Tickets to the Bad Bunny concert in Hartford next month were available Thursday for $270 each on StubHub, at least until you tried to buy them. Click to make the purchase, and the price instantly jumped to $348 with the addition of a $78 fee.
Connecticut’s commissioner of consumer protection, Bryan T. Cafferelli, would call that a “junk fee,” something that has become endemic in commerce for everything from concert tickets to hotel rooms.
“When you click through to finally check out, you’re hit with all these fees, any number of fees, that could add on more than 20%,” Cafferelli said. In the case of Bad Bunny, the fee would have added 28% to the cost.
Cafferelli joined Gov. Ned Lamont, Attorney General William Tong and Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam at The Bushnell to promote legislation that would require fuller transparency.
Senate Bill 15, which was proposed by the Lamont administration, would require “all-in-pricing” that would list the real cost up front, not after a consumer had picked out a seat and clicked to make the purchase.
“It should be clear how much it’s going to cost — not later in the process, not when you pick your seat, not halfway through, not three quarters a way through, but right away,” Tong said.
StubHub says it agrees.
In public hearing testimony submitted to the General Assembly, a StubHub executive, Kevin Callahan, said his company had voluntarily begun using all-in-pricing in 2014 — only to lose business to competitors who did not.
“For competitive purposes, StubHub had no choice but to revert to its former pricing display beginning in August 2015,” Callahan said.
Connecticut is one of 11 states competing with the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to see who can act quicker in requiring that fees be posted at the start of a transaction, not the end.
The Lamont administration said in its testimony that Consumer Reports estimates the average family of four spends more than $3,200 per year on junk fees.
“These costs disproportionally impact low-income families who may lack the time, resources or financial literacy to filter through these fees or search for a competitive price,” said Claire Botnick, the governor’s policy counsel.
The legislature’s General Law Committee voted unanimously last week to approve and send the bill to the Senate floor.
Opposition to the governor’s bill and a similar measure proposed by Tong, Senate Bill 201, largely centered on questioning the need to pass a state law when it seems clear that federal regulations are imminent.
“As the FTC has noted, their objective in promulgating a rule on this subject is to avoid a patchwork of state-by-state requirements that would drive up compliance costs for businesses,” said Timothy Phelan of the Connecticut Retail Merchants Association.
“The FTC is working hard to address it,” Cafferelli acknowledged. “But while we wait for passage of the proposal at the federal level, I’m really happy that Gov. Lamont made it a priority to address this and the junk fees here in Connecticut sooner rather than later.”
Some of the fees involve in-person purchases.
Common in Connecticut, Tong said, is a practice that is illegal — imposing an additional charge if a credit card is used. The practice is allowed at gas stations, but not at restaurants and other merchants.
“You don’t have time to argue with somebody, or maybe you feel bad, because the restaurant’s a little empty,” Tong said. “You just pay it. And I suspect a lot of people have had this experience.”
Lamont said the fees seem to pop up more frequently, often at inopportune times. A bargain air fare booked online might not be a bargain when the traveler arrives at the airport to realize the fee for luggage rivals the cost of the ticket.
Tong recalled his recent experience taking his 18-year-old daughter to Chicago for a college visit, arriving at their hotel at 11 p.m. He had booked and paid for their room online.
“So, I thought I was all set. And they said, ‘Well, you have to pay a $25 activities fee.’ Now, mind you, we’re not going to do any activities, right? We’re just there for an overnight to go see a school the next day,” Tong said.
He calls fees like that “scam-like.”
“I’m not gonna call it a pure scam,” Tong said, “but it feels scam-like when somebody catches you and you’re vulnerable in that moment, and they take advantage of you.”