It’s a French Canadian swear word. It’s a deformation of “tabernacle”. French Canadians have possibly one of the most extensive swearing vocabulary, most of it of religious origin. Anyway, that’s what I actually said when I saw how much they were surcharging – plus, it’s Air Canada.
As mentioned, it’s based on tabernacle, where the consecrated Eucharist is stored. This article mentions a few other "church-based’ expressions.
I don’t know why advertising like that is allowed. It is meant for only one purpose: to mislead people.
Why only a fuel surcharge? Is that not part of the airlines’ cost of transporting you from point A to point B? Why not a plane surcharge, or a pilot salary surcharge, or a hostess uniform dry cleaning surcharge?
I would support a law that any advertised price must include everything, including any applicable tax. If Red Roof Inn puts a sign on the road that says single rooms are $39.99, then I should be able to walk in, hand them two twenties and get a penny change back.
If there are any limitations or exclusions to the advertised price, in my kingdom, those would have to be in the same size font as the advertised price. For example, if that $39.99 price didn’t include weekends, then get a bigger billboard that says that in the same size as the big ass $39.99 price font.
I agree that things like the fuel surcharge are bullshit, and i would support your idea of making it mandatory to include such things in the price.
But i do have sympathy for businesses that don’t want to include government-mandated fees and taxes in their prices. I understand why they might want the consumer to know what proportion of the final cost is not the result of the business itself, but comes from taxes, etc.
If your city places a 10% tax on hotel rooms, then i think it’s fair that the hotel advertise their $39.99 price, and then add another $4.00 in tax at the time of sale. After all, the hotel is not charging you $43.99; they are charging you $39.99. With the other 4 bucks, they are simply acting as a conduit between you and the government. In fact, the very act of collecting and then submitting that tax costs the business money.
The ironic thing is that here all taxes are supposed to be included in the price. When I buy, say, groceries, the price label says “105 yen, taxes inluded”, and in smaller print: “100 yen before tax.” Furthermore, tipping doesn’t exist, so that when a restaurant advertises a “1000 yen lunch”, all you’ll need to eat is a 1000 yen bill.
I appreciate this greatly, but it seems that we make up for it through airfare and cell phones. Softbank, one of the major carriers, advertise all their phones as costing “0 yen”. This is of course a lie, you pay for the phone in monthly instalments. This would be like a car dealer advertising a car as being free instead of being financed with zero down-payment. What’s particularly annoying is that all these phones have different costs, but it’s incredibly hard to compare them, or to have any idea of what your actual phone bill is going to be like.
They can’t claim it’s effective for headaches without clinical data to back it up. They have no such data, so they don’t make the claim.
Similar to that are the ads for prescription drugs that do not mention what the drugs do. If they mention what the drugs do, they have to list their side effects and refer viewers to a print ad explaining the drug more thoroughly.
I agree that it places a burden on the business and the business owner should petition the city council for a repeal of such a consfiscatory tax.
But, the bottom line should be that the consumer should have full information. At what point is it not misleading? What if I am driving through Anytown, USA and they have a 200% tax on hotel rooms?
Should I, as a consumer, get blindsided by this only after I have stopped and relied on the advertised rate as my total payment? That is the whole point of hiding these fees: I have already gotten off the interstate; wife and kids are tired and start cheering; we look at the restaurants at the exit; fight breaks out regarding where we will eat.
Oh, look, Dad they have an indoor pool. HBO as well! We can catch a movie tonight!
Then the rate gets jacked up. Am I going to tell my wife that we are leaving over 4 bucks? Of course not. That is the reason for hiding the fees: to mislead…
I personally don’t give a shit what fees and charges make up the total price as long as the total price is the advertised one. I, as the consumer, will decide if I think the price is acceptable. If it is, I’ll pay it. If not, I won’t. Fairly straightforward, I think.
There’s a Mercedes dealership around here that (had) adverts a lease for something like $300/mo. Fine print sez it’s for like 24 months, with an up front of like $7000. Which doubles it.
Exactly. And as you said earlier, they’re legally meant to provide the REAL price - so how does this keep happening?
Similar to this are the holiday advertisements that say “14 days in Europe for $(X)”, with (X) being a reasonably attractive price. Then you read the fine print and…oh hey, that doesn’t include the cost of getting there.
WTF? Have we developed teleportation technology and somehow I missed it? Is there, perhaps, another way to do the 14 day tour of Europe without actually travelling to Europe? :dubious:
These kinds of advertising dishonesty really annoy me.
Those ads are another peeve of mine- you get all excited about being able to spend 14 days travelling around Europe by luxury train for some eminently fair and reasonable sum of money, only to discover that you have to get yourself to Moscow or Prague or somewhere equally expensive and awkward to get to first. I mean, sure, you might already happen to be in Europe and decide to go on the trip- so why is it being advertised in glossy magazines in Australia without the cost of getting to Europe included?
At least the airlines have generally stopped doing “Stupidly cheap one way, incredibly expensive to come back” domestic flight deals. So (until the last couple of years, at least) you might see Brisbane to Sydney one way for $35, but to fly back might cost you $150. At least now, generally, the fare is more or less the same in each direction…
How are out of town visitors supposed to know the tax? Taxes vary by location.
Couldn’t the business owner use some of that personal accountability free market types harp on and set up shop in a town with better tax rates if che doesn’t like them?
Completely beside the point. I never even said that the business owner need necessarily oppose the taxes, but he or she might simply want to make clear to the customers that the taxes are NOT something that the business has any control over.
Also, while you are correct that taxes vary from location to location, they tend to be the same within a particular city. This means that your ability to price-compare is not reduced when businesses fail to disclose the taxes on their billboards.
For example, say the hypothetical city has a 10% tax on hotel rooms, and say that we are comparing two hotels.
Hotel A: $39.99 per night (+ tax)
Hotel B: $49.99 per night (+ tax)
The fact that neither hotel discloses the tax rate on their billboard does not prevent us from making a decision between the two places based on price. Hotel B is basically 25% more expensive than Hotel A, and that’s not going to change whether the tax rate is 1% or 99%.
So put all three up.
$47 per night! ($39 + $8 tax)
Like hell it don’t. If I’m planning my trip I’m going to stop in the cities with cheaper hotels. The destination city might be fixed but there’s usually cheaper hotels in the country surrounding the city.
It’s cheaper to stay at hotel 10 miles out of Boston then in Boston it’s self.
Okay now say hotel A is in a city that charges $20 tax, and hotel B is in a near by city that charges $6 tax.
Which one is cheaper? Which one would you pick if you knew the taxes vs which one you pick if you didn’t?
By leaving off the tax rates the hotel is being deliberately deceitful.
you want to see a misleading ad? look at this screenshot I took.
No, nevermind. That’s just an outright lie.
It would depend on a number of things.
If the second place was $14 cheaper based on tax, but staying there would result in the need to pay $20 worth of cab fare to my conference destination, i’d choose the hotel with the higher tax rate.
No, sorry.
It’s not the hotel’s responsibility to advertise how much the government is charging you. The rate they post is the rate they are charging you for a night in their hotel. If you’re worried that the city you’re visiting has high hotel tax rates, it’s your responsibility to find that out before you go.
I recently bought a used car in California. Was the seller being deceitful by not disclosing, in his Craigslist ad, the price of the car including California sales tax and transfer fees?
I just did a quick search through some of your posts, and while you don’t list a location, you appear to live in the United States. Do you also think it’s wrong that, in almost every state, the supermarket or department store cashier adds sales tax at the register?
Actually, no: they clearly indicated that this was “simulated imagery, results not typical.”
I don’t live in the US but I certainly feel it’s wrong not to display the total price on the shelf. Pretty much every other country on the planet manages, and regardless of local taxes or whatever there’s no reason that the sale price couldn’t be adjusted before printing the sales ticket.
Taxes? Taxes are OK to not mention, but surcharges and other fees should be mentioned up front.
Well, other countries manage to do it because, in most cases, there are legal requirements to include the tax in the price.
In Australia, for example, the government requires any business that collects GST to include the GST in the retail price of the item. I believe the situation is pretty much the same with VAT in the UK (although some websites and companies do display ex-VAT prices for exempt customers).
I don’t think that there’s necessarily anything wrong with such laws, as they definitely do make it easier to assess how much you’re spending while doing your shopping. But, in cases where including taxes is NOT mandated by law, i also understand why retailers might prefer to make clear which portion of the price is a direct result of their own pricing policies, and which portion is simply money that is handed over to the government. And i also see the PR benefit for a government of hiding taxes in the price, rather than making clear at the register how much tax you’re paying on a given item.
Also, in places where laws requiring the inclusion of a tax are NOT in place, a business like a hotel would be crazy to include tax on their signs and billboards, because if other hotels are not including tax, then the businesses that do include it will be at a disadvantage when people drive past looking for a place to stay.
Agreed.
I believe that the company should be required to include ALL charges that are at the company’s own discretion. So, an airline that institutes a fuel surcharge should be required to include it in the quoted price of the ticket.
Basically, if the charge cannot be avoided through some choice on the part of the consumer, then it should be included in the price. So, while a fuel surcharge should be included (because someone buying a ticket cannot opt out of paying it), i would argue that a bag-checking fee need not be included, because a traveler can avoid the charge by bringing only carry-on baggage. The presence of a bag-checking fee should be disclosed, but it need not be included in the upfront price of the ticket.
Same with a company like Ticketmaster and their bullshit, unavoidable “Delivery” and “Convenience” fees. If you could avoid those fees by making certain choices about the delivery of your ticket, that would be a different thing, but these add-on charges are basically unavoidable. Ticketmaster should be required to include them in the upfront price of the ticket.