The gap between the price you see and what you pay is getting worse
Surprise fees are widely hated, but they are still sneaking onto the bottom of bills for everything from concert tickets to dinners out. More companies are unbundling the cost of their goods and services, retail analysts say, tacking on 3% for swiping a credit card or adding a little extra for gas. With Live Nation Entertainment facing scrutiny over its ticketing process, singer Maggie Rogers recently urged her fans to buy tickets to her next show at the box office “like it’s 1965" to avoid fees, even showing up at one herself.
The Cure’s Robert Smith, meanwhile, convinced Live Nation Entertainment subsidiary Ticketmaster to offer some fee refunds. The upshot is that prices we see, whether on a restaurant menu or flight-booking site, are rarely the ones we end up paying. Business owners say fees are needed to cover costs and show customers where their money is going.
But retail analysts and advocates like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) say secondary fees diminish people’s ability to shop around. CFPB data also show fees cause people to pay more overall because businesses can charge more than what the market will let them get away with in the sticker price. “People don’t shop based on fees.
They shop based on the price of the product," a CFPB spokesman says. So widespread is the tactic that President Biden is making a fee crackdown one of his administrative priorities. His administration estimates that Americans pay more than a collective $90 billion in what the president has dubbed “junk fees" each year, including those for credit cards, food delivery, bank overdrafts and event tickets.
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