5 ms·

Why do we need a special case law for this? Seems like it should already be covered.

vezycash 6y ago
I believe the real problem is pricing. The ability to advertise $30 (bait) and charge $50 (switch) basically begs for scams like this.
- spaetzleesser 6y ago
  Exactly. Same for phone plans. The advertised price should be the price you pay. They shouldn’t be able to add random fees they just make up.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    It's unfortunately true with a ton of things: hotels, rental cars, etc. Taxes, franchise fees, other taxes, facilities charges, etc. can all add on 20% or more. Especially if you're comparison shopping, you really need to verify whether you're looking at a base fee or the final tally.
    - baskire 6y ago
      Airbnb does this all the time. Their advertised prices don’t include cleaning fees. If Airbnb included those fees the pricing would often come out higher than a hotel in many cases. And hotels include cleaning costs as part of the nightly rate
      - josho 6y ago
        Many hotels have responded by adding “resort fees” on top of the base rate. This is all attributable to weak consumer protection laws.
        ghaff 6y ago
        Resort fees aren't new. Perhaps they've become more common but I haven't noticed. The more common issue with hotels, which isn't really their fault, is you might have 5 different taxes added to the bill which can add up to a good 20% of the total bill.
      - arebop 6y ago
        If you search for a certain date range, Airbnb will calculate and display the full price for each property on the SERP. It makes sense to compare asymptotically when you don't know the length of stay. The cable and telephone companies billing practices on the other hand are purely deceptive with no utility for the consumer.
      - loftyal 6y ago
        Try airbnb.com.au Australia made legislation requiring companies to give the full price.
        spaetzleesser 6y ago
        I think requiring to advertise full price is even more market friendly than sneaking in more fees. This just incentivizes dishonest behavior. It’s hard to advocate against such a rule. The US health system is also in dire need of such a rule.
      - spaetzleesser 6y ago
        I have had several cases recently where the added fees almost doubled up the final price making the search feature almost useless.
  - tyingq 6y ago
    Airline fares are easy to compare because the DOT compels them to make it so. https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airline-rules-fares#DisclosureFullFares https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airlin... This is one area where regulation is probably the only real solution.
dmurray 6y ago
You can rent cars, houses, computers - what law would normally forbid those financial relationships? Cable companies and other utility providers need special treatment in the law because they enjoy special advantages as monopolists. Instead of saying "anyone is allowed to dig up the road, bury cables and let the customers choose the provider with the best service" we often allow only one or two cable providers and add some special rules to make them treat their hostage customers better.
- TheRealSteel 6y ago
  Once again, just like with Covid, we can look to what New Zealand did for the obvious and correct answer: Have the government lay fibre to every home and business, and allow any ISP to compete for service over that fibre. Australia tried, and around 10% of homes got connected. But the conservative Liberal government got in power and changed it from fibre to DSL, a move that was universally derided as unfeasible both economically and technologically. It was known to be a waste of tens of billions of dollars - but Rupert Murdoch doesn't want poor people to have access to information outside his propaganda network, so he handed the election to the Liberals (the conservatives) in exchange for destroying the network and salting the earth so it was hard for even a future government to fix. Telstra, the big incumbent ISP with a monopoly in many areas, also had alot to do with it. Instead of gigabit fibre, we now have 25mbit DSL, which doesn't work when it's raining even lightly, or in strong winds. This network was also slower to build, and far more expensive than the fibre. But as long as it's built with fibre, it works. New Zealand's network is enourmously successful, and now anyone has access to gigabit fibre on their choice of ISP. It works both in theory and in practice, you just must not allow a conservative government to hand it over to monopoly corporations. The common "government can't be trusted" rubbish is bunk, the government only screwed it up in Australia because that was their goal, the fibre networks have always been a success.
  - kaczordon 6y ago
    So as long as the government does it it’s ok as long as the government doesn’t do it incorrectly? Therein lies the problem, governmental failure is always a possibility as Milton Friedman observed, and if they fail there’s no penalty to failing other than the size of government increasing :) Even in America the issue is that we’ve over-regulated the internet industry to the point where even a company like Google has issues, although one could argue they did it for different reasons i.e. to force the existing companies to lay down fiber faster. Regulatory capture is the real issue.

