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Comment by megafauna | Hacker News Reader

Last week I went through the tedium of providing all of the requisite information when trying to book a 2014 Toyota Prius for 1 day @ $50.40 through Turo. On the final step of the reservation flow, Turo revealed an additional $50.40 service fee. Seeing the total price double didn't sit well. I promptly exited the reservation flow and deleted my account.

I agree with your sentiment - if the app shared the service fee prior to the final step of the booking flow, I may have still reserved the car. Even at a total of $100.80, the price was still less than other nearby options.

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My trick with their system is to just look at every car, click through to the final receipt screen and then go back to find the cheapest one. It's a bit tedious and deceptive to the customer to present variable fee at the last part of the checkout process. Probably the worst modern "dark pattern" that I hope regulators take a look at.

I share your sentiment, but I'm not sure there are any legislators I trust to understand or regulate dark patterns effectively.

I believe advertising a false price is already illegal. "On the internet" doesn't change that, so afaik no new legislation is needed, only some minimal will to enforce what is already on the books.

Despite the shiny new veneer created by computers, this is a very old dark pattern called "fraud". While there are definitely shortcomings and failures of regulators, I'd say we're better off expecting them to generally crack down on fraud rather than not.

Dark patterns in general, yes, but I'd think "The displayed price must include all fees" would be easy to write into law.

I think people would find ways to partially skirt the law using formulas.

There are some legitimate uses for formula pricing, e.g., rent a U-Haul with a per-mile cost, or a cell phone bill with a per GB data cost, or a per-user SAAS model.

I imagine a dark pattern for the "resort fee" might be a complicated formula described in words in size 6 font at the bottom of the page if you took the time to read the footnote.

Really? They sure successfully nailed airlines on the practice a decade ago. [1]

It doesn't take a world-leading regulator to say "it is an unfair and deceptive business practice not to list the total price in a search result."

I think a regulator may be able to handle this one.

[1] https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...

For all the (somewhat legitimate) cracks about airline add-on fees for things like checked baggage (for non-status flyers), airlines are actually one of the better travel categories in terms of fully disclosing costs up front. Hotels and car rentals generally will before you press the confirm button but often don't up-front--and this makes comparison shopping difficult because the patterns aren't consistent.

Definitely, because they were super forced by the DOT under 49 U.S. Code § 41712. [1,2,3]

[edit to include text:]

  The Department considers any advertising or solicitation by a direct air carrier [...] that states a price for such air transportation [...] to be an unfair and deceptive practice in violation of 49 U.S.C. 41712, unless the price stated is the entire price to be paid by the customer to the carrier...

  [...] Although charges included within the single total price listed (e.g., government taxes) may be stated separately or through links or “pop ups” on websites that display the total price, such charges may not be false or misleading, may not be displayed prominently, may not be presented in the same or larger size as the total price, and must provide cost information on a per passenger basis that accurately reflects the cost of the item covered by the charge.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_Airfares_Act_of_20...

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/41712

[3] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/399.84

DC is currently suing Doordash for this sort of deceptive pricing arguing that it violates existing laws. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/22/1087988691/washington-d

https://www.adlawaccess.com/2022/02/articles/dark-patterns-a...

Marriott has settled a lawsuit over similar pricing "dark patterns": https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Hotel-News/Marriott...

> Among other provisions, the agreement requires Marriott to prominently disclose the total price of a hotel stay, including room rate and all other mandatory fees, on the first page of its booking website as part of the total room rate.

Seems to mainly be a matter of enforcement, it's probably worth contacting your state AG with something deceptive like this. Hard to expect them to take action on something they don't know about!

Ya, I have much more faith in the courts to discern fair deployments of dark patterns than I do any legislative body.

As everyone already knows, a large percentage of "major brand" hotels are owned and operated independently (like a franchised restaurant, for example).

If you ever get a Marriott that tries to add fees that you didn't expect, call up corporate Marriott and complain about a violation of their legal settlement regarding hidden fees. They will absolutely lay the hammer down on the hotel and you'll end up with credits far in excess of the attempted hidden fee ;)

"Understand" in the sense of the Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Or, in this case, his/her campaign contributions.

It's actually illegal in Europe (EU) to NOT display the final price, and the price shown on the search in Airbnb or airline searches is the final price.

