Cable And Satellite Providers Required To Disclose 'All In' Pricing Under Newly Passed FCC Rules (deadline.com) 67
The FCC passed new rules that will require cable and satellite providers to clearly disclose the "all in" price of subscriptions in promotional materials. From a report: "The advertised price for a service should be the price you pay when your bill arrives," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said. "It shouldn't include a bunch of unexpected junk fees that are separate from the top-line price you were told when you signed up."
Rosenworcel cited fees like "broadcast subscription" and "regional sports assessments." "It is not just annoying," she said. "It makes it hard for consumers to compare service in a market that is evolving and has so many new ways to watch." The new rules passed 3-2. Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington voted against it. Rosenworcel has also proposed other measures aimed at "junk fees," while the White House has focused on the elimination or limitation of things like surcharges and late fees in areas like concert ticketing, airline reservations and banking.
Rosenworcel cited fees like "broadcast subscription" and "regional sports assessments." "It is not just annoying," she said. "It makes it hard for consumers to compare service in a market that is evolving and has so many new ways to watch." The new rules passed 3-2. Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington voted against it. Rosenworcel has also proposed other measures aimed at "junk fees," while the White House has focused on the elimination or limitation of things like surcharges and late fees in areas like concert ticketing, airline reservations and banking.
what about modem rent? with Comcast the way they (Score:4, Interesting)
what about modem rent? with Comcast the way they push the it having your own with unlimited costs more then renting but the rent price is not part of the base rate.
also the TV box fees / access fees / mirror fees (even with Roku)
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Why give them the opportunity to charge you at all for that? The modems aren't particularly expensive and you easily recoup the cost. I've been using the same Arris modem for my Comcast account for a few years now. It's paid for itself several times over already.
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if you want unlimited on Comcast then you need to pay $30/mo more but when you rent. You can get unlimited data and hardware rent with upgraded gateways as needed for less.
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It's an accounting gimmick either way, because the end user pays for the modem somehow.
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They make it *really* hard to use your own modem. If you're not a techie, they give you the runaround when you try to install your own modem, saying they "don't support" self-installs. If you're persistent and smart enough, you can get past that nonsense, but they don't make it easy.
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Yet I just picked one up at BestBuy, plugged it in, and was off to the races . . . even with the evil that is cox!
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The one we picked up, which was on their official "supported" list, didn't work when we plugged it in. When we called support, they just said "Sorry, we don't support self-installs."
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If it's anything like California's SB 478 [ca.gov], the advertised price only needs to include all mandatory fees, aside from government taxes/fees. So if Comcast allows you to bring your own modem, then the rental fee is optional.
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If it's anything like California's SB 478 [ca.gov], the advertised price only needs to include all mandatory fees, aside from government taxes/fees. So if Comcast allows you to bring your own modem, then the rental fee is optional.
It will be funny when their static IP price jumps up by the cost of the mandatory modem rental.
Nooooo! (Score:5, Funny)
You can't do that! We can't be like every grocery store or Walmart or Starbucks or restaurant or clothes store or gas station or Kwik E Mart or auto repair shop or veterinarian or delivery company or any online store and show you all the costs for your purchase. That is much too highly complex work to do.
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That was literally Comcast’s excuse. It’s too complicated.
Re:Nooooo! (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's too complicated to tell people before they sign up, then it's too complicated to accurately compute the bill every month, and the people responsible for sending out admittedly random bills should go to prison.
too complicated for nationwide ads! (Score:2)
too complicated for nationwide ads!
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(plus tax)
Re:Nooooo! (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't do that! We can't be like every grocery store or Walmart or Starbucks or restaurant or clothes store or gas station or Kwik E Mart or auto repair shop or veterinarian or delivery company or any online store and show you all the costs for your purchase. That is much too highly complex work to do.
People visiting the US from other countries are baffled that there are fees added at the register that aren't part of the advertised price on the shelf in the store (sales tax). America is built on hidden fees. While our government is making a big show of trying to stomp them out now, it's certainly not going to do the same to itself. Guaranteed.
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Sales tax is complicated in the US. At any given store, you might have a federal sales tax, a state sales tax, a county sales tax, a city sales tax, and multiple special taxes for certain geographic areas or to support certain programs. All at once, or maybe only some of them. And they all might vary based on the type of goods.
And, to make it even more fun, sales tax is generally computed for the total, not per item. So the total might be more or less. Only by a few pennies, granted, but in some states, eve
gas stations have gotten that right for 30+ years (Score:3)
gas stations have gotten that right for 30+ years with the big sign with the price!
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That's on a very small number of specific products (and required by law in a lot of states).
Walk inside, and see if they do that with the Twinkies.
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Swipe fees are universal, including in countries where the tag is all inclusive. It's no different than the cost of the merchandise from the vendor, or the cost of electricity to run the lights, or wages for staff.
