Total BS Fees: Discuss and Share Experiences

[Pengwuino]

OK HAI!

So most of my family took a trip over to Morro Bay over here in California a few weeks ago and we rented a condo. We had the condo for about 3 days. They charged us a non-negotiable $140 cleaning fee! What kinda BS is that! Considering they'll just hire 2 undocumented workers for $5/hour to clean up the house in an hour, what a load of crap it is. Plus my sister, the second most anal person I know when it comes to cleanliness, cleaned the entire place herself before leaving! Thus, I consider this a major BS fee. Of course, they're everywhere on condo rentals :-/.

So what other fees do we encounter in life that seem to be total bs?

DISCUSS!

Oh and on a related note, check out my other thread https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=526428 and comment my thread. KTHX <3

 

[Jack21222]

Sleepy's (an east-coast mattress store) has a 30 dollar "delivery to the store" charge, where if you want to pick up a mattress from the store as opposed to from one of the centralized warehouses, Sleepy's would charge 30 dollars to bring it from the warehouse to the store.

I guess the theory was these mattresses and boxsprings are taking up room on a truck which could otherwise go to delivering mattresses to people. The trucks visit the showrooms once a week anyway to replenish stock, deliver new product for display, etc. And the trucks aren't always completely full.

All I know was customers HATED that charge, and would often storm out of the showroom in a huff when I told them about the charge. Even if I offered to back the charge out of the price, some were so upset that we would even try to charge that fee they refused to purchased.

 

[Pengwuino]

All I know was customers HATED that charge, and would often storm out of the showroom in a huff when I told them about the charge. Even if I offered to back the charge out of the price, some were so upset that we would even try to charge that fee they refused to purchased.

Good! I'd become enraged and violent if someone tried to charge me such a fee.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A bit of a twist on the op but applicable, I think. Shipping and handling fees on scam products can be the core of the scam - this appears to be where the money is really made on some products. As a definitive example, I remember this "Italian" espresso maker that came with a lifetime supply of "free" coffee. The coffee came in little single-cup cartridges. The shipping and handling fees were outrageous and shown only briefly, somewhere easy to miss... I think down near the bottom-right corner of the screen. It was obvious that you more than paid for the coffee by paying their "handling" fees. I seem to recall specifically that you ultimately paid $11 for a few cups of free coffee.

 

[turbo]

A common thread in "miracle" products that you can only get through TV ads is to charge outrageous "shipping and handling" fees for stuff that is quite compact and cheap to ship. The nastiest part of that trick is that they offer to double your order, and if you order within the next 30 minutes, they will triple your order. What a deal! (for them) If you fall for that "bargain" you'll pay triple the exorbitant S&H charges. Lots of these scams seem to be selling S&H more than the cheap plastic crap that they are hawking.

 

[Evo]

New owners just bought my apartment complex and they're raising rates on everything. I'm moving back into my old apartment and they told me that there is a $300 transfer fee! They've already done a walk through of my current place and agreed they won't be replacing carpet or repainting since my place is spotless, and I always leave my place cleaner than when I moved in. Maybe I won't won't do a super clean-up this time.

 

[turbo]

$300 to move from one expensive apartment to another in the same building? Sounds pretty bogus. When I was managing an apartment building (in addition to my day-job as a process chemist, when my wife and I were first married), I had one rule. Leave it clean and repair any damage and you can choose a different apartment if you want. I got free rent from the owner for managing the building, and it was only fair to protect his interests. Still, it would have been mean to charge people for changing apartments. For example, it's one thing to be renting on the 2nd or 3rd floor if you have an infant, and an entirely different situation once that baby starts toddling around. I gave priority to those types of moves. The rents were a bit higher on the ground-floor, but that was a function of accessibility.

 

[DoggerDan]

So what other fees do we encounter in life that seem to be total bs?

Most taxes.

 

[Pengwuino]

New owners just bought my apartment complex and they're raising rates on everything. I'm moving back into my old apartment and they told me that there is a $300 transfer fee! They've already done a walk through of my current place and agreed they won't be replacing carpet or repainting since my place is spotless, and I always leave my place cleaner than when I moved in. Maybe I won't won't do a super clean-up this time.

i HATE hearing about fees like that. What is their justification for it? Did you agree to such a fee when you moved in?

 

[KingNothing]

Any time you buy tickets to an event, they charge a convenience fee. What is up with that? Why charge people who are convenient? They should charge drunks, anyone over 400 pounds, and slow walker INconvenience fees.

 

[Evo]

i HATE hearing about fees like that. What is their justