I just bought new tires, and noticed a few gems that nickel-and-dimed the final bill into being about 30% higher than it seemed like it should have been: “Tire sourcing fee” (you want me to pay for getting the product to your store? really? what’s next, you want I should chip in for the electric bill and property taxes?) and “Old tire disposal” (just toss them in the trunk and I’ll burn them myself) were my two favorites.
I know that these are things that would probably just be passed along to the consumer and included in higher prices anyway, but for some reason seeing them directly articulated and added to the bill irks the piss out of me.
I know I’ve encountered other galling examples, but I can’t think of any at the moment. What mandatory “since when is this MY responsibility as the customer?” fees annoy you?
As a customer, I don’t recall any offhand, but when I worked in the university’s theater box office, we charged folks a $7 ‘convenience’ fee per phone order and $5 per online order. I hated it. Oddly enough not too many customers complained, but I always felt like I, personally, was ripping them off whenever I told them it would be added to the order.
"Administration fees’ (gyms; “don’t pay until 2010” deals, etc) always seem to have them. Transfer fees for cars. Since when do I have to pay to get the car to your dealership? It’s called cost of doing business.
They’ve recently given detailed information on ConEd’s bills. The meter reader is supposed to come by 12 times a year. I’m lucky if I get actual readings 4 times a year, but the cost is delineated on my bill as if the guy showed up to begin with. Often the estimated readings are so off that I am hit with hundreds of dollars in unexpected billing.
The bill also delineates that I pay for those people not paying their coned bill.
My favorite is the fuel surcharge, called Energy Recovery Fee . Um, I’m renting the car, I buy my gas. So, is Budget is charging me 70 cents a day to drive the rental car from the return to the car wash to the lot?
I rented a car in Phoenix back when they were building their new baseball park. In addition to numerous other extra fees was one tacked on explicitly to fund the building of their baseball park.
I am a VISITOR to their city! Why should I possibly be responsible for paying for THEIR baseball park? At the end of it all the price of the car rental was near 33% more than the base fee.
Absolute ripoff.
I also DESPISE ticket surcharges. Particularly TicketBastard. Just obnoxious and IMO they count as a monopoly. So there is precious little choice and they screw you.
Also, my car payments if done via their automated system over the phone cost $10 extra. Sending them a check was free. Yes my choice but on occasion I would forget and always felt ripped off by this. How can it possibly be cheaper for their company to hire someone to collect the mail, open it all, manually input the check into my account then go deposit it in a bank? And I get charged for the automatic system? I’m saving them money when I do this and they see fit to pilfer more of my money because it is convenient.
I don’t mind the various taxes for hotels and such. The hotels can’t do anything about them, and towns clearly want to charge people who aren’t voters. My town does the same thing.
Besides the obvious obnoxious airline fees, I really hate resort fees for hotels. Those are fees for use of resort facilities they charge to everyone, even if the people never use them. They are major ripoffs, and often groups going to the hotel can negotiate them away.
I also am not too fond of high parking fees for resorts in the middle of the desert.
Internet usage fees in hotels are always annoying, especially because budget hotels don’t have them, and expensive hotels do. No way does a bunch of wireless access points and routers and bandwidth cost $10 a day. If the Days Inn can give you this free, why not the Hyatt? (I know the answer - corporate travelers.)
The wife is collecting unemployment insurance. Everybody pays into the system, not everybody actually needs it. Recently they went to a paperless system. Rather than mail you checks, Chase mails you a check card. The state saves on postage, and Chase didn’t charge the state for the service.
Instead they keep the interest, and charge you a dime if you use the card to buy anything. Too bad if you can’t use it to pay rent or your mortgage, or if there isn’t a chase bank near you.
I hate any fee that is not included in the price of the item/service, and which is not optional. Don’t show me how much you’re jacking up the price if I don’t have the chance to opt out of whatever it is. I notice this most often on airfares. “Security Fee?” Build it into the price of the ticket. Otherwise, give me the option to fly on the cheaper airplane that you don’t screen as well.
I understand breaking out taxes on many items - they often have to be reported separately on an expense report. But you could still include those taxes in the price, and just show me the breakdown on the receipt.
I know it’s all in an effort to show that you have a “lower price” than your competitor, but if there were some sort of law or mandate that all non-optional fees or charges be included in the displayed or quoted price, the effect would be the same.
Fuckinay. I bought four tickets to a Warriors game last year, and could have bought a fifth with the money blown on the “convenience fee.” Which was a misnomer, anyway, as they tickets wouldn’t print and I had to call them.
I came in here to post pretty much what carlb said, word for word. If I can’t opt out of it, it should be in the listed and advertised price. I give a pass to nationwide advertising that can’t account for local sales taxes.
I think that a law requiring fair and open reporting of actual prices and vigilant enforcement of violations as fraudulent advertising would do wonders for improving our society.
Restocking Fee. Specifically for me, Circuit City. I bought a printer there that was defective, and was charged a FIFTEEN PERCENT restocking fee. IOW they turned a $45 profit from selling me a $300 broken printer. But if I bought another printer from them, no problem. Uh…thanks, I think I’ll look elsewhere.
The 20% “service fee for parties of 6-8-whatever- or more”. Look, if the service is bad, I do not want to be forced into a tip- a tip that I am not sure that the waitstaff will actually see all of.
Morbo Dispute it with your CC company and the local consumer news dude. Maybe even the law, there’s a guarantee on such stuff, and if it’s defective, no fee should apply. Besides they likely re-sealed the box and re-shelfed it.
Shipping, I hate shipping. You can go into a store here see something on the floor you want, notice the price is what your prepared to pay and proceed to purchase said item. Then as they are doing the invoice you see them insert shipping charges. I say no I have my own truck I’ll take it with me now. Oh, no. I’m sorry shipping is from Montreal or Toronto or whatever to the store. Um, I thought that was a business expense and would be calculated into the advertised price already. I mean the price is higher than what I can buy it for myself if I were to go to Montreal, so I’d assume shipping is already calculated, sadly no.
Another one is filing charges. This is where you take an animal to our local vet and they have to open a file for the pet. Each time a cat finds it’s way to our place it gets a trip to the vet. For each animal the vet’s assistant opens a file. This entails pulling a piece of A4 paper out of the printer, writing the cats name on the top then puting it in my file with the files of all the other cats we have. I have one Rat(Cats name), one Mouse(another cat), one Mouffette(no not a skunk another cat), one Kittypoo(No it’s a cat but it has attitude) and four Dunno(I don’t speak cat I don’t know) for each I get to pay a $25 filing fee.
Universities are businesses, right? One fee that still annoys me all these years later is the fact that every student living on campus was charged $50/semester for a “cable fee” my freshman year. Why the outrage? The university didn’t offer cable anywhere on campus until I was a sophomore!