OKLAHOMA CITY – State Attorney General Gentner Drummond is lending his voice in support of the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed Trade Regulation Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees.
A bipartisan coalition of 19 state attorneys general recently filed a comment letter in response to an FTC notice of proposed rulemaking which would:
• Prohibit bait and switch advertising by requiring businesses, from the outset, to clearly and conspicuously disclose the total price, inclusive of any mandatory fees;
• Require businesses to more prominently display the total price when pricing information is advertised;
• Prohibit businesses from misrepresenting the nature and purpose of any fee; and
• Require businesses to disclose the nature and purpose of certain fees (such as shipping charges and optional fees) clearly and conspicuously before the consumer consents to pay.
Bait and switch advertising is “a common practice used to deceive consumers and businesses into making decisions,” Drummond said. “This proposed rule would help ensure transparency in business, and ultimately is in the best interest for all consumers.”
The Feb. 7 letter notes that ‘junk fees’ hurt consumers by concealing the real prices of goods and services, as well as honest businesses that lose out to competitors that use the deceptive practice to appear as the better bargain.
“Such deceptive conduct also frustrates consumers’ efforts in comparison shopping, especially online, where, presumably, many consumers do most of their research,” the letter states.
“Hard-working consumers should not have to waste their valuable, leisure time researching prices by being forced to navigate through multiple webpages of multiple websites, including hyperlinks to exhausting terms and conditions containing verbose legalese in miniscule and sometimes obscured fonts, then entering all of their payment and other personal information to reach the check-out page, so that they can hopefully, finally learn the true and final cost of the good or service.”
In their letter, the attorneys general support the FTC’s proposed rule and highlight their enforcement efforts in protecting consumers from deceptive fee practices.
Led by Pennsylvania and North Carolina, the letter is also signed by attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.