What fees, that businesses directly pass on to you, annoy the piss out of you?

In My Humble Opinion
101

[QUOTE=Spartydog]

As for restocking fees, in some circumstances there is some justification. People don’t like to buy electronics if the box has been opened. As soon as that happens the store probably has to discount the product in order to move it. If the item is defective then a restocking fee is unconscionable. To hell with Circuit City (they will be out of business soon). When they fired all of their experienced sales people I, and a lot of others, quit shopping there and started the death watch.
[/QUOTE]

Also, FWIW, at the stores I’ve worked at that have sold electronics, returned (yet not defective) merchandise isn’t simply resealed and put back on the shelf. It has to be sent back to the distributor/warehouse/etc. This means the store has some wait time on getting the item back on the shelves, which (theoretically) costs them money. That said, since there are stores that are willing to eat those losses and don’t charge a fee, I have no idea why anyone would choose to buy an item at a store that does.

102

[QUOTE=mudkicker]
My internet/phone company charges an extra £3 per month for not paying by direct debit. I don’t like direct debits, I never know what will be in my account or if I will have enough to cover it, and if it gets bounced back the bank can charge me up to £35. So I have to pay £18 per month for my internet rather than £15 - well, my choice, right?

Except that I got a letter this week saying from September the non-DD charge will be £4. But what really pissed me off was the way the letter was worded. ‘Hey, do you want to save £48 a year?? We’re increasing our £3 monthly charge to £4, so sign up for direct debit now and save money!’

I don’t WANT to sign up for a direct debit as they’re crap for people on low incomes. And I’m not giving you my debit card details as last time I did that you took the £18 payment out SIX TIMES and my bank cancelled my card (and then you refused to believe you had done it). So I’m paying an extra £36, soon to be £48 a year for the privilege of not paying by DD - DO NOT BLOODY TRY AND TELL ME THIS MEANS YOU’RE SAVING ME MONEY YOU STROKING GITS!

Ahem.

::fans self::

Grr.
[/QUOTE]

You could do what I did. I don’t know about your side of the pond, but over here many banks (including mine) don’t charge you to have an account, so I opened a second account which I use only for direct debits. It never has more than a couple of dollars in it except when I have a bill coming due, then I transfer the money to cover it from my main account the day before the debit. This allows me to “pay” the bill directly, to keep more money in my main (interest bearing) account longer and protects me from losing money if they try to draw too much out when they are not supposed to.

[QUOTE=Antigen]
The foreign exchange fee charged on my credit card if I use it in Canada. I understand the exchange rate, no problem. But then they charge me x% of each purchase as an “exchange fee”. Presumably to pay the hamster with the abacus who’s working out the math for each transaction.
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THIS!!! FUCKIN’ THIS!! GRRRRRRR!!! I’m still pissed off! I just got back from Canada and saw all of these little charges on my statement. I hit the roof with my bank, not that it did any good.

[QUOTE=Cyberhwk]

My own is parking fees for events. How the fuck do you expect us to get there then? That’s like getting your bill at a restaurant and find out you were charged for the fucking chair.
[/QUOTE]

One of these? Exactly what type of restaurant is it? :dubious: (WARNING: LINK POSSIBLY NOT WORK SAFE IF YOU HAVE PRUDISH BOSSES. No nudity or anything, but be warned)

[QUOTE=Scissorjack]
Cold hard cash.
[/QUOTE]

You win the thread.

103

[QUOTE=Zebra]
Shipping and handling.
The shipping I get, but it costs extra for you to actually handle the product? You didn’t think about that when you set the price?
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I always suspected the " and handling" was just so they could tack on a few bucks without people calling them out on it (“Uh, $7 for shipping? I checked UPS’s website, and that half-pound package, ground-shipping, only costs $2.25”)

104

[QUOTE=Zebra]
Shipping and handling.
The shipping I get, but it costs extra for you to actually handle the product? You didn’t think about that when you set the price?
[/QUOTE]

I came in to say exactly this. It’s bothered me for years.

Someone told me that handling is actually insurance, but I’m not going for it.

105

[QUOTE=jali]
I came in to say exactly this. It’s bothered me for years.

Someone told me that handling is actually insurance, but I’m not going for it.
[/QUOTE]

Me, I always wondered at places that calculated S&H rates based on the price of the items, rather than on the weight.

106

[QUOTE=jali]
Someone told me that handling is actually insurance, but I’m not going for it.
[/QUOTE]

Seeing as insurance on the first $50 or $100 of the package’s value (depends on the carrier) is usually included in the shipping charges, you’re right in not believing it.

eBay sellers are infamous for this. They’ll charge you an additional $1.30 or so for shipping insurace, but they pocket it, hoping the package arrives safely, and that their buyer doesn’t understand how UPS works.

“Handling” is more appropriately considered as the cost for the box and packing materials. Big companies like Amazon can absorb the price of boxes and bubblewrap as a cost of business, and some scrappy little guys may also absorb it, loudly promoting FREE SHIPPING! as a loss leader, but the rest of the pack generally pushes the envelope to see what they can get away with.