Specially because in EU all the prices shown in stores/everywhere is the final price, with VAT, service, tip, etc, etc...

What if the final price depends on your entity status as a purchaser? E.g. delivery city, whether you are a business or an individual. Taxes and shipping trivially depends on that.

The website needs to include VAT in the price if they sell to consumers, and can show prices without VAT if they sell only to businesses. VAT depends only on country, so that is not as difficult to calculate as sales tax in the US.

Some companies (eg. Alternate) have different websites for consumers and business customers, other companies (eg. Conrad) allow you to toggle between pricing modes (with tax or without).

The price is usually shown without shipping, but there's usually a little button "calculate shipping prices" where you can type your zip code and then they show the shipping prices.

Is that for properties in EU or when you book from EU?

"Not knowing the price of something until it's time to pay for it" is about as American as apple pie. From retail stores, where shelf prices don't show tax, to your cellphone/cable bills with a half dozen opaque fees added on to the quoted monthly rate, to the hospital, where literally nobody providing the service knows what it will end up costing. Good luck getting rid of this mentality--it's permanently baked into our business and consumer cultures.

It’s primarily a US problem if you don’t trust them let them copy and paste it from somewhere else…

The same happens with hotels and "resort fees", especially in places like Las Vegas.

This is one area America needs to legislate which I am usually against.

There is no excuse but sleezy marketing to not show what something costs.

I'd go far even to make sure every price sticker is regulated and should include final sales price. That means, all taxes, all tips, everything. There is only one problem I see – sales taxes are state dependent so it puts a lot of burden on ecommerce/online stores to 1) Determine where the customer is from 2) Have a database of sales taxes for all states. But it can be done, I am sure.

Tips should be made illegal and employers should fairly compensate their workers.

Sales tax is worse than state dependent, they are city dependent.

State, county, and city - and separate "transit" taxes for county and city. And then most locations have a use tax which may be different from the sales tax. It sounds complicated, but I had to work on a project in India during the GST transition, and came to appreciate the relative simplicity of the US system.

>> Tips should be made illegal

That's about as dystopian as possible. Telling people that they cannot just hand money to other people might be the end of the entire concept of charity.

Ok fair point, what needs to made illegal is the paying-below-minimum-wage to recoup it from Tips. Furthermore, I guess I want to remove the expectation of Tips from our culture. Maybe legislation is too strong but I love this aspect of society where Tips are truly optional.

In America, we have a situation where I’ve seen waiters put on a facade of niceness which is so fake, and if you don’t tip, you’re an asshole. This implicit guilt needs to be made uncool.

I tried tipping room maker in a Hotel in Japan and they promptly refused and handed me the cash.

OTOH, it does seem a bit out of control. Now, when I go to Burgerville (a regional fast food chain in the PNW), the POS system asks me to enter a tip. Makes me say "No tip" if I don't want to. This is for a transaction that involves no service -- I stand there, they hand me a bag with food in it, I leave.

It's a bit of a dark pattern. First it makes you actively say "No I don't want to tip for this" and then I gurantee plenty of people have that nagging thought in the back of their head that the food they get may be different depending on if they tip. After all, the tip is before you get anything.

Yeah I get that when I pick up a pizza at the store (rather than having it delivered). The system asks for a tip amount, which I decline. It's there because the system also handles tips for the delivery orders, and there is no separate flow for paying for a carry-out order.

I always tip, generously, for delivered food or table service. But I don't tip for an employee to simply hand me a carry-out order.

I feel so awkward when not tipping at POS that I pretty much avoid carryouts from such places. I will happily drive to McDonalds.

I wrote a more flowery version of exactly that in an email I sent to Burgerville. I.e. "I don't like being guilted into tipping for otherwise not tip-worthy service, so if you continue to do this, then as much as I like you're food I'll choose someone else who doesn't make me feel this way."

Tips should be optional. The US assumption of "everyone tips so we can pay waiters $2.13 an hour [0]" is a disgrace.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage

Most of Europe operate just fine without tips.

Let's be fair - most of Europe a tip is really optional. No one is depending on tips as the source of their income.

But tips aren't charity. They're even classified as income in tax codes.

Let alone - tips are very often not "optional"

Tips are literally a variable price co-pay for a service.

> Have a database of sales taxes for all states. But it can be done, I am sure.

Not only can it be done, it is done. Companies don't have to brew up their own sales tax calculators, there are providers of that. Just enter the address, get the tax rate.

And, of course, during checkout process they would charge you correct sales tax. So obviously they have this information and can easily use it in marketing pages.

> it puts a lot of burden on ecommerce/online stores to 1) Determine where the customer is from 2) Have a database of sales taxes for all states. But it can be done, I am sure.

Of course it can be done, because they are already doing it in the final checkout. They just need to reveal the number earlier in the process. If they have to ask for a location to do that, just say so --- e.g. "We need your zip code to show you the final price including tax"

Sales taxes are city dependent. Even the county can get in on the fun

Marriott was sued and agreed to start showing mandatory “resort fees” (a made up term for “the hidden part of the price”).

In reality they settled the suit and then told the Pennsylvania AG to eat shit, they still hide the fees but now there is at least a checkbox to show the fees included.

One of the funnier things about scammy pricing schemes and American misunderstanding of laws. Ask anyone in the country if they are aware of “false advertising” and they’ll probably tell you it’s a pretty serious crime when in reality companies are pretty much only encumbered by civil law and even then they can avoid responsibility by playing a shell game, a la Johnson & Johnson’s sham bankruptcy, while criminal statutes are pretty much just for poor people.

its not just hidden price, I've stayed at many hotels that are transparent about their resort fee. IIRC it's a bit of a tax dodge, they're moving the taxable price of the room over to a fee that's not technically for the lodging.

Ryanair has been dicked a decade ago by this in EU

What was the fee putatively for? Was it a cleaning fee that would have been less per day on a longer rental? It doesn't seem right to call something a "service fee" if it doubles the total purchase price.

Engaging at any level with the idea that the fee is for any purpose other than lying about price in advertisements is giving it too much credit.

From a customer’s point of view, absolutely.

But fees are many times also used to avoid or evade taxes and royalties. For example, resort fees can be used by hotels to avoid paying royalties to the franchisor.

There is never any good excuse to hide or gatekeep the total price from a customer though.

You're right. I was thinking about Airbnb, which has cleaning fees that can be pretty hefty on one-night rentals. And those are understandable because someone needs to come in and change the sheets/towels, wash dishes, etc.

But there's no "bedsheets" analog for a car rental. Yes, it needs to be washed, but I imagine most renters of Priuses don't actually care if the car hasn't been washed in a few days/weeks.

I agree that that service should be considered in the price of the rental, but I disagree that it should be separate from the rest of the rental fee. It's required, and it's only separated out to make the rental look cheaper, right up until you get hit with that fee.

>it's only separated out to make the rental look cheaper, right up until you get hit with that fee

That's certainly one reason. But it can also make sense to have a one-time fee that's independent of the duration of the rental. Cleaning a room is the most obvious example. But there are other more or less fixed overheads that are largely independent of the length of time something is rented.

If you're renting out just about anything, would you prefer seven 1-day rentals or a one week rental?

That's not quite true. The car has to be inspected and gotten ready for rental.

Consider the amount of work involved for the owner in renting one car to 30 people each for one day and one car to one person for 30 days and you'll see the difference.

> those are understandable because someone needs to

Nope. The rest of this sentence doesn't even matter: if someone needs to do something, that's a reason to charge for it, but not a reason to hide the price.

I'm waiting for the "free" car rental where the actual cost is wrapped up in fees.

iirc they add insurance cost at check out, but I've mostly used GetAround lately.

The thing that bothers me the most is that the price of the rental is literally just the sum of the fees. And they are intentionally hiding parts of the cost. It's not just a dark pattern, it's an outright lie.

Turo's service fee feels very random and inconsistent.

I was looking at renting a car in LA for a day and the service fee was the same price as renting the car, across most of the cars. If I changed the query to be a two day rental, then the service fee dropped to 1/10th the 1day price.

In a Different city, though, even the 1 day rental doesn't have such a large fee.

This is basically Uber Eats' business model. They sell you on the price of food as you would get it from the store, then they tack on a service fee, the driver tip, a driver fee, etc... The cost of the meal from selection to checkout doubles.

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