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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.
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I had a conference in Vancouver in October. When I flew into Vancouver's airport I found out, much to my surprise, that I would have to pay 15 Canadian dollars just to leave the place (this fee not being included in my ticket). The airport authority called it an "Airport Improvement Tax". My only thought was, "I don't care what this airport looks like, I'm only going to be here a couple of hours".
Patriotism is the opium of the masses
the proliferation of extra fees tacked on to just about every product or service under the sun
...like Slashdot.
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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.
I hate that sort of thing. It first really hit me when I got an unexpected $1 fee for using an ATM. Not the fee from the ATM's owner--a fee from MY OWN BANK for not using a preferred ATM network! After that I just came unglued (switched banks too).
In the end, I think it's all just part of the game. Most people are so jaded about "the value of service" anymore that the only way to sell something is with the lowest price. A lot of these fees serve no other function than to allow the price to represent the real value of whatever it is you're paying for. No longer do we live in an age where many aspects of the transaction are rolled into an "overhead account". Everything seems to be billed in excruciating detail!
While it largely makes sense, I long for the days when bills were simpler.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
Get this new 2ghz 200gb/hd 256mb/ram computer free! See deails... Price doesn't include shipping, handling, delivery fee, order fee, fat lazy ass fee, dumb ass fee, silicon surcharge, cd fee, bill gates payoff fee, electricity licence, electicity processing fee, ordering this-fee, and several other fees and licences. Total price: $5000
But then again, it really is under any solution provider.
:-) = I am happy
:^) = I am happy with my big nose
C:\> = I am happy with my OS
- extra local taxes
- the hard-sell "collision damage waiver,"
- the charge for an extra driver
- the ever-popular "refueling charge" should you not fill up the tank.
- At the San Francisco airport a $12 surcharge helps pay for the car-rental shuttle bus
- a state-mandated $10 at Boston's Logan Airport helps fund the city's new convention center
- last month, also in Boston, Dollar Rent a Car slapped on a $1.84 daily "peak-season" fee
I am renting a car in the near future, where they also threw on a "Premium Station Surcharge" for picking the car up from the airport instead of a local station. That comes to around 20USD. Plus, often, you have limited kilometres, so you had better count on adding on a few dollars if you go too far....Basically he says that the marketing and advertsing people pull the wool over the eyes of the consumer with friendly deals and offers that the consumers dont realize they're being, as Carlin puts it, fucked in the ass! Good stuff, LOL :)
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Traveled to Houston recently. my rental car charge was DOUBLED by taxes and extra fees... to the tune of around 400$ for the week.
I don't know what the hell they are building in Houston that justifies that level of extra tax and local fees, (airport tax, use tax, local tax, etc, etc).
That kind of nonsense kills me... "Oh, did I mention that a few additional charges and taxes are added... that'll be DOUBLE what you thought it would be! Thanks for doing business with us!"
Yeah, thanks... it was good for me too.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
It definitely makes you think though. I noticed all the extra taxes and fees and such on my phone bill, but like the article says, I never paid a great deal of attention to them. Now I'm going to start shopping around and see what better deals I can get.
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.
offtopic! wtf? how is this offtopic? goddam mods
With other fees (car rentals fees, atm fees, airplane ticket fees), if you wanna use these services and opt out of these *cough*bullshit*cough* fees, you are SHIT OUT OF LUCK! :(
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Rented a Chevy cavalier for two days from LaGuadia (LGA), it was like 78/day with the insane taxes (yeah, really, for a cavalier - but I *had* to, so alright, I will part the 155 dollars).
When I returned it, they charged me 110 dollar *per*day* of "under age fee" because I am under 25. AND they taxed the fscking fee (at the same 17-18% rate which I have no idea where comes from)! is that funny, eh? considering in CA AVIS charges like 10-15 dollars for the same underage deal, I can just smell "bullshit."
If I didn't check the reciept, they'd probabbly just let it slip (I think if you don't file a complaint right away or some such, you waive your rights after a certain time). Eventually it got sorted out and such, but still it took a several phone calls, placed on hold, explanations, transfered, re-explanations, the whole works.
Point is, be careful out there, guys (and gals) - companies will rape you when they have the chance, so check your bills and add things up. And yeah - renting from AVIS in LGA is not a good idea.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I'm sorry but the best jokes on that page were at the bottom. :)
Excerpt follows...
P stands for the problem the pilots entered in the log.
S stands for the corrective action taken by the mechanics.
P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
P: Test flight OK, except autoland very rough.
S: Autoland not installed on this aircraft.
P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back order.
Wanna read the rest? Just Click here
As coined by large companies:
Free Market: "The freedom to convince the consumer you offer the lowest prices by aggressive advertisement based on misleading emotional impulses and the freedom to compensate the low, listed, prices by post-charging costumers for things that really should be included in the fees charged up-front."
Or, in plain english, lying about the real price of things.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Parents are going to start charging their children "Being Born Fees"
Here in the UK things are a little better particularly with banking. How does this sound: No monthly charges, no charges for use of Cards (in the UK at least) Interest on current account balences (upto about 3%). The UK has regulators who generally try to keep these things in check. Airlines are generally just as bad, although some of the newer buget carriers quote you the price all taxes included.
Keep your programs tidy.
Exitzero.
While I am as tired of being nickled and dimed to death as the next person, this simply is not going to go away. The basic charge for a service does not necessarily reflect what the final charge to the customer will be. It almost never will, there are too many extras, options, and case by case variations (especially in the service industry). Sales tax is tacked on to every purchase in the US. You always have to remember that 8.25% (in Houston) will be added for state and city tax. But here in Germany the "rough" equivalent, VAT, is added before the price sticker is placed on. While that is more convenient to the customer, unless you have been paying attention, you never know how much is tax. The problem is not the extra charges, the problem is transparency and when "options" are mandatory.
-------------------------------END--COMMUNICATION
Karma whoring doesn't always pay, except when it does.
Dana Chase, director of acquisition and retention in Sprint's consumer long-distance marketing division, said its property tax surcharge "reflected the cost of our business that we needed to recover." Chase added: "We felt it was better for the customer to add a special line item than adding it into the permanent rate."
/. For giving me the opportunity to vent from time to time. ;)
Yeah, and I feel that it would be better if you could itemize your entire business model on my bill. I mean WTF? Do I really need to know how they run their business? No; I really don't give a rat's ass.
Oh, but that would mean you would have to raise the price that we agreed to in our contract, doesn't it. The same contract that is 500 pages long, all worded in _your_ favor, but you couldn't find one single section that allowed you to increase the rate that was agreed upon. And now you decided that your business 'needed to recover' some cost so you just 'added a special line'.
I know I'm on a long rant here, but let me say this: I'm getting SICK AND TIRED of these f*cking companies that make me agree to pages and pages of agreements and yet there is no credibility on their side. What's wrong with people? It's like no-one is willing to stand behind their product. If they screw up I am turning out to be the person to pay for it. Damn that pisses me off.
Anyways, I'd like to thank
The local Cable co has been running an ad over and over for the past couple years that criticizes satelite companies for tacking on extra fees... One example is the extra monthly charge for a second reciever. Of course, they don't mind being blatanly hypocritical.
Their new Digital Cable package sounded a lot cheaper, but adding in the little extra charges that they include, I was paying even more per-month... I canceled on the spot.
Most people may not notice, but I notice, and I reject it on principal alone, not to mention that going with the seemingly more expensive options usually save you money in the end.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
taxes!
The one that really gets me is a %5 tax on my phone bill to pay for WW2! WW2 has been over forever, but that tax put there to pay for it still is being collected.
Or the %20 in federal taxes added to airline tickets (one of which is the insulting 9/11 fee- a tragedy that wouldn't have occurred if the feds hadn't stopped pilots from carrying guns to prevent hijackings, and taken over airport security, ensuring poor security.)
Then there's the %50 fee on gas, that you never see because its built into the price- but is all tax. A brilliant deception because people all over hate oil companies for charging so much for gas, even though they aren't!