(And in the past, most merchants were not allowed, by contract, to discount cash sales. The credit card companies did make a real effort to hide those swipe fees. But that's changing, and more and more places are, in fact, adding a surcharge to use a credit card.)
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Part of this is that you have to remember that handling cash isn't free either - you have to spend labor counting it, you have to pay fees to have it picked up or delivered, you have to buy insurance against theft and robbery or risk losing it from same, etc...
For the longest time, credit cards actually priced their fees at around the same as the estimated costs of handling money. But they've screwed that up for many of the smaller businesses these days, to the point that at one point Walmart was consideri
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Don't forget that the sales tax assessed by a jurisdiction can also vary throughout the year. As an example, many states (and the counties and cities they contain, though I suppose that isn't guaranteed) have tax-free weekends or other periods throughout the year. It isn't uncommon for a state to have a tax-free event for school supplies around the back-to-school season, then another early in the year (usually around tax season as people receive their tax rebates) to encourage purchasing high efficiency app
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Here is a list of states [nerdwallet.com] who had tax free weekends last year, and on what products.
Generally speaking, stores don't have to charge sales tax, they only have to pay it.
Yes, they do [patriotsoftware.com] and no they don't. They are collecting it for the state. That money is then remitted to the state at some point in time.
Sales tax is a pass-through tax. The tax passes through onto the customer during a transaction. So, who pays sales tax? And, who has to collect sales tax? Customers, not businesses, pay sales tax. However, business owners must collect, deposit, and report the sales tax.
Businesses that need to collect sales tax must do so at the point of sale. Customers purchasing products are responsible for paying the sales tax.
It's perfectly legal for them to not collect it.
No, it's not. This is the list from New Yor [ny.gov]
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Those all look like a failure to collect and remit sales tax, not discount items exactly the amount of the tax. Something costs a dollar plus a nickel sales tax, store charges 95 cents plus a nickel for tax so customer pays a dollar and gets a receipt saying 95 cents and 5 cents sales tax totaling one dollar. As long as legal requirements for the receipt happen and the correct tax goes to the government, there is no problem. It's how it works where I shop when they have tax free weekend sales.
It is also per
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"a grocery store can't be expected to re-price thousands of items on their shelves just because the city, county, or state decided to change their tax rate for a weekend."
They're repricing anyway.
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"With most point of sale systems, it's far easier to handle that at the register than when printing labels. "
It's the same computation.
In a country where the advertised/shelf/sticker price includes the tax, the receipt still shows the breakout of the tax.
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One of the biggest reasons for handling the taxes at point-of-sale rather than as per-item pricing is that the tax rates can change many times per year as the various laws enabling them expire (or are renewed/added to). Each jurisdiction sets its own taxes with beginning and ending dates for each tax -and there are multiple overlapping jurisdictions for each location.
For my store, I get a monthly bulletin from the state listing changes to the various tax rates. The overall rate doesn't necessarily change
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Even here in Canada where sales taxes very seldom change, the tax is usually not on the price sticker with the exception of fuel at gas stations.
Do you actually still have price stickers on individual items? Everywhere here seems to just have a price on the shelf, 4 litres of milk, $4 with fine print of $0.10 a 100 ml. Sometimes in large print they have the price per pound, with the actual price per kg or 100 grams in small print. Some stores are moving to digital price signs so it is easier to change them.
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Most items are individually priced. Some sections are easier to just have signs on the aisles/shelves denoting the price for everything in that area.
There are still stores that aren't grocery stores or dollar general.. ;)
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OK, I was thinking grocery stores and similar. Actually, thinking about it, the grocery+ store I shop at has individual prices on clothing.
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This isn't the 1950s anymore. Cash registers are just specialized computers now... computers which know exactly what taxes go with each UPC/SKU; and that includes which items (like food) are exempt* from sales tax. And the registers are connected to the inventory system which is connected to the ordering system which is connected to the payroll system. Some stores also connect all that to their web sites, so you even know how many of each item they have in stock at which store locations.
This has been the
Re: Nooooo! (Score:2)
Wat
If you don't know until after it's all rung up then it's hidden until then.
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No, you know there are sales taxes in your state, and what they are. There is nothing hidden.
If you don't like that, talk to your government officials, who create the tax.
The stores shan't be hiding the amounts, to make increases and effects easier for the politicians. Some of you are putting the cart before the horse.
Like worrying about company advertisers gathering your data more than government. History much?
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Is it illegal for a store to, next to the "total price", call out line items for VAT and other taxes so you at least know how much you pay?
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How often do you actually care more about how large a percentage of the price is tax than how much money you need to pay in total? Especially at the moment of paying over sitting at your dining table with a calculator?
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that aren't part of the advertised price on the shelf in the store (sales tax). America is built on hidden fees.
