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Comment by laurencerowe | Hacker News Reader

The US desperately needs to institute the EU rule that all advertised prices are inclusive of all taxes and fees.

It’s not just sales tax (which admittedly varies by city) but you also see absurd things like ‘SF health mandate’ on a receipt at a restaurant. What are they going to break out next, rent?

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In Seattle when they increased minimum wage to $15, this airport parking company called MasterPark started adding a "living wage surcharge" to their bill [1]. Employee wages are a "surcharge" that's added on to the bill!! I don't think anything can top this.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/06/12/sea...

Sorry but you have some idealistic view of some EU regulations. In every country where ISPs form a oligopoly, predatory practices and billing ensue.

In France we have one operator (SFR Red) that's known for being shit and messing with billing and having predatory practices, but the other three major operators are generally fine and you typically pay exactly what was advertised.

Even if the prices aren't great depending on the provider, at least in EU countries the price you see is what you pay. My internet bill is not €30 + hidden fees + taxes + executive coffee fund, it's just €30. You may be charged additionally in specific circumstances like ending a contract early without cause, but in the general case you aren't charged on top of what you see, so I don't know what you mean by "in every country [...] predatory practices and billing ensue" because it's not necessarily the case.

When I lived in Germany, in annual utilities bill there was an "internet cable fee" of EUR 100. Every year, from every apartment in the building. When I tried to push back they basically said "it's a cable fee don't fucking argue with us". In another apartment there was no "internet cable fee" but the fastest internet available was 16Mb DSL, so fuck them as well.

What is the "annual utilities bill"? Do you mean the ancillary/service costs of renting (the Nebenkosten) or something else?

Yup, Breitbandkabel in Nebenkosten. Well over EUR 100 and that was some years ago.

I guess that fee likely comes from the fact that the owners of the apartments voted to install cable internet hookups to the building and pay over time since it's a large fee and everyone can benefit from it. It's often the case in an apartment that a shared service, such as a new elevator, is paid for collectively, even if you don't use it, so it's not surprising that you did have to pay. I wouldn't lump it in with the specific discussion here because it's not about "hidden fees" since it's tangential, as the internet company wasn't charging you a fee through some backhanded method. If you moved in after the connections were added you should have seen this when you got the initial contract as well, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.

We are talking about annual collective fee in thousands of EUR for the entire building. For the fucking coaxial cable setup, at that time over ten fucking years old. Did they have to reinvent the fucking coaxial cable during the process? Were the cable guides owned by some alpha predatory rent seeker?! I'm really curious what kind of corrupted opaque deal it was because all I got in response was "THIS IS CABLE FEE PAY IT!!!".

This was my experience of growing up and living in Europe before moving to the US.

Years ago there used to be a problem with airlines charging extra non optional fees on their prices but that was largely solved. https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2006/jul/18/travel.mone...

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