And in my state liquor is market up about %50, of course since the state owns all the stores where you can buy it, you never see this add on fee- its built into the price.
And lets not forget cigarettes-- a %50 markup in my state as well. But you don't see this fee because its built into the price. Another hidden tax. And people hate tobacco companies, hmm, noticing a trend.
Now the scum are starting to propose "vice" fees on fattening foots, so we can expect to pay an extra %50 for the privilege of buying a big mac that big momma government doesn't want you to eat?
Never mind the fees that you have to pay before you even get the money that you use to pay fees with!
The %15 taken out for social security-- you'll never see that money again.
The hidden income taxes that your employer "pays" but that you really are the one paying-- for instance unemployment insurance. (Let me buy it privately- I know I'll get a better deal! When they charge you four times as much as the service costs, how much of it is really taxes?)
Not to mention workers comp. I'm a programmer. Why do I have to pay workers comp-- again, let me keep my own damn money and I'll buy my own insurance and get a much better deal!
(And if you think its not your own money, the employer pays for it, you might be a liberal. This is an absurd distinction- every employer counts all these taxes in the total cost of employing you and so you must be worth more than that to the employer for them to hire you-- that is you have to earn all the money, plus their profit, to make it worth while to hire you. If they didn't have to pay so many fees, you would get more cash, because you'd still earn the same amount of profit for them that you do now.)
Even if you only make $36k a year- the average salary- you're paying half your income in taxes- and that's just direct. The things you buy, would be %30 or more cheaper if there wasn't a federal income tax, etc. (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.)
AS they say, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
So I don't mind companies adding fees- if I don't like them, I can always refuse to do business with them, they need them anyway to cover the ever increasing tax burden they are being saddled with-- and that tax burden you don't get to opt out of if you don't like it.
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.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Adding the 3% to the bill if the customer is paying by credit card is a sure way to piss off the credit card company. They might even revoke your ability to accept credit cards.
I know of many restaurants in NY which rather than take the 3% loss on transactions (which at busy places can cost tens of thousands at the end of the year), have an ATM installed on site. Wanna pay by CC? Sure, go use the ATM. Now instead of losing 3% on the sale, the business gains $1.00 (other $1.00 goes to ATM vendor).
I had a long distance provider phone me, at 7 in the morning (this is early for me, as I am young and unemployed at this stage in my life) and assure me that if I switched to them, that I would not recieve ANY billing unless I made a long distance phone call, of course as naive as I am, and especially polite, I accept their offer, and switch. A month passes, and there is a letter from them in the mail, what could it be, some exclusive offer i hope! no a bill for their service, and their account transfer services, and their phone representative service. In the end i think i told them to take their deal and stick it where mom tells dad not to!! I specifically asked on the phone if i would get billed at anytime if i didn't make a long distance phone call, and surely enough yes means no!!! I wonder who runs the business world now... huh guys?
I had to pay 10 bucks to leave the Bangkok airport. I never thought I'd want to leave a place where hot women grab my crotch as I'm walking down the street, but after two weeks of that, 10 bucks was a small price to pay to get away from all the GODDAMN HOOKERS!
Founder, Americans Allied Against Alliteration
Once my father received money from his brother, but the deposit was only going to happen after 3 days (to see if the check was valid, if my uncle had the money, etc...)
At the same time, he had 100 bucks in his account. So he wrote a 300 dollars check, and the bank charged money because:
1) A protection fee, because my uncle's money was not really deposited yet;
2) The fee because he used his credit (used money that would make his account negative). Later, there's interest rate that the bank charges for this.
My question is, how come the bank could charge for both situations? Either my father used his soon-to-be-real brother's money or his credit. But the bank charged for both. And it is completely legal, although makes no sense. The same money can't come from two sources at the same time, right?
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When I booked a trip to Florida last summer, my travel agent offered a special deal on a car rental (with Dollar). I could rent the car for a high daily rate, but there would be no extra surcharges, and that was guaranteed! I took one look at the list of possible surcharges and decided to go with the all-inclusive deal. Did I get a good price? I don't have a clue, probably not... but I paid no additional surprise fees to Dollar, the airport, or any additional taxes.
The article is dead-on: people are willing to pay for convenience.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Long story but a valuable note at the end for some...
I got my first credit card so I could get an Internet account. The interest on it was outrageous so I paid it off monthly.
This went on for years until one morning I discovered my car had been stolen. Fearing that there might have been some old mail in the glove compartment, I got all of my cards(including other cards at better interest rates) cancelled, reported as stolen, and reissued with a different number.
While calling people who charged my first credit card monthly(three accounts and a few online services) I accidentally gave them the number of one of my newer cards. I didn't bother making the necessary corrections because it didn't matter to me.
A week later, the issuer of the first card sent a replacement but left the expiration date the same which was two months away. I put it away and ignored it.
The date of expiration on the card came and went and I got nothing. Not having any outstanding balance and not receiving any mention from the issuer I assumed they had dropped me.
Two years later, I get a monthly statement from these guys. Surprised, I look at it and it's several dollars for maintenance. It seems that they assumed I still had a valid card and since I did not use it they were going to charge me for the honor of not using it(a new policy it seems).
Politely, I explained that they never issued me an updated card, their interest rates were too high, they could cancel my card, and I wasn't paying the fee. Worked like a charm.
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).
Tell them about all the mail you get about other issuers promising lower interest rates(you get those all the time, remember those numbers).
Tell them about how those cards are offering to transfer your balance for *free*.
Explain that you like to do business with them but those offers are tempting and, "Is there anything you can do?"
Although I have relatively good credit(I think) I have heard from others that this will work even if you are really bad. The worse thing that can happen is they say no and you can brush it off with an "OK, just checking" attitude.
Try it. It *REALLY* works!
This is half business as usual, but half the result of the ongoing corporatization of America... The majority of publicly held companies face serious pressure to make greater and greater (not just sustainable) profits for obvious reasons. As most shareholders only have an interest in the return on their investment, they don't give a shit about how it happens. Thats what these upper-management types get paid to do; squeeze as much profit out of the company as possible, regardless of the way customers or the environment or (insert innocent victim here) is affected. And, take the fall for the shareholders when they screw up enough to get in trouble legally, or in some way that adversely affects profits.
As the article says, the fees that are shown separately as fees are done so very intentionally...You don't see anywhere on your wireless bills your share of the $415,000 in PAC campaign contributions that SBC made in 2002 alone. Or, the $548,000 that AT&T made.
Or, conversely, that they receive millions in 'corporate welfare' every year in the forms of subsidies and tax breaks that don't translate into lower prices, but....You guessed it:
Higher profits!
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.
All fees and taxes that are unavoidable should be included in the listed price so that people at least have some idea of how much they are going to pay. Anything else is some weird propaganda move--if you are going to factor out taxes, why not factor out CEO bonuses, campaign finance contributions, etc.?
As a student in Scotland, if you believe the guff our dear leaders come out with higher education (uni, college, whatever you call it) is free for all.
;)... It all adds uo.
Bollocks.
For starters, instead of charging tuition fees like they do south of the border (this is so the LibDems, a minority party with the balance of power up here, can claim that they honoured their pledge to scrap them) they merely charge you two grand when you graduate.
And then there's the student loans. Instead of actually giving you a grant so you can live (as they did back in the day), they give you a paltry amount (based on how much your parents could give you if they didn't do anything but give you all their spare cash) then start charging you interest on it at the rate of inflation.
Of course, the unis can charge what they like for the 10by10 foot box they make you live in. And there's all sorts of hidden costs, like printer accounts, matric cards, lab fees, key deposits, beer at the union
We're getting screwed over. And do you know what? They start on us once we're old enough to get credit. It's things like this that make me want to pay cash for everything.
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.
--- Every day I am forced to add another to the list of people who can kiss my ass...
Yet, do they charge less for customers who use less than average? I think not.
Sprint decided to charge some of its PCS wireless customers -- primarily those with poor credit ratings who were on a special price plan -- $3 when they wanted to speak to a customer-service representative.