I believe the real problem is pricing. The ability to advertise $30 (bait) and charge $50 (switch) basically begs for scams like this.

spaetzleesser 6y ago
Exactly. Same for phone plans. The advertised price should be the price you pay. They shouldn’t be able to add random fees they just make up.
- ghaff 6y ago
  It's unfortunately true with a ton of things: hotels, rental cars, etc. Taxes, franchise fees, other taxes, facilities charges, etc. can all add on 20% or more. Especially if you're comparison shopping, you really need to verify whether you're looking at a base fee or the final tally.
  - baskire 6y ago
    Airbnb does this all the time. Their advertised prices don’t include cleaning fees. If Airbnb included those fees the pricing would often come out higher than a hotel in many cases. And hotels include cleaning costs as part of the nightly rate
    - josho 6y ago
      Many hotels have responded by adding “resort fees” on top of the base rate. This is all attributable to weak consumer protection laws.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        Resort fees aren't new. Perhaps they've become more common but I haven't noticed. The more common issue with hotels, which isn't really their fault, is you might have 5 different taxes added to the bill which can add up to a good 20% of the total bill.
    - arebop 6y ago
      If you search for a certain date range, Airbnb will calculate and display the full price for each property on the SERP. It makes sense to compare asymptotically when you don't know the length of stay. The cable and telephone companies billing practices on the other hand are purely deceptive with no utility for the consumer.
    - loftyal 6y ago
      Try airbnb.com.au Australia made legislation requiring companies to give the full price.
      - spaetzleesser 6y ago
        I think requiring to advertise full price is even more market friendly than sneaking in more fees. This just incentivizes dishonest behavior. It’s hard to advocate against such a rule. The US health system is also in dire need of such a rule.
    - spaetzleesser 6y ago
      I have had several cases recently where the added fees almost doubled up the final price making the search feature almost useless.
- tyingq 6y ago
  Airline fares are easy to compare because the DOT compels them to make it so. https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airline-rules-fares#DisclosureFullFares https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airlin... This is one area where regulation is probably the only real solution.

dmurray 6y ago

You can rent cars, houses, computers - what law would normally forbid those financial relationships? Cable companies and other utility providers need special treatment in the law because they enjoy special advantages as monopolists. Instead of saying "anyone is allowed to dig up the road, bury cables and let the customers choose the provider with the best service" we often allow only one or two cable providers and add some special rules to make them treat their hostage customers better.

TheRealSteel 6y ago
Once again, just like with Covid, we can look to what New Zealand did for the obvious and correct answer: Have the government lay fibre to every home and business, and allow any ISP to compete for service over that fibre. Australia tried, and around 10% of homes got connected. But the conservative Liberal government got in power and changed it from fibre to DSL, a move that was universally derided as unfeasible both economically and technologically. It was known to be a waste of tens of billions of dollars - but Rupert Murdoch doesn't want poor people to have access to information outside his propaganda network, so he handed the election to the Liberals (the conservatives) in exchange for destroying the network and salting the earth so it was hard for even a future government to fix. Telstra, the big incumbent ISP with a monopoly in many areas, also had alot to do with it. Instead of gigabit fibre, we now have 25mbit DSL, which doesn't work when it's raining even lightly, or in strong winds. This network was also slower to build, and far more expensive than the fibre. But as long as it's built with fibre, it works. New Zealand's network is enourmously successful, and now anyone has access to gigabit fibre on their choice of ISP. It works both in theory and in practice, you just must not allow a conservative government to hand it over to monopoly corporations. The common "government can't be trusted" rubbish is bunk, the government only screwed it up in Australia because that was their goal, the fibre networks have always been a success.
- kaczordon 6y ago
  So as long as the government does it it’s ok as long as the government doesn’t do it incorrectly? Therein lies the problem, governmental failure is always a possibility as Milton Friedman observed, and if they fail there’s no penalty to failing other than the size of government increasing :) Even in America the issue is that we’ve over-regulated the internet industry to the point where even a company like Google has issues, although one could argue they did it for different reasons i.e. to force the existing companies to lay down fiber faster. Regulatory capture is the real issue.