fee," yet I was charged $6.08 in "finance charges" last month, when I kept a totally empty balance! That's one minor example, of course...but don't think the US is any more civilized simply because our money is transferred out of pocket electronically and in a stealthy fashion, whereas in other countries it must be yanked the old-fashioned way...

Re:while in USA everything is a for profit busines

[dattaway]

Some of your police hardly have an international reputation for integrity.

That's because we like to blame our problems on everything. Our news has to have something to blame. Our politicians do it too. We like to complain, because if we didn't everything would be boring and we would have no goals. Its good that people feel insecure so they will be driven to spend money on ways to feel safe. Actually, its very peaceful here in the USA. Just don't tell anyone.

Re:while in USA everything is a for profit busines

[Anonymous Coward]

I find your assumption that "police are massively crooked whenever you go to a foreign nation", i.e. the whole world is crooked apart from the USA, naive and xenophobic to say the least.

It's not an assumption that is meant to realistically portray reality, it's an assumption that's meant to protect himself. If you assume the world is out to get you, you're ready for the bits of it that are. To be consistant, however, it would be best to assume the police are also massively crooked domestically as well, except he's probably had more experience with them.

It's the whole "don't talk to strangers" principle.