The less money you have, the more expensive everything is for you. The more expensive everything is for you, the less money you have. Now even insurance companies charge you more if you have less-than-perfect credit. Cell phone companies charge you more. Land utility companies charge you more. I've even seen surcharges on Apartments, Hotels, and Rental Cars for less-than-perfect credit.
a state-mandated $10 at Boston's Logan Airport helps fund the city's new convention center
This is a privately levied tax! Amazing! Basically, a for-profit piublicly run private venture (convention centers are all for-profit, and have nothing to do with the public good, hence they are private) taxing people who don't even have the right to vote in that area.
Dollar Rent a Car slapped on a $1.84 daily "peak-season" fee -- "leaf-peeping season," you know.
Why don't they use their GPS tracking to detect when renters drive the cars on popular leaf-peeping routes and charge the fee that way? It'd be like being able to put a private virtual toll anywhere! They already do this to detect when customers leave the "allowed" area, and charge them heftily if they do...
Meanwhile, for the privilege of paying a credit card bill over the phone, Citigroup charges $9.95.
How can it possibly be legal to charge someone for paying their debt to you?! Oh wait, it's free if they mail in a check, so the creditor can hold onto it until it's late, then charge more fees... You're basically paying for the proof that you paid on time.
It has launched a preferred-guest program that,.... to any customer who signs up. And the cost of signing up is also free....
customers who sign up for this preferred service tend to spend 25 percent more than the average guest
Doesn't sound very "free" does it?
How do they do it?
There is software out there called "Customer Relationship Management" (CRM) software that many banks, insurers, and utility companies are using to target fees and customer services. There are several ways this is accomplished using the profitability score, the risk score, and the opportunity score:
1) When you call customer service, you punch in your account number. The computer looks your account up and if you're a "good" customer (i.e. profitable), you get bumped to the head of the queue. If not, you wait.. and wait.... and wait..
2) The computer periodically measures the profitability of your account. If you are a very profitable customer, it may reduce or relax fees on your accounts.
3) If you start to pile up money in your bank account, the computer will sell your personal information to places like mortgage lenders, car lenders, and other high-dollar financing brokers to start trying to separate you from that money.
4) If your average balances start to decline, down go your scores and up go your fees!
5) Use all of your cell phone minutes every month without going over, and all three of your scores drop and you'll never get decent customer service. Some cell phone companies are even working on technology that will decrease the likelihood of your call being dropped depending on your profitability score; when there is contention between customers on a crowded cell. Say there is a full cell, and a highly-profitable customer drives into it - the software will determine which unprofitable customers can be dropped so that the profitable customer doesn't get dropped.
6) If a bank is taken over, this software determines which accounts the suitor keeps, and which ones are sold off to other subprime banks (probably with higher fees).
7) Pay off that credit card balance every month, and you'll start to see your interest rate drop gradually in order to encourage you to carry a balance (I know for a fact Capital One does this. I have a card and for every month I pay my balance in full, my daily rate drops by a few ten-thousandths of a percent). Conversesly, you may also see 'participation' fees levied against you if you don't ever pay interest.
8) You may also see 'participation' fees if you don't use your card for a number of consecutive billing cycles.
9) Call customer service frequently? Maybe you better think twice about that
10) Paying $4 to use a teller at your bank? Profitable customers don't have to. (i.e. you have your mortgage with them)
Exercise some critical thinking skills and I'm sure you can see where people you do business with will look for opportunities to measure your profitability. Once you can see where they are trying to manipulate you, you can turn it around and begin to manipulate the system in your favor.
I don't really mind this, companies should be able to charge any fee they want, for any reason they want.
There is currently a controversy on "white label" bank machines that charge $1-4 to get your money out of your account.
I think this is fine, as long as it is clear what you will actually pay. If the company is misleading about the price that is wrong.
Anybody notice pricewatch has the cost AND the shipping cost? This way you compare the total actual cost.
- never charged a monthly fee for any account
- provided me with a free supply of printed checks
- called me (years ago) when the interest rates on money markets became higher than those in my savings account just to ask would it be ok if they transfered part of my savings to a money market account?
- provided an ATM card with 16 free uses per month (half for merchants / half for cash withdrawal)
- provided a list of credit unions in my area which have no-service-charge ATMs (there are no local branches of my Credit Union)
- provided free on-line banking which gets better each year
- introduced their on-line bill paying service with two free years of use, then, after charging for it for a year, they reduced the monthly fee.
Maybe not all of them are as good as this one, but they do generally behave as though service to members is important. There is an alternative to fee happy banks and you should seek them out.Your cheques don't have to pass through bank clearing houses? Any cheque payed into a UK bank account only gets added to your actual funds 2-3 days later, once it's passed through checks.
Hmm.. I don't get it. I only see a song about CowboyNeal.
:-P )
( ok, that was perhaps hitting below the belt
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The reason that the companies do it is that they know that potential customers look at the cost before deciding where to buy. So, they take something off the advertised price and add it back on as a mandatory charge - by which time it is too late or costly in money or time for the customer to switch.
One company starts: the others have to follow or loose business.
The place where this should be tackled is the Advertising Standards Authority (or equivalent for those not in the UK) or the local trading standards office.
Why is it fraud: because it is a con trick on the customer. They lie to get the customer into their door. This should be treated as the fraud that it is.
No shit you're being ripped off, it even happens when you sleep.
I think the add-ons start showing up at like the 3rd level of hell. I'm serious. All this stuff in the world are milemarkers to somewhere and it's not a pleasant destination. Have you read about the World Bank and IMf literally harvesting 3rd world countries for everything of value?
You might look at these little quips that pop up in the news as being simlar to cockroaches. For every one that makes it past our wonderful media(thanks for warning us about Enron, assholes!), there are thousands of bigger ones lurking somewhere else.
If you keep relying on mass media for your news(sorry, not implying that you specifically are in this category), you're gonna get fucked one way or another. Is the media warning you about mad cow in the US? Autism from vaccines? These are no longer urban legends or conspiracy theories. They're not gonna warn you about anything. You'll hear plenty about it after the fact like those poor saps with the worthless 401k's.
Indeed.
Today I bought a 25$ ticket from ticketmaster--$6.50 "convenience fee", $4 handling fee, $1.50 shipping charge.
Which would be reasonable except that delivery consisted of generating a pdf for me to download and print.
"Homeowners look at interest rates and points, but they don't spend a lot of time comparing other fees that make up the closing costs -- even though a lot of money is on the table."
Points have always pissed me off. Points are extortion charged by the lender to convince them to make you a loan - even if you have good credit. Another little advantage to this scheme is that they are the equivalent of interest charged up front. Each point is equal to 1/8 of a percent of interest on the loan amount, and it's paid up front.
The real trick is that it's the equivalent of that interest rate charged over the life of the loan. This would be fine if you kept the loan over the full 30 year (or whatever) term. However, based on turnover and people selling, moving, etc., the average loan is only kept for 7 years. Therefore the effective interest rate increase can be many times higher.
Considering the cost of homes and the amount loaned, this can be many thousands of dollars that you get screwed out of.
Bottom line: unless you're going to keep the loan over it's full term, never pay points. It's just not worth it. Take a slightly higher interest rate up front. Of course, YMMV so check it out and do some math based on the how long you expect be in that particular home and loan.
Another one is "document prep fees" when buying a car. This one is for filling out the form and processing the title at the MVD/DMV. This can run into the hundreds of dollars and it represents a few minutes writing your name and address on a form and writing a check to your local MVD/DMV office. Sure you might wait in line a while, but the folks there generally try to be helpful and can certainly tell you what you need to get titled and licensed. Is $300 - 400 worth eliminating the (maybe) frustration of that process? Personally, I'd ask for the MSO (Manufacteror's Statement of Origin) and do my own title work (with the help of the MVD/DMV clerk if necessary.)
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
As I see it, the masterful approach is to take the multiglomerate meganational view. You can carve a slice out of "paired" markets, say CCs and a major ISP. Your ISP charges a fee if you don't pay by CC, your CC co. charges a fee for having one. THIS is the behaviour that will become more and more relevant as essential services like water (as opposed to internet access) are compulsorarily fully privatised. Now there's nothing wrong on the face of it when fees are used primarily as a marketing mechanism, but if a company can develop a position on two generally opposed essentials, then there'll be no way to opt out of one without paying the other one, and the company can sit back and hike the prices. This also provides a way for the company to dictate social behaviour in a mathematically definable manner by forcing people to pay extra for "errant" conduct. Personally, I think it should be illegal for a company to charge fess on each of the available options -- in banking for example, how can they get away with a counter fee, an ATM fee AND a not enough transaction fee??? It's bloody ridiculous. May as well charge a "not one of our customers" fee.
... and cash paid in over the counter is in my account instantly. If I walk straight from the teller to the cash point and do a balance check, the money is already there. If my bank didn't do this I'd go and find one that did.
So now that my stocks aren't worth diddly...e*trade has decided to slap me with a $25 a quarter fee for low balance and inactivity (I just want to ride it out).
Any reccomendations on where to move to? Of course, there will probably be a fee for leaving them, too.
Has this thing called a "number portability surcharge." I called once to ask what it was. Basically, it allows me to keep my phone number if I switch to another phone company. This is a land-line, mind you, and gee, our small town has a monopoly phone company! Who am I going to switch to?
This stuff makes me want to start a competitor just for spite.
Here in the UK there are also add-ons that you don`t always take notice of. For example, on the bottom of the reciept it says
...
2.5% of this is paid by me to XXX Card Services Ltd for handling this transaction for me. The total amount paid is the same however I pay.
That means that even if I pay cash, 2.5% of the cash does not go to the company I bought the goods off.
So these extra add on's go right down the chain, from the consumer to the reseller
In theory, if you return the goods for a refund, the company you bought the goods from only gets 97.5% of the original price!!!
Fees like this particularly infuriate me. I am currently looking into other banks after first union(wachovia now?) decided to start charging 50 cents every time you pay with something with your atm card. This after they'd finally dropped their 1.00 fee in addition to the 1.50 you pay to atm owners for getting money at a damn 7-11. The article does make one good point though - companies that play their marketing off consumer frustration with fees can make a bundle. I recently stayed at a wyndham, the hotel chain listed in the article. It sounds stupid, but the fact that I signed up for a free program and now can count on free internet access, free ld phone calls (!), extra pillows, and a free (as in beer) beer whenever I walk into my room there will make me choose them over just about any other chain. Other hotels could take a big lesson from them, especially certain "luxury" hotels whose idea of "business services" is putting analog jacks on the sides of the phones so you can pay 10 bucks in service fees to check your email over dialup, and allowing you to receive faxes for a dollar. Give me broadband in the room and I'll stop bitching about how there's only 5 non-pay channels on the tv.
-1 Offtopic. Still haven't made it past The Worst Toilet in Scotland. Seeing a human dig through their own filth like that was too much.
Of, say, the U-Haul variety.
I'm hoping I don't have to move again anytime soon, because that was painful. Big signs anywhere about it being 19.95. If you expect to spend anywhere *near* that, you'd better be moving to someplace down the block, because the extra mileage is super-expensive. And, of course, very similar surcharges everywhere.
And they tried to give us a truck with a half-empty gas tank, and then tell us that there was a refueling fee if it wasn't returned at the same point.
"To pay for you to put gas into the truck... the same way you obviously didn't?"
We got given another truck.
"And sometimes these fees amount to far more than a few dollars or cents. At Virginia's George Mason University, for example, in-state undergraduates pay $2,375 in tuition -- plus an additional 60 percent, or $1,416, in fees."
:)
I go to GMU, and I'm not sure who pays that much extra. Other than the fact that we get less budget assistance than UVA or Va. Tech, and as a consequence pay more tuition than either, I'm not sure what these fees are. I do know, I've never paid that much extra myself.
Maybe they mean housing, but it should cost a lot at a former commuter school that is trying to build as many dorms as it can as fast as it can (plus it's optional for all students). Maybe it's the activity fee ($50) or the meal plans (non-mandatory for everyone but on-campus freshmen-juniors). Might be the lab fees (I'm an EE, so I don't think my experience is representative. We have labs with many easily destroyable parts
Suffice to say, despite this damning pdf, I'm still not sure.
Having lived in the UK for quite some time, every Canadian cellphone "Special Offer" feels like a rip-off.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Now, think about this. More than the average. This statement would make most anyone who's had a class in basic statistics cringe, wouldn't it? What it REALLY means is that the top 50% of people (or, for those of you who have trouble with math, HALF of the travellers, give or take) are charged more because they are carrying the weight the makes the average in the first place. I got smacked with this each time I checked my SINGLE CARRY-ON when I went to Europe over the summer. They said it was "just too heavy", though it fit on my back and in the comparmtent above my seat.
Sorry, that "more than average" statement always gets me.
you can always pick what's right for you (TM)
If you have an oracle Turing machine (or you're Paul Muad'dib)
-- start quote
Two types of pepole seem to talk precisely:
Mathematicians talk precisely, so they'll understand each other.
Layers seem to talk precisely, so they'll confuse each other.
-- end quote
Working for necessity's mother.
I went to a show at the Chicago House of Blues, and I thought I might buy the ticket online to make sure it wasn't sold out by the time I got to the door.
What started as a $14 ticket had a $.75 fee if you wanted to print your ticket off the internet, a $2 day-of-show price increase, both of which seemed fairly reasonable (though they should be giving ME a discount for printing my own ticket). Without any warning at all, at checkout, they tacked on a $3 'transaction fee' and a $5.50 per-ticket 'handling fee,' and a $1 building maintenance fee, PLUS tax, (which is not applied at the door), and my total came out to $29.67, MORE THAN TWICE THE ORIGINAL TICKET PRICE.
um, I took my chances at the door, and got in for $14. Too bad that's not an option for most bigger venues.
Here's another good one for you. I recently looked into buying some swimwear online, and the price was quite reasonable, even with the shitty exchange rate we have to put up with between $US and $CDN, (artificially set, IMHO, but that's another story...). The thing that completely turned me off buying them was this company's policy of shipments outside the US being sent by the likes of UPS or FedEx, who want a whopping $US 20 PER ITEM! This essentially doubled the price of the swimwear, and I let them know that I would not be paying this kind of extortion to ship a 200 gram piece of clothing up here, and what the hell's wrong with shipping by post anyway? They gave me some lame excuse about packages being insured...insurance is certainly available up here at Canada Post, up to $100 value costs all of a buck!
This isn't the only place online that I have encountered this. Online firms should really take this sort of thing into account when they wonder why they don't get much business from outside the US.
Credit, ATM and Debit Cards: What to do if They're Lost or Stolen
I think it's also interesting that you have no liability if the number is stolen but not the card. Many credit card companies have been touting that as a feature of their service when in reality it's the law!
I use my debit card as a credit card because my bank instituted a 25 cent per transaction charge for whenever I use my card and PIN, including when I withdraw money from their ATM machines!
Heres a good example. Ryanair (a UK based discount airline) was offering 'free' flights to destinations all over Europe this weekend. It expires in a few hours, but they did have the courtesy to advise that 'taxes' and 'other charges' were not included.
You could still pick up flights for as little as US$30 to major destinations, however. Still a great deal. I think the rule is generally just to be 'well informed'
My mother in law was in Mexico on a tiny little island, and as the plane was about to take off, the military and police stopped it for not having the official duties paid, this amounted to going seat to seat and getting 15 USD for every person. Needless to say they all had the cash to pay, but never told a soul that there was an issue about it until the plane was ready to take off. No one ever saw one official document. Hmmmm...
*Cough*. B-S. *Cough*.
My boss, who worked for CNN for decades was recently in Mexico, and he just keeps a wad of cash with him when he pulls out his news camera to work down there. I'd say about 1/3 of the people that I have talked to about Mexico have been shaken down by the police because they are foreign.
Needless to say, I went to Mexico. Great place. Same place as the relatives. No plane fee for me leaving. Surprise. But you can bank it that I had at least 50 USD for me and my wife when we got on the plane.
After all, in Mexico policing is a for profit business. You should assume like I do that the police are massively crooked whenever you go to a foreign nation, and be surprised when they are not.
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?
ebay pulled my auction when I explained to bidders I would charge an extra fee for anyone seeking to use a credit card with paypal since pp charges me an extra fee.
;) to those who pay with cash.
I thought that was BS. They shouldnt be charging me an extra fee.
Ebay does not support extra fees, but advised me to offer a 'discount'
Gotta love that. 'twas an easy fix if they hadnt waited till the last hour to inform me. I had to redo the whole auction.
I guess I just don't see htat as any better than my bank (Bank of America) over all. I get an ATM card (they call it a check card) with a Visa logo on it that I can use as often as I like, ATM or merchant, and not get charged a fee. Last moth I used it about 25 times, mostly at merchants. They have online banking that I use all the time. Like most banks, you get charged fees for making a deposit with a teller or getting funds at a non-bank ATM BUT since you can deposit at an ATM and since their ATMs are fairly plentful, it's not a real problem.
Maybe I've just been luck, because I hear plenty of "why banks suck" stories, but I haven't seen a reason so far to switch to a credit union. The extra fees seem easy enough to avoid if you are smart about it, most of them relate to having a person help you do something that the ATM can do just as well.
None of this, including interest rates etc that can be charged is regulated. In fact a few years ago the law preventing shops/companies passing on the credit card fee was *repealed* and many shops now do pass this on (not all by a long way).
Others have a scam where they declare 2-3% of what you pay is the CC fee (doesn't increase the total you pay) but does reduce their tax liability - and despite being declared an illegal tax avoidance scheme a few years ago by the customs and excise nothing's been done to stop it. End result lots of big retailers are ripping of the country for huge amounts of tax.
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.
Yeah, that 3% sucks. But it sucks more to be stuck with alternatives, namely A) adding it to the bill, or B) only taking checks and cash. The first makes your place look cheap (and violates merchant agreements, as mentioned). The second will cost more in the long run - it loses you customers if you only take cash, and bounced checks hurt quite a bit. Ultimately, it's just the cost of doing business in a place where bills are generally over $10.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Option 1: Take ISDN phone at half price if you pay full price for DSL
Option 2: Take DSL at half price and pay full price for ISDN phone
Option 3: Pay full price for DSL
Option 4: Pay full price for ISDN phone
and hey since it's half price save 70 euros on the DSL modem...right....
NOT...when you look at the prices you realise that the ISDN phone and the DSL modem cost just about the same!
Reminds me of what my university group did in reply to a government proposal several years ago. They barred access to the canteen and wrote this on a board outside:
To go to the canteen you have these options:
Go from the back door
Go from the door next to the poet's statue
Go from the door next to the ATM machine
and yes all three options referred to the same door!
Lies, damn lies and special offers
---
Yep, and if you don't have any renminbi because you weren't aware of the fee, you'll have the opportunity to exchange some at the airport.
Some hotels in Taiwan at least let you buy the exit tax ticket before you even go to the airport. Haven't found this service in the PRC.
Actually, no.
HSBC bought Midland. I should know, my father works there.
HSBC did start somewhere out East (I think it was Hong Kong not Shanghai, but don't quote me on that).
But it was started by a expat Scotsman, not a local.
Is it Asian or European. Which way do you want to split this hair?
Check the fee schedules at your local bank or credit union that has only 1 to 5 locations. Usually you can get a good deal.
Here in Mass. there is the SUM network that shares ATM machines, which can limit your exposure to ATM surcharges if your bank is a member.
Get a good deal and support your local businesses at the same time.
For example, the Cayman Islands charges a $25 depatrure tax.
I didn't pay, so now I have to stay here. Woohoo!
Those who use CNN/Fox News/MSNBC solely for their news are very poorly informed. These examples of media cowtow to the hard right and to the corporations. We don't have a free press, just the right to one.
Great post. The only part I'd quibble with is the credit rating bit, a la...
Sprint decided to charge some of its PCS wireless customers -- primarily those with poor credit ratings who were on a special price plan...The less money you have, the more expensive everything is for you. The more expensive everything is for you, the less money you have.
I will say that good credit != rich. If you pay your bills on time, regardless of how much money you have, you will have good credit. Maybe not exceptional credit, since the ability to have a big CC helps, but good credit. I'm by NO means wealthy (I'm in grad school for Chrissakes), but I have great credit because I always pay my bill on time, and fully. I haven't paid an interest charge in years.
I've known rich people with terrible credit. It's all about living within your means and being smart.
Also, I'm intrigued by this CRM stuff. I've suspected this for some time, but have never seen anything on it. Have a link, by any chance? I couldn't find anything more than industry-side stuff on google.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I normally have that 'breakfast special" in the morning. One day last week instead of the normal toast I asked for a bagel. "Extra $0.55" the waitress said. "No problem" I said. When I got the bill there was a $0.35 fee for warming up the bagel. Another place charged $0.25 for extra lemons for my iced tea. Everybody is out to get extra fees.
zenray
So long as you know about them, your buying decisions will be 99.99% the same as if all the fees had been silently included in a single price.
.001% of buying decisions I left out at the beginning. Sometimes you'll be willing to pay the final price after all fees, but the mere fact that they're trying to nickel & dime you to death pisses you off and makes you take your business elsewhere. Going back to the eBay example, given a choice between two otherwise identical listings, I'll take the one with free shipping because it strikes me as more honest. Firms, take note.
Let's say you're shopping on eBay, and two different sellers have an item listed you want, one has a buy price of $100 plus $20 flat rate shipping, and the other has a buy price of $120. You will not be fooled by the lower "price", because after S&H they're the same. There are a lot of eBay sellers who try to make extra money this way, by pricing their items low and charging horrific S&H fees (like a $.50 laser pointer plus $5 s&h), but it doesn't work unless they scam you. So long as the terms are clear, it doesn't matter how the final price is broken up, buyers will not be fooled.
Some of these cases are just the same. Your phone bill, electric bill, cable bill, etc. list fee breakdowns and for the most part they're the same every time. So even though your final price isn't that round $39.99 you see in the ads, it doesn't matter becuase you *know* what the actual price is, so you can decide whether you're really willing to pay it.
On the other hand, some of these are bordering on fraud. You call a hotel in some city you're flying to to find out the rates, and they quote you a figure but leave out the fees. Or the same with a car rental. It seems tourist industries are the big offenders, I would guess as they face a less elastic demand structure, since travellers are more concerned with going about their business than haggling over their hotel rates or whatnot.
Oh yes, there's still that
The cost of doing business show be part of the price of the service/item, not broken out into bogus "fees" (i.e. taxes) so they can advertise a lower price. If a fee is required then it must be advertised as part of the price, anything else is fraud.
The pricewatch shipping value isn't very useful as shipping varies by the type of shipping and the weight/size of the item.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I remember paying up to $.50 a packet for ketchup.
Did it in every country I visited so it is not just a local thing.
For the friendly folks in the Canadian government, September 11th 2001 was a good excuse to come up with another add-on: a security fee of $24 on a round trip. A lot more than it is in the U.S.A. Note that this was not called a tax. Why not? you may wonder. Simple: you can't charge GST @7% on a tax, but you can charge GST on a fee/levy. I feel so much safer now!! Not...
Mark
I agree that sometimes extra fees really frustrate me. It's always annoying when you see a price for something, and it seems cheap enough, until the time comes to pay and it's 10% to 30% more than you had planned. Perhaps my fault for not reading the fine print.
However, this part of the article annoys me:
The FTC has taken action against firms that haven't disclosed some fees, but the last such case was in 2001, when the agency settled deceptive advertising charges with Gateway Inc. and Juno Online Services Inc. The agency said both firms promoted free Internet service, even though some consumers incurred substantial long-distance charges to go online. (my emphasis)
Now, unless Gateway/Juno led the customer to believe that they would be making a local call, which I doubt to be the case -- then this is the customer's fault.
In fact, I've never, ever seen an ad for internet service that didn't have the standard disclaimer about "phone charges may apply" or what have you...
There were other instances in the article that were just a bit over the top, but the long distance charges for internet service one really just got to me. Why is that their responsibility?
If I give you my phone number, and tell you that I will gladly talk you through a problem or situation for free -- is it my fault if you run up your LD bill in the process? Now, adding the word Internet to the mix makes the average tech-phobe lose all common sense, and suddenly they were tricked with all these technical terms. Like "telephone" and "long distance". *sigh*
I'm done now...
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
Check out FairTax.org for information on a group that's trying to eliminate the IRS. (For those outside the USA, the IRS is the federal government's bureau for tax collection)
"For example, you have $100 in your checking account. You deposit $500 on Monday"
As you know things that are direct deposited and cash are posted immediately. If you have a paycheck or other external check. Go to one of their branches and cash the check. Take the cash to another branch and deposit normally. Gets neatly around that scam.
That's right!!! Fu** them!!!
Join a Credit Union.....
I still got change in MY pocket....
But, do you ever actually get the money back? Besides, if they tell you they're passing on the fee, then you have a choice. Last time I went to buy upgrade parts they told me it would be +3% to use Visa, so I debited. Sucked, but the prices were cheaper than elsewhere anyhow, and it does otherwise cost them the money.
My question, how does Visahave a right to determine what retailers charge their customers. If the fee is a visible one, and one being incurred from Visa originally, then it's no worse than other idiotic fees like enviro levies on tires (even if I used the tire as a flower-pot and never put it in a landfil;) etc
As noted in another reply, a point is 1% of the mortgage amount, not 1/8%, but there is also one key that you are missing with points paid to reduce the rate of a mortgage.
Where points are useful is getting the seller of the property to pay points as part of the sale. In a buyer's market, it is a way for the seller to say, "look, I want to sell to you, and I'll even take some of the money you are paying me, and I'll put it toward helping you get a lower interest rate." The buyer is happy because they get the property and a lower interest rate, the seller is happy because in paying a small amount of what they just received, they closed a deal on their property in a buyer's market.
As a result of this lower interest rate, even the mortgage is only held for 7 years (more like 6 in MN), more of the principal has been paid off, and more profit will be made on the future sale.
It is unfortunate that so many people are uninformed about why points are useful. I do agree with one part of the argument though, however. If you are taking out a mortgage, don't pay for points on your own loan.
How about products that don't come with all the needed "accessories?" Just installed a printer at a local business, and it came with neither a USB or Parallel cable.
Of course, this has apparently been happening for a long time now, but I haven't bought a printer in many years.
It's one thing to charge people idiotic "hidden" fees on top of the standard rate, it's another to force them to shell out to pay for a part necessary to the functionality of a product.
/.................../ \\
In Calif. it's illegal to ADD the cost of credit card fees to the bill. So instead, you'll see a lot of prices that "reflect a 3% cash discount".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I'm in Canada, and do most of my banking through either ING Direct and President's Choice Financial. They charge no monthly fees and no transaction fees.
I believe that the U.S. branch of ING Direct is very similar.
You can still do some stuff without paying fees, but it takes a bit of effort.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
Actually, debit cards fees are cheaper, much cheaper. Read this artice on MSNBC titled Visa, Mastercard seen foiling rivals. It's about Visa and MasterCard using thier monopoly powers to try to kill the debit card market (and the new antitrust suit against them).
I kind of assumed in USA *everything* was a "for profit business".
Certainly US-slashdot posters often indicate a preference for no government unless avoidable, no taxes where possible, etc. I read this as one of the messages from the original article, that local authorities were collecting income from people through indirect taxation rather than direct taxation.
Maybe things just cost money, and paying for them ultimately comes down to each of us, but it simply boils down to how the organisations get the money out of us.
(BTW 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. Some of your police hardly have an international reputation for integrity).
you're thinking 'median', not average.
My little iMac can encode MPEG4 video in realtime. Show me an x86 that can do that. Or, shut up about x86 performance.
Most midrange P4 systems are capable of decoding MPEG2 and recompressing it as MPEG4 at full DVD resolution (720x480) FASTER than realtime without breaking a sweat. Read Tom's Hardware Guide sometime.
Any tax on out-of-towners (business travelers, tourists, etc.) is levied because those who pay it don't vote in that district. It's much safer to tax people who aren't your constituents than those who are -- if you're a legislator, you can drum up lots of extra money by taxing hotels, car rentals, taxi fares, etc., risk-free.
The real question, in the U.S. anyway, is whether this is taxation without representation, and therefore unconstitutional?
If you're not paying interest, you're dead weight. You may have an excellent payment history, but as a financial institution who is seeking to maximize revenue, people who aren't paying interest (and various fees), aren't contributing to the bottom line.
Have you looked at your credit score?
There's another reason to use credit cards instead of debit cards, though: If your checking account pays interest, using a debit card will deduct from your balance immediately. Using a credit card and paying it off every month, you won't pay any interest to the credit card company, and your bank will pay you interest on the money you spend for the time period between when you buy something and when you actually pay the credit card bill on which it appears. Most of the time the difference won't be very large, but if you're making large purchases, especially early in the month, it's worth the trouble.
Also, regardless of what the liability law says, there's a clear practical difference between the two: If your credit card is misused, you can challenge the charge, and it's up to the company to collect from you. If your debit card is misused, the money is already gone from your account, and the ball is in your court to recover what is rightfully yours.
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.
(BTW 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. Some of your police hardly have an international reputation for integrity).
Hmmmm....... I did not see a single mention of the United States in his post. He only mentioned that he assumes that police are crooked when he goes to a foreign nation. He did not say that police are crooked in "Every country with the exception of the United States." For all you know he could be Canadian, English, Japanese, or Kuwaiti.
Just because you assume that all Americans are naïve & xenophobic, does not make it so.
Some other random notes re one of my favorite pet peeves - thanx to the poster for bringing this up :)
(Btw, lesson learned from this trip: don't book flights less than two weeks in advance unless you enjoy being "randomly" searched, repeatedly.)
DDB (who should be modded up for working Linux into an otherwise-irrelevant topic. :) )
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
The best example I've seen of hideous fees was earlier this year. The local airline, WestJet, offered everyone a low priced ticket (I think it was $3) for flying between Calgary and Edmonton. After taxes, security fees, airport improvement fees, baggage fees, giving us money fees, and everything else, the total was over $150.
Another one: My bank used to give me free ATM withdrawls... until they "discontinued" my type of account, and moved me to one that had the $1 charge, plus the $1.50 Interac fee. I racked up close to $60 before I got my statement and gave them holy hell. And the thing is, they don't care if they loose me as a customer, because so many other people don't care.
The best defense? Read the fine print. It looks daunting, but for the most part, you can make it out. It comes in handy, too... I've had provisions in contracts taken out because neither I, nor the person giving out the contract, could understand the language. It's rare, sure, but all you need is a ditzy salesclerk and a little luck. I asked one teenybopper to explain the signup fee structure on a store card once, and she couldn't, so she crossed it off the agreement and signed off on it. Sure, head office complained, but in the end, it didn't get them anywhere, and I saved $20.
My other fun pasttime is finding ways to nickle and dime the nickle and dimers... if they're gonna try and screw me, then I might as well take everything I can, including their time and resources. Anyone have any good anecdotes on that note?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
the "fee processing fee".
Table-ized A.I.
Or get Adshield. No more stinkin' ads on Slashdot.
See AdShield.org
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
From my point of view you are forgetting one thing : social costs.
Then there's the %50 fee on gas, that you never see because its built into the price- but is all tax. A brilliant deception because people all over hate oil companies for charging so much for gas, even though they aren't!
First of all, as a side note, on the gas pumps where I live (Quebec, Canada), you can see the amount of taxes (in %) that the government is taking. Is there a law preventing your gas companies from doing the same ?
That tax is important (if used correctly) because there is a social cost to burning gas. YOU pollute the air, YOU should pay the price to clean it.
And lets not forget cigarettes-- a %50 markup in my state as well. But you don't see this fee because its built into the price. Another hidden tax. And people hate tobacco companies, hmm, noticing a trend.
In Canada, with the free health care system, this tax is particularly important. Why on earth should I pay a dime of my hard earned cash to heal smokers ? I don't smoke and I'm not prepared to pay for them.
Now the scum are starting to propose "vice" fees on fattening foots, so we can expect to pay an extra %50 for the privilege of buying a big mac that big momma government doesn't want you to eat?
How about that Big Mac issue ? Is that kind of food healthy for you ? If I eat only healthy food, I'm likely to pay a lot more money than anyone eating fatty BigMacs all day. Why should I pay more for social care because more and more people are getting sick or out of shape because they eat bad food ? Like it or not, in the long run, there is a social cost to eating unhealthy foods. If you want to do that, fine, but pay up. I sure as hell won't.
becuase you must be dreaming.
I had my debit card stolen and used for an online purchase (Penis pills, no less!) I filed a complaint with my bank. They stalled and dragged their feet.
I got in touch with the company who was frauded and they said "yeah, your card number was used by someone in Kazahkstan!! This obviously wasn't you so we're gonna credit you your money back"
great merchant and it took seconds. (I would buy stuff from them... too bad they only sell penis pills!) The bank and their debit cards can take a hike.
If they are charging you for their ATM usage, you need to think about switching to another bank. On the real.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
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.
Sigmentation fault - core dumped
If you're not paying interest, you're dead weight.
Wrong. You're only dead weight if you're not using the card. The vendor is charged a small fee for every transaction you make.
Re: Pokemon: In Japanese boku is the masculine form of the pronoun I. Yes, anime geek studying Japanese.
Sigmentation fault - core dumped
I'm quite tired of it as well. For these very reasons I won't get a cell phone. Whats with the contracts?? You know what that tells me. It says, we can't stand behind our product. It says, if your not happy we don't care. It says, if don't want our services, we will force our services upon you, or you will pay us. What kind of joke is that. My biggest question is why people agree to crap like that??
I'm sure you meant to say UNavoidable. Better luck next time.
I actually love my Bank of America account. Most of my friends are with Umbrella Bank (an online bank that seems to work mostly like a credit union) or with 'unions but I'm not switching. I get no fees- not even with using non-BofA ATMs- as long as I do everything either online or with an ATM (I live in Georgia, maybe this has something to do with it).
I just returned from a trip to France. I was afraid of using foreign ATMs so I ordered 200 euros (no fee) with the help of my bank. Gone within two days. However, in France, every ATM took my card, charged me NO fee, and when I returned I was pleased to see that neither had BofA!
But no one there took my Discover card, dammit.
Hmmmm...are you telling me that credit companies evaluate an applicant's prospective 'benefit' by how much they're likely to make from the fees they charge vendors? Not likely.
hat tax is important (if used correctly) because there is a social cost to burning gas. YOU pollute the air, YOU should pay the price to clean it.
Ha! That's a good one-- you guys have big air scrubbing plants up there that your gas taxes go to in order to clean the air? That's rich. Hell, in BC you don't even have sewage treatement plants-- Victoria and the whole of vancouver island just dumps their raw sewage into the ocean.
Who's paying the cost to clean all that ocean water?
In Canada, with the free health care system, this tax is particularly important. Why on earth should I pay a dime of my hard earned cash to heal smokers ? I don't smoke and I'm not prepared to pay for them.
Ah, the great lie of socialism-- you want free health care, but you don't want the other guy to get it! Which is why victoria is having town meetings trying to keep their doctors from leaving. (Yes, I visited victoria recently.)
How about that Big Mac issue ? Is that kind of food healthy for you ? If I eat only healthy food, I'm likely to pay a lot more money than anyone eating fatty BigMacs all day. Why should I pay more for social care because more and more people are getting sick or out of shape because they eat bad food ? Like it or not, in the long run, there is a social cost to eating unhealthy foods. If you want to do that, fine, but pay up. I sure as hell won't.
In other words, this "social care" idea is just a scam to try and force people to live the way you want to -- you take all their money to pay for health care you never deliver, and then take even more if they try to live their lives the way you want.
Why not get rid of this socialism bullshit- which is proven not to work- - and let people pay their own money for their insurance. In the US the insurance companies charge smokers more. But everyone gets good insurance.
Its none of your business whether I eat a bigmac and you have no moral right to charge me for the privilege of not conforming to YOUR idea of political correctness. That's flat out oppression. you might as well charge an extra black skin tax for black people because they don't conform to the skin color of most people.
Social cost my ass- you have just shown its about oppressing by taxing those you don't like, not about any "social cost".
The first thing you need to realize is that nobody owes society anything, and society doesn't owe them anything. There is no moral basis for this socialism-- it is merely the tool an oppressor uses to extract money from others, and the mind fuck that you have just displayed is what he uses to keep you in line.
Why aren't you lobbying for a jogging tax? Joggers are far more likely to have serious leg injuries in their old age than non-joggers, why should you have to pay for it? Unless you're a jogger, in which case you're going to lobby for a non-jogger tax because non-joggers are more likely to be overweight.
You wonder why there are fewer companies in canada, and a less robust economy and lots of unemployment? This is why.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Convenience fee, my ass. I'll walk to the fricking box office.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
does anyone else remember the stamp tax or the tea taxes... i'd say we should let the government know we aren't happy, but that would probably be considered unamerican these days :)
...outside the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Western Europe, the police and other government officials generally *are* massively corrupt. I've travelled all over the world, and this is what I've found. Others I know report similar experiences. Sorry if you're offended, but that's the way it is. It's *you* that's naive. Travel a bit, do business in other countries, and you'll see.
And "since there is only so much space and weight an aircraft can accommodate," there's "an additional fee for passengers who require more than the average."
This is bullshit. What they should say is that it's more costly to offer the same level of service/guarantee that they offer with a paper ticket -- which they don't.
There's a lot more to the ticket fee issue than meets the eye. The public is aware of it, and it's why they still insist on paper tickets. What's the deal? Well, if you read the fine print, you'll see that an electronic ticket is a completely different class of ticket. It's a different contract. Basically, they have the right to bump you first if the plane is overbooked, or even if someone shows up at the last minute and is willing to pay full pop. With an electronic ticket, you're the low man on the totem pole. Of course airlines are pushing these, because it gives them carte blanche to do what they want with you, overbook flights, etc. Some e-tickets even have fine print about not being responsible for delivering checked luggage, etc.
Be really careful with e-tickets. Read the fine print. I do, and I've always found it well worth it to pay the difference, and even to wait in line.
Yes, credit card companies have policies whereby they'll stop doing business with a merchant if the merchant passes on the cost of processing a credit card transaction.
...
The Australian financial watch dog (I think the Reserve Bank, but I'm not sure) has decided that this is unreasonable, and the credit card companies should no longer be permitted to enforce this 'equal prices' situation. I'm not sure when it kicks in - maybe at the beginning of the new year - but I'm really looking forward to seeing it, despite being in the group of people that benefits most from the status quo.
We have a credit card of the 'interest free for up to 55 days' sort. We have a mortgage. We spend off the credit card where practical and pay the balance each month, meaning we can keep more money on the mortgage. When differential pricing comes in, we'll stop doing this and keep the credit card for emergencies only
And I hope that many other australians, faced with the credit-card surcharge, will make an effort to pay off their credit cards, and therefore get ahead of the debt-interest-fee curve. I know too many people who live with their credit cards near the limit, and if they *can't* break free of that they'll fall even further behind. So long as it's reasonably 'in your face' that you're paying extra for the priviledge of paying by credit card, people should make the change.
Heh. People can do some very silly things sometimes though. Credit card loyalty schemes tend to amount to giving you back 1% of what you spend (of course, they're charging the merchant 3%). So hands up everyone who would spend the extra 3% to get the points, not having realised that the points are worth 1%? Hands up who's spent more than they should, to get a 'freebie' that is worth less than the extra paid?
Rachel
I noticed a lot of people say that I needed to learn Spanish, or needed to realize that is the system and that I am a spoiled yankee bastard.
The funniest part of it is that I speak much better with my public education Spanish than most college educated do. I watch Spanish television daily (admittedly for the hot chicks too, BUSTED!). I speak it in Mexico. I also realize that it is "the system" as well. I am wary about the cops, but exceedingly happy to see such an interesting place. Cozumel was beautiful. You should be very proud just because it is so nice. Also, there have been in my history about 5 belligerent Mexicans I have met outside of thousands. Mostly I just see them kill themselves to give their kids the gift of America. Just like my ancestors did in Jamestown. So there you go. That is Mayan happiness for you. The work hard AND smile while doing it.
So on the fact that many of your people almost drown themselves to live in the USA, I say gracias, after all our cultures are too similar to worry about anything more than the money difference. It is a wonderful compliment. For you to admit that the police are crooked, thank you again. Most people would have gotten mad about it and called me a yankee bastard.
You know what? In this day and age I am just overjoyed that the Mexican government doesn't have Al-Qaida in its borders, or that the average Mexican citizen is not burning the USA flag in the streets. SO... short of a little street level corruption... MEXICO IS FINE BY ME.
Keep your chin up, amigo.
And thank you.
Since all these stupid fees (supposedly to increase security...when was the last time a Canadian flight was hijacked, again?) are FLAT RATE, short trips have increased in cost disproportionately.
Fair comment. I still think this poster was naïve bordering on xenophobic, but I definitely don't think all US citizens are (I avoid the term American as my Canadian friends would probably be upset if I indicated North America = USA).
I suppose I get a bit annoyed when somebody indicates that all police forces in all countries apart from their own are corrupt - a grand and sweeping statement. Though as you point out I didn't do myself any favours by also making an asumption.
My experiences of travelling across the USA have been by and large very positive, and I have more than a few well travelled and open minded US friends. I think the world would be a better place if people travelled more.
Ah, I was responding to the original poster's assumption that "You should assume like I do that the police are massively crooked whenever you go to a foreign nation..", i.e. the indication that *every* country apart from the poster's own are corrupt. I find this rather a grand statement to make. You make a more moderate statement which I think is a bit closer to the truth. I've travelled to quite a few countries myself and would agree corruption seems to be more prevalent in developing countries than the Western world (though not exclusively so by any means, after all, the common term 'mafia' refers originally to an Italian organisation that heavily infiltrated the USA).
But I think our friend the original poster is acting with rather too much paranoia bordering on the xenophobic to assume all police outside their own country are corrupt. Another poster has picked me up on my assumption that the original poster was from the US, and I accept it is unfair for me to make that assumption.
Ha! That's a good one-- you guys have big air scrubbing plants up there that your gas taxes go to in order to clean the air? That's rich. Hell, in BC you don't even have sewage treatement plants-- Victoria and the whole of vancouver island just dumps their raw sewage into the ocean. Who's paying the cost to clean all that ocean water?
:)
:) Exactly! That's part of the problem that I mentioned earlier : where do you draw the line? Not an easy question to anwser. Does that mean that we should'nt try to answer it?
:) That last line you wrote merits more discussion, but that's getting off topic :)
That was part of my point actually. Its the "if used correctly part". By no means I am saying that we are better in Canada. I just wish that the taxes that come from buying gas *should* only go to gas-related clean-up stuff. (in a perfect world, of course).
Ah, the great lie of socialism-- you want free health care, but you don't want the other guy to get it! Which is why victoria is having town meetings trying to keep their doctors from leaving. (Yes, I visited victoria recently.)
Free ? I don't want free health care if I have to pay for people who abuse the system (or themselves). On the other hand, I would gladly pay for people who are born with disabilities and who require frequent care.
One problem with this, of course, is where do we draw the line? When is it abuse and when is it okay? I must agree that this is not an easy question to answer (and I won't pretend I have the answer). In my opinion, we should'nt have to pay for smokers. Smoking is a choice, it gives no benefits, and it can be avoided. I don't want to pay for that. Period.
In other words, this "social care" idea is just a scam to try and force people to live the way you want to -- you take all their money to pay for health care you never deliver, and then take even more if they try to live their lives the way you want.
Okay, maybe we should'nt call it "social care". To me, this social care should be about helping people in need. Again, if someone is born with some disability, and needs to pay 10,000$ per month just to live, should that person (or family) bear that burden alone? With your US insurance method, would that person pay the same price as a healthy person? If not, your system has failed. That person did not choose to be born that way.
On the other hand, if you choose to smoke or eat McFood if is your decision. By what right do you impose your coslty living style (in terms of very possible futur health problems) on me? Free social health care should be a priviledge, not a god given right.
Its none of your business whether I eat a bigmac and you have no moral right to charge me for the privilege of not conforming to YOUR idea of political correctness. That's flat out oppression. you might as well charge an extra black skin tax for black people because they don't conform to the skin color of most people.
Again, I'm not restraining you from doing anything. But I expect you to accept to consequences of your actions. Smoking costs more to society. That's a fact. Is society ready to pay for smokers? That's not my decision to make, but right now, I'm paying for it. Being born with heart disease also costs more to society. *But*, did the baby choose to be born with heart disease? I'm ready to pay for that. Is society? I think so
Why aren't you lobbying for a jogging tax? Joggers are far more likely to have serious leg injuries in their old age than non-joggers, why should you have to pay for it? Unless you're a jogger, in which case you're going to lobby for a non-jogger tax because non-joggers are more likely to be overweight.
Hehehe
You wonder why there are fewer companies in canada, and a less robust economy and lots of unemployment? This is why.
Ha! Dang. You just solved our problems! It had nothing to do why the fact that there is a whole lot less of us in Candada
You misunderstand- there are fewer companies because the taxes are way too high. The taxes are way to high because you're paying for health care for everyone.
I read an interesting example the other day- you go to a restaurant regularly, and you spend $6, now theres some extra stuff that you could get for $4 more, but you normally just spend the 6.
Yet you go with friends also on, say friday,s and the four of your are just going to split the tab evenly, yet you notice your friends get the $6 meal and they also get some of the $4 stuff, stickign you with a quarter of that stuff-- so the next weekend, when you go with your friends, you get the $10 meal, and everyone else does, so you all pay $10- -its fair, but is it really? You're paying %66 more than you normally would-- but you're forced to in order to get your fair share.
Now imagine if everyone in the restaurant split the check-- a hundered ways and that extra $4 is no big deal- its just $0.04 if you're the only one who gets it. But some people are gluttons and order lots of wine and so their checks are $40! Well, if you want your fair deal you have to consume as much as you can, otherwise you'll be subsidizing them, right?
That's what government taxation is-- there are people out there taking $80 meals and you're only getting the hamburger-- they have shown a "need" to drink mixed drinks all night, but you haven't so you just get the small meal-- yet you pay for their mixed drinks and thy pay for your hamburger and they get a much better deal!
When someone else is paying
The way to draw the line is REALLY frickkin easy-- just make everyone responsible for their own health care-- you don't smoke eat bad food and you pay less. You don't subsidize those who do.
And then since you want to help the WORTHY who need it, you GIVE to a charity-- if the charity wastes the money, you don't give to them and you give to another one. You are in control and the money is much more efficiently used.
The goernment, not only forces you to pay taxes to subsidize the drinking habits and later liver transplants of unemployed lazy people-- but it puts a gun to your head to make sure you do.
Get a libertarian socierty and not only will you have less poverty, you don't have to violate human rights to do it-- and the charity hospitals will be MUCH better.
Course people assume that if this were the case, nobody would give to charity, but that's silly. I haven't met someone yet who wouldn't help a charity in such a situation-- everyone cares. M any don't now because the government is already taking %50 off my income for this forced "charity".
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
BOFH excuse #145:
Flat tire on station wagon with tapes. ("Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurling down the highway" Andrew S. Tanenbaum)
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