Taxes and fees are completely different things.
Fees that are collected for the benefit of the COMPANY should not be broken out as a separate fee if you HAVE to pay the fee for the advertised service.
Taxes are something that are collected for the benefit of the GOVERNMENT, and should absolutely be broken out separately so that constituents can see how much government taxes are adding to the cost of things.
And, no, something like 'FCC regulatory recovery fee' is not a tax. It should not be broken out sep
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Well, if they call out a line item to make you pay for something the government makes them do, that's fine, and really your problem, voter who voted for that stuff.
Government: You must do this costly thing!
Company: Fine, but money doesn't magically appear. We will charge it to customers in a separate item in the bill.
Like taxes, this is an extra cost due to government, and indirectly, their voting customers themselves.
Here's our price, A. The total is A + B, where B is $27 of taxes and fees and prorated o
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Well, if they call out a line item to make you pay for something the government makes them do, that's fine, and really your problem, voter who voted for that stuff.
If you ACTUALLY broke down every single item that the government 'makes you do', you would have a laundry list of items. Social Security taxes for employees. Property taxes for your facilities. Health and safety regulations. Etc.
BUT, there is no correlation for those things they 'have to do' to the fee they put on the bill. They can make the price whatever they want and spend the money however they want.
Re: Nooooo! (Score:2)
Restaurants have added fees (tips) so they can pay their workers less.
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Oddly, some grocery stores don't tell you what your price will be.
a) any curbside service from Meijer, Kroger or Walmart will only give you an "estimated price".
b) the price in the cart is the sum of everything in the cart, but may not include the coupons. So it is a worst-case [except for certain other things].
c) substitutions or out-of-stocks can mess with "3 for 5USD on sale" but 2.75USD/each elseways... so if you order 3 but they only have two, you can potentially pay 5.50USD.
c.1) if only one size is on
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How different is it vs going into the store and finding your desired items not in stock?
Note that substitutions are refusable. Out of stock clearly isn't.
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I'm pretty sure that the "estiumated price" I'm seeing from Walmart is to account for a couple different common scenarios:
1. They don't have an item, or the stock puller didn't find it, and thus your bill will be reduced by the price of any missing items.
2. Items are actually sold by weight, and the weight is variable. Banannas, fresh meat, etc... You're given a range, and you'll be charged for the appropriate weighed amount.
Of course, I only do curbside with Walmart really, and they don't do the "3 for
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The trouble is you don't have veto power over out of stocks. and the system doesn't let you say "if I can't have 12, I want none."
And there's memes from 2020/2021 with loaves of bread 4/5USD, but "limit 3 per customer".
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Uh, I do have power over that? That said, the memes are probably true, but the result of marketing being a different department not coordinating with the supply side.
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I can't speak for the others, but at Walmart, the only time I"ve seen "estimated" for pickup or delivery is for items like tomatoes that are sold by weight and vary from item to item.
Also, I can (and do) turn off substitutions except for a few rare cases. I'll have another order in a couple of days; I don't want the name brand at twice the price as the generic I ordered.
I forgot to click it off a couple of weeks ago, and ended up with the NSAID (?) aspirin substituted for the regular (1/4 of regular size;
Re: Nooooo! (Score:2)
I never quite got this excuse. Cable & wireless companies spend millions about how technically sophisticated they, but suddenly calculating prices is more complex than doing brain surgery while doing rocket science. It doesnt seem that to figure out the taxes and fees online, since clearly they have the tables and software to do it.
It's clearly about misleading the customer and slamming them into a 2 or 3 year contract.
Prices should be all in pricess.
Other ISPs (Score:2)
Well, that's good... (Score:1)
Now, can we work on eliminating the protected duopoly that cable companies operate under??
Now do restaurants (Score:2)
Now do restaurants. Menu price must reflect ACTUAL prices, with requiring customer to do any math to add up any bullshit fees.
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Believe it or not, but I just read some article about how some restaurant owners are thinking of adopting dynamic pricing just like Uber or airplane tickets. Imagine going out to eat some hamburger just to learn that the price has doubled because they are too busy at the moment!
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Although now that I think about it, the lunch vs. dinner menu prices are exactly that.
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and when the servers get an zero tip then that will stop real fast.
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People should get ahead of it by stop giving "tips" now.
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Probably not gonna be the FCC doing those. Maybe the FTC?
Do Internet Next (Score:2)
Cool (Score:2)
Isn't this a US thing? (Score:2)
Doesn't this also happen in your average store, where state sales taxes etc are added at the register? Or is that anti-US propaganda?
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Use we have sales tax rather than VAT, but the rate is well known. It is not difficult to do some basic arithmetic to calculate or estimate it.
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So it IS a US thing, not to have the "end price" clearly labeled. FREEDOM!!
So? (Score:2)
What difference does it make when they have a monopoly anyhow?