We’re Being Fee’d To Death

It’s a fact. We, as a collective society, are being overcharged just to exist. For me, it started a few years back when I booked a vacation to Washington, D.C. I did the usual web search for a decent place to stay, close to a metro station and outside the touristy areas of the city, to keep the cost down. While booking, I noticed that they “bait” you with a decent price for the room, and then “attack” you with numerous extra surcharges, convenience fees, incidental expenses, administrative costs, destination fees and service charges. So your $99.00 per day room ends up costing you $130.00. Then they add parking fees (even if you don’t have a car), additional charges for bringing a second suitcase, and a handling charge for in-room maid service. Sorry, but I don’t need to pay an additional five dollars for someone to “turn down” my bed sheets. Then there is something called a room tax, a city occupancy tax, an extra fee for using the Wi-Fi, an amenity charge for use of the outdoor, unheated pool (even if you can’t swim to save your life), or even if it’s the dead of winter when the pool is as frozen as a popsicle. Oh, and don’t even think of grabbing anything from the mini-fridge in the room. Nowadays, they are touch-sensitive, meaning that if you just lift out a can of orange Fanta to see if it’s sugar free and put it back without drinking it, a $12.00 fee will appear on your checkout bill.

It’s not just hotels, either. Every place you go — a restaurant, bowling alley, movie theatre, casino, betting track, grocery store — you name it, there are hidden charges attached to just about anything and everything you do or buy. I must admit that sometimes these charges are warranted, such as a gratuity for the waitstaff or server, but often they are just meant to “pad” the bill of the business or company.

Let’s talk about airline fees. Now they even charge you for a measly 0.5 oz. bag of stale peanuts. You pay to sit near a window, pay to watch a movie, pay to carry on a small bag, pay for Wi-Fi… next thing you know, they will be charging you to pee on the plane. It’s bad enough that there is a toll charged just about everywhere to use a public toilet, but you paid hundreds of dollars for a cramped seat in an uncomfortable metal tube and they want you to pay an extra $12.00 for a chintzy army surplus blanket to wear for 3 hours? Yes, that’s real.

One of the earliest implementations of a toll in America was during the early 1900’s. It started with the automobile. With the introduction of the first Model A and Model T cars, Henry Ford promised that “Americans could finally see the world”, and so they built roads to everywhere. Sometimes those roads had to cross streams and rivers, so bridges were built. Enterprising landowners decided that these New World explorers should pay tolls to cross over their bridges, to help pay for their construction. And so, a five cent toll was introduced in 1917. The first toll bridge allowed cars to get from Vancouver, Washington to Portland, Oregon for just a nickel. That was a bargain back then. For comparison, the most expensive bridge to cross nowadays is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which has a whopping $42.00 fee to cross it on any day of the week. And “toll roads” aren’t much better. A trip across the full length of the Pennsylvania Turnpike will set you back about $200.00.

Getting back to that five cent toll, here’s a little story. At the same time that cars were beginning to become popular, an organization called AAA (Automobile Association of America) was also created. It was meant to help stranded motorists in need, or just to supply maps of the new interstate highway system beginning to be built around the nation. For a “membership fee”, you could join AAA for a year, and in return the organization sent you a unique key chain which had a slot that held 4 Indian Head nickels, so the motorist had a convenient way to pay his or her toll across those bridges. I still have one I found at a yard sale 30 years ago, and it came with three Indian Head coins from 1936.

My second shock regarding fees and such came after visiting Las Vegas not too long ago. What was once the vibrant, neon “Sin City” of just 10 years ago, has become a literal ghost town today. As I mentioned about the hotel in D.C., the cost nowadays for staying at a Vegas Strip hotel could bankrupt the average tourist. This is a pure and simple racket. It starts with a “resorts fee”.

Nearly every hotel on the strip charges a resort fee, ranging from about $18.00 to a whopping $45.00 per night at some of the fancier places. And don’t forget– that’s before tax. What you get for these resort fees are usually services you’ll never use, like notary services or boarding pass printing, or amenities that in any other country on Earth are considered part of the hotel’s room rate, such as the fitness center and the pool. However, most of these fees do include Wi-Fi. Whoop-de-do! Then there are the parking fees (yep… even if you arrived by an Uber), and the infamous CNF fee, which stands for “concession and franchise fees”. No one knows what the hell they are for, but everywhere you go in this town, you will find it on your bill. Then there’s the venue fee and the live entertainment tax, as if the price for seeing one of their over-the-top Broadway hit shows isn’t expensive enough.

The price of food has also gotten way out of control in Vegas. A steak and lobster tail dinner that used to set you back $6.99 just 10 years ago, now goes for between $150.00 and $300.00, depending on the hotel. A simple one-liquor cocktail costs about $27.00 and a bottle of cold water is no bargain at $8.00. All I can say is stay home, watch NETFLIX and make your own damned popcorn.

Finally, lets examine those everyday bills you get once per month, like the cable, utility, water and cellphone bills. Have you looked at these itemized bills lately? Go ahead, take a look. I’ll wait. Here, listed on my current energy bill, is a shocking display of greed. I don’t know what the heck half of these charges are for, but just for grins and giggles, here they are. You tell me! First is a “Trans Cost Adj”, next is “ECA Q3”, next is “Demand Side Mgmt Fee”, then “Purch Cap Cost Adj”, then “Renew Energy Std Adj”, “Colorado Energy Plan Adj”, “Clean Energy Plan Rev”, “Energy Assistance Charge”, and finally “Franchise Fee”. WHEW! I know all these don’t amount to much… 51 cents here, 78 cents there, 43 cents for this, etc., but enough with the fees already. Personally, I wish they would just tell me I owe them “$X” amount of money for services rendered and leave it at that, instead of nickel-and-diming us to death with all these fees.

I am still peeved about having to pay a ten cent fee for a paper bag at the grocery store, because I left my reusable one in the car, when they are charging me $35.00 for a measly 8-ounce New York strip steak. Give me a break, HUH?

Thanks for reading my blog and I hope you enjoyed my latest rant and rave. If you haven’t already subscribed, please do and leave me a comment… I love getting mail. Till next time.

Caio

Lenny