There's nothing quite as American as not knowing what you're going to pay until the moment you have to pay it. It happens in retail, hotels, especially healthcare, car shopping, everything. We have this weird culture of just accepting terrible status-quo. This is one of the many nationwide problems that we have convinced ourselves there's no way to fix, despite many other countries in the world having fixed it a long time ago.
No country has fixed this a long time ago. This problem never existed in the first place. In some countries not having a clear fee schedule will get you in troubles that you don't want with your clientele.
>Section 20 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 makes it a criminal offence for a person in the course of his business to give consumers a misleading price indication...
Another person in a different thread[1] mentioned his city where businesses are tacking "living wage surcharges" onto their bills! So now the customer is paying your payroll?
I'm convinced this is the inevitable end-state of American business: Advertise $0 for all products, and then opaquely "pass through" everything as fees when the customer goes to check out.
I’ve been to a running sushi restaurant where you pay for your time at the table, and if your stomach is large enough and if you don’t waste your time, the food gets ridiculously cheap.