107

Having charged more than ‘minimum’ for shipping ebay stuff, I can say that, as a ‘little guy’ trying to clean out my shop, I can’t afford, nor want, the hassle of dealing with a broken $150 instrument panel out of a Corvette. The $8 above the price of postage gets two new boxes and plenty of pellets as I never want to see the thing again.

So, just because Amazon can send it for $12, and I’m charging $20, it just means I’m taking more care to pack it well (and paying retail prices for the packing material). Do I pocket an extra $1.25? probably. Ya gonna hold me to $1.25 in a $175 transaction?

108

[QUOTE=gotpasswords]
Seeing as insurance on the first $50 or $100 of the package’s value (depends on the carrier) is usually included in the shipping charges, you’re right in not believing it.

eBay sellers are infamous for this. They’ll charge you an additional $1.30 or so for shipping insurace, but they pocket it, hoping the package arrives safely, and that their buyer doesn’t understand how UPS works.

“Handling” is more appropriately considered as the cost for the box and packing materials. Big companies like Amazon can absorb the price of boxes and bubblewrap as a cost of business, and some scrappy little guys may also absorb it, loudly promoting FREE SHIPPING! as a loss leader, but the rest of the pack generally pushes the envelope to see what they can get away with.
[/QUOTE]

When I was selling on eBay I would add an extra fifty cents to $1.50 to cover the cost of shipping materials; the amount for a given item was as close as I could get to my actual cost (I’d buy a pack of a dozen padded envelopes for $11.00 and charge $1.00, for example). My buyers were offered the option of paying for USPS insurance; if they were willing to pay for it, I’d use it.

109

[QUOTE=mowyourlawn]
Also, FWIW, at the stores I’ve worked at that have sold electronics, returned (yet not defective) merchandise isn’t simply resealed and put back on the shelf. It has to be sent back to the distributor/warehouse/etc. This means the store has some wait time on getting the item back on the shelves, which (theoretically) costs them money. That said, since there are stores that are willing to eat those losses and don’t charge a fee, I have no idea why anyone would choose to buy an item at a store that does.
[/QUOTE]

We do tend to just re-seal the merchandise and put it back on the shelf (after inspecting it to make sure that it works, any personal data from the previous owner has been removed, etc), but on many things under about $60 we often have to simply write it off and throw it out because it can’t be re-sold above cost price.

In printers, for example, the cost of replacement cartridges is more than the printer. So, someone buys a cheap printer, takes it home, discovers it doesn’t work with their steam-powered Windows 95-based computer, and returns it for a refund.

We’re stuck with a printer that we have to discount below cost to sell, AND we have to replace the ink cartridges (which are worth more than the printer anyway)… or someone can accidentally drop the printer on their way to the store-room. Either way we’re out the cost of a printer (at least), all because someone didn’t think to check if their PC had operating software from sometime this century running it.

I’m all in favour of re-stocking fees, in other words…

110

[QUOTE=gotpasswords]

C: Buy the sofa at La-Z-Boy, where it was in-stock, less expensive overall, and they loaded it onto our truck.

.
[/QUOTE]

I can’t help but notice you said loaded it on to our truck, and not carried it into our house and set it down exactly where we wanted it. For us that would be a deal breaker, because if they don’t deliver and unload, we’d have to hire somebody else to do it for us.

Although some sofas are light enough to be easily handled by two people, moving others can be a knuckle-banging, back-straining bitch of a chore, especially if overall size compounds the difficulty.

111

When I was living in Australia we needed a copy of the plot plan for the property. Specifically, we needed to know where all the utilities were buried. The house was something like 40 years old, or more.

It turns out the government lands office had a policy of total cost recovery. Mind you the original survey was completed by the government some 40 plus years ago using tax dollars at the time to pay for it. Some time in the intervening years, other tax dollars paid (at the time) for converting the paper copies into digital copies and storing the data. Later, other tax dollars paid (at the time) for system upgrades for the equipment required to print hard copies from the digital copies.

My cost for the A4 size (letter size) copy of the plot plan, printed fresh for me from previously collected, previous digitized database? Just a flat, AUS$10.00!!! When I questioned the outrageous price for what amounted to a simple photocopy (current rate at the time was AUS five cents), I was told about total cost recovery. They had already calculated that AUS$10.00 fee recovered the original cost of the surveying 40 plus years ago (already paid for years ago), the original cost of converting from paper to digital (already paid for years ago), and upgrading the already existing storage facilities (already paid for years ago).

The price also included the cost of the current building the government lands office was located (already paid for just a few years earlier with tax dollars), current utilities for the building (already being paid for by my income taxes) and the salary of the idiot clerk who spent five minutes “work” moving a mouse and finger clicking (his salary also paid for with my current income taxes).

One more thing. The AUS$10.00 fee included the then current sales tax!