Airlines Must Now Disclose Hidden Fees, Why Not ISPs?

...that some telco lobbyist will surely have swept under the congressional rug (such a bulge there).

Seems to me that all ISP/Telco/Cell carriers want to add fees as some "government imposed" and be the collector for them. At the end of the year, they show a loss and Uncle Sam gets less than what was collected. Yet the customer keeps getting shafted and sapped.

Why can't we just have a simple policy that applies to all companies uniformly?

Taxes and fees imposed by a government shouldn't need to be advertised, but "Regulatory Recovery Fees" and other BS that is just a way of hiding the true price of services shouldn't be allowed.

Sorry pal(s), we all have costs that result from industry regulations, for other companies, it's what we call "overhead" or "the cost of doing business."

I agree that the key advertised national price should include all fees, except any local taxes(like sales & franchise taxes) which vary widely based on location.

But I have no problem with companies pointing out(in smaller type) how much of the cost is due to government regulation and taxes. The government would love to hide how much & how many taxes they collect(aside from income and property taxes) from the taxpayers. I would not want anything in government regulations to prevent the taxpayers from knowing how often they are being ripped off in hidden taxes applied to businesses. Pols just love hidden taxes. That way they can all pretend that the taxpayer isn't being ripped off 6 ways from Sunday.

Repeat after me, "Taxes are bad. Fees are good!"

On principle, I think there's nothing wrong with that, but in practice, it's insanely complicated to honestly and transparently disclose those costs.

The most basic example would be that Company A and Company B both sell the same product at the same price. But Company A isn't managing to make a profit, while Company B is. Because of this discrepancy, Company B has a higher tax liability, so they can say that more of their costs are due to "Taxes and Regulations" than Company A.

Also, who would keep track of what counts as such a cost? A company could claim that any percentage of the work they do is dedicated to dealing with these regulations, and without huge amounts of oversight, how would anyone know if they are being truthful?

And then, do we base the number on historical costs of those regulations and/or taxes, or projected costs? Because most companies won't know an actual number until the end of each quarter at the earliest.

EDIT: I see the biggest problem isn't that government oversight of the way these companies do business is a huge cost, but rather that companies like AT&T and Comcast use regulators as a way to damage one another. They lobby for taxes and regulations that harm their competitor and then turn around and complain about taxes and regulations harming them. Another reason to get corporate influence out of politics.

"But I have no problem with companies pointing out(in smaller type) how much of the cost is due to government regulation and taxes."

I've spent 16 years working in corporate America. I have yet to see the competence and attention to detail that such an accounting would require. So... You'd have to take it with a HUGE grain of salt.

Back in the good ole days companies paid their OWN costs of doing biz, not like it is now where EVERYTHING is passed on to the sub.

Everything was always passed on to the sub...companies don't print money. But before they didn't itemize their overhead and advertise one price while tacking on a bunch of horsecrap to the bottom of the bill.

that the airlines simply don't line the governments pockets like the carriers do.

if ISPs would just put their prices on their sites!!1

ISPs do generally disclose their fee structure.. the only place it might get murky is cellular data plans.. overages and usage based billing leaves much to be desired.. and the costs are ridiculous based on the current supply/demand/market. I know I'm holding my cable company to the agreed $44.90 each and every month, for a year!

However wired ISPs hiding fees? I don't think so... Comcast and AT&T are quite clear on how much they'll gouge you if you go over their usage based limits (aka DATA CAPS).

As for VOIP providers.. if they cost too much, you can move your phone line to a provider which doesn't rip you off.. I like Ooma.. sure you have a high upfront cost.. but beyond that saves money compared with a Verizon, AT&T, Vonage?!? Plenty better... and if you're willing to sacrifice more quality and/or features, you can go with MagicJack and Skype & other players..

Ooma is $3.76 a month after initial investment.. $13.75 if you want Premier features (including second phone # for $9.99/mo). Sure, you can fault them for high cost proprietary hardware, but once you're invested and beyond that criticism, the service is pretty good and saves you money over the course of months/years.

This is why AT&T and Verizon and Cable companies are trying to jack up their un-bundled prices! They know consumers can and ARE going to the internet for VOIP, and Video... what's left to sell, but those DATA BITS...

YES, in 2012, the internet CAN be your replacement for a cable-tv subscription even if you have multiple computers/HDTVs to get a stream to... Just find the 5 or 6 channels that you can't live without online and tell the cable company (cable, telco, and satellite) to scratch their ass with a broken bottle.. No, it's not a perfect solution, but much better than propaganda laden infomercials/commericals, forced bundling of channels you don't want, and most importantly you don't have to watch Fox News if you dont' want to-- or Anderson Cooper for that matter..

...is if the check to their Congressional puppet masters clears.

Itemizing overhead separately of the advertised price should be considered fraud. Otherwise why not just advertise $1.99 HSI and when the bill shows up (long after the 3 day limit to unilaterally cancel a contract) it's $1.99 plus a $50 regulatory recovery fee?

My old Megapath T1 was advertised at $400/mo but when I got the bill they had a $40 regulatory recovery fee on there...not $2...$40...that's horsecrap. How about a water cooler recovery fee? Employee 401K recovery fee? Parking lot restriping recovery fee? Summer energy surcharge? Boss' kids tuition to Princeton recovery fee?

Costs of complying with regulations is overhead and booked just like all the other overhead.

NOTHIING is going to be done about the obvious because there are just too many whores in Washington willing to sell out America to get re-elected for another term. too much is at stake for those who could and should o something about the CRIMINAL gouging of the American consumer. With add-on fees' of upwards of 40% additional charges-government mandated as well as the "just because we can" fees, the consumer has no quick, valid means of determining true costs of a product or service and that is the confusion that the telcos intend to maintain with the help of the Judicial, legislative and the executive levels of government.
Contracts are meaningless a waste of time and effort because no matter what YOU read.

For s&g, I went through the ordering process for Verizon. You get to choose your plan (note that nothing is mentioned about fees/surcharges):

The problem is that the fees aren't hidden.

If the ISPs weren't allowed to weaselly include fees below-the-line, and instead, only charge the same total price across all customers, the consumer would benefit tremendously - the ISP lobbyists would be fighting against all of those niggling taxes they currently pass along to us.

More than 10% of my Sprint bill is Sprint fees. They even call them fees that they decide to push on the customer. They are not a "tax" as they are not mandated. Worst part is that they can change them anytime as they are not part of the contract.

Heck, if they called them an actual tax it would be easier to digest. But this is just a money grab.

In Quebec, consumer protection law covers more than just airlines. All the telecom services fall under the same generic umbrella: what they advertise has to be what your bill is before sales tax.

Example: The price advertised by Videotron (cable TV) for basic HD is, for unbundled service, $26.35. If I look at my invoice, I see:

Basic digital service: $19.99
Network access fee: $2.99
HD network fee: $2.99
Local Programming Improvement Fee: 1.5% - $0.38
Total: $26.35

There you go. What you see is what you get. A caveat, my LPIF is actually $90 cents since I don't just have basic cable, but 1.5% of the basic charges really does get you to the advertised price of $26.35

You might ask, if they only advertise the total price, why do they bother with all the fees. I don't know, but does it really matter? They advertise $26.35, you pay $26.35, how they break it down is not really relevant.

Another great change we had here is that early termination/cancellation fees are now regulated. They cannot exceed the "economic inducement" the provider gave you (the discount you received on hardware), and it must be pro-rated linearly. As a result, there is now never a downside to signing a contract. If you break your contract midway, you will still save money compared to if you paid up-front.

Example: I needed an LTE stick for a single weekend for a certain event (a business expense, will be re-used in the future). The stick is $180. I signed a 3-year contract, which gave me the stick for $0, and got me double the data.

I will cancel the contract a month later. They will charge me a $180 ETF. I will have paid nothing more than if I paid for the LTE stick up-front, and I still get the better data plan for the one month I have it.

Here's my latest cable bill, everything looks pretty understandable. The vast majority of the below the line cost comes from franchise fees. In NY State, cable TV and broadband are not taxed. If you have cable broadband only, and your package comes to $59.90 for the speed tier of your choice, that's exactly what you pay, $59.90.

Everything under "service provider surcharges" are below-the-line fees that should be included in the price, as is the Cable Franchise Fee, the Telecom USF, and potentially the E-911 surcharge.

The only actual *taxes* that are actually required by the government are the sales tax and excise tax.

There is no reason that TWC cannot quote $286.32 as the price for that package but I am quite certain they would actually advertise it as $273.86. I don't know about you, but an extra $13 a month (almost 5%!) in bullshit surcharges (NOT required taxes) is something that I would be 'confused' (and agitated) about on my first bill.