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Stealth Inflation
prostoalex writes "The New York Times on the Web explores the topic of incorrect bills and numerous surcharges with names like 'assessment', 'handling', 'restocking', etc. David Pogue quotes Business Week magazine, where it says that such small charges $100 million annually for hotels, $2 billion for banks and $11 billion for credit-card companies. Users of landline phones, cell phones, checking accounts and credit cards are starting to suspect that such huge revenue might imply the mistakes are made on purpose. Is it just another conspiracy theory, or are we becoming victims to the stealth inflation?"
In California a year or three ago one of the major grocery store chains was slapped with a class action lawsuit and lost, IIRC. They were just ringing items up slightly wrong, like collard greens as the more expensive kale (happened to me. Twice. I don't shop at that chain anymore) or $.99 instead of $.79 for misc. food in a can, small stuff, stuff you probably don't notice 99% of the time. Spread it out across a year, they could screw customers out of maybe $100 each. Multiply that by however many people you've got buying groceries at your stores and that's a lot of "revenue."
Or he could perhaps consider a credit union, where you're the shareholder as well as the customer. I use Boeing Employee's Credit Union and while I've had a couple of problems (due to their not changing my address properly in their system, making the already-faulty AVS more problematic) I'm very happy with them. I don't get nickle-and-dimed to death.
- CALIFORNIA CODES
The beauty (or horror, depending on your perspective) is the "unfair" part. What was not technically illegal in the past may now be sued for if it is "unfair."BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONS CODE
SECTION 17200
17200. As used in this chapter, unfair competition shall mean and
include any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice
and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising and any act
prohibited by Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 17500) of Part 3 of
Division 7 of the Business and Professions Code.
Next case, hidden bank and ATM fees...
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Yes, the parent poster made a typo. It should be "Fight fire with a federal crime".
Don't get yourself in trouble trying to "get back at the Man." I hate the Man as much as anyone, but there are smart ways and dumb ways to fight.
-B
I'll give you an example of how this thinking is flawed.
In 2000 ATT was my local cable service, I wanted pay channels and a remote control.
They quoted me a price, which was no where close to what I actually paid.
Normal Sales Tax, I calculate this into everything already, I expect it, roads, schools and such.
Additional charge for the remote controls, the installer said they're extra, huh?
County franchise tax, which has something to do with the fact their cable is strung through the county.
City Franchise tax, same as above, but for the wire strewn through the city.
Sales tax was calculated after these taxes, the bill was over $50.00 greater than the quoted rate. I argued with ATT to at least calculate the sales tax corretly, they essentially told me to F$%@ off.
So I did, I canceled cable, went to circuit city, bought a directv system, installed it myself and later that day had crystal clear satellite with just sales tax added in.
Then I canceled my long distance with ATT after a phone conversation cost me $1.00 a minute, they said I'm not on a plan, so I asked about one, they said I had to pay additional fees every month to be on one, I told them to F#$% off this time, canceled long distance service entirely on the landline, the cellphone has nationwide anyhow.
After sometime I saw a deal with ATT cellular online, it looked better than everything else out at the time, and my current cingular contract was up. I signed up online, the phone was shipped quickly, no hassels, until several months later.....
They apparently decided I didn't need the free bonus minutes, or the nights and weekends like I signed up with, I got a $490 cellphone bill, I lost the paperwork I signed up with, they did back credit for that month, but how many other months did they screw me on and how many people actually sit down with the calculator to tally all their minutes?
ATT has forever lost my business, this includes comcast, no matter the marketing spin, no matter the offer, they will never again be someone I pay cash to.
Oh and nearly everyone I know has kicked them to the curb as well.
I can relate to the phone thing. I encourage every one here with a landline (I dont' have a cell, so I don't know how those things run) to check your local phone bill. I had BellSouth with AT&T as my Long Distance Provider. .50 for that. While that in and of itself is borderline ridiculous, here's what I discovered a few months ago after paring my services back to almost minimum.
.50. Fifty fucking cents. So I dig more and find that AT&T charges $1 to "consolidate" the bill, plus the various taxes, and then there was a VERY suspicious charge. Some kind of "fee" for about $3. Reading the fine print, it stated that the fee was not federally mandated, and was used to pay for "Property taxes, maintainence on lines" and other stuff. Now, maybe I'm fucking retarded, but I thought all that stuff should be factored into an actual RATE as part of a regular business. It's not my fault that AT&T has to maintain their shit, so why are they trying to pass this off as a monthly "fee"? Anyway, .50 in LD calls cost me over $5, which pissed me off. So I call their customer service.
.25/transaction because they dont' have to handle paper checks. But yet, I PAY for this "convenience". It's frustrating, but unless I want to start toting around a checkbook...
I don't carry all the bells and whistles, just touch tone. Think about that last one. I get billed
With "full" services (well, call-waiting), my typical phone bill was $25. Well, I cancelled call-waiting ($3/month) and found my next bill to be $26. WTF? So I go digging. Ah, there we go, I had a couple of long distance phone calls. For a total amount of around
Hey! A girl with an Indian accent answers my call! (But she spoke very good english and provided good service, I just thought it was a bit ironic). I complain. She explains that she will take the $3 "fee" off and will also discharge the $1 consolidation fee, but AT&T will send me a bill for charges every month. She also says that the $3 "fee" will not appear on my bill ever again, leading me to think that it's a "sucker's" bill, hoping people won't notice it. Anyway, the experience infuriated me so much that I just cancelled my LD service right there and had LD completely removed from my phone line at home, but thought better of it and just went with BellSouth, who guaranteed there'd be no odd charges for "service" and no "consolidation" charge.
Because of this experience, however, I've now started combing over my power bill and other stuff, too, because who knows what else I'm paying for. In fact, I found out my bank charges me $1.25/month for "ATM service." Huh? Last I checked, using debit cards SAVE the bank something like
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Having sold a few things on e-bay, you'd be amazed at how much it costs to securely package an item. Next time you're in a Staples, swing by and gawk at how much a bag of packing peanuts costs.
A year or two ago I read a great book "Naked among cannibals", which was an inside story about the Australian banking system. With the reduction in interest rates and increase in competition from other lenders there was a very definite and deliberate move to replace interest margins with fee income. The bank that the author worked at 'pioneered' the range of loan fees in Australia - application fees, duplicate statement fees, break fees, ....
Another trick was to offer deposit accounts with relatively high interest rates. After heavy advertising and signing up customers, the bank would move to a 'new' deposit product (ie just a name change) and then lower the interest rates paid on the old product.
The author noted several times, that the reason the could get away with doing this and still make money is because we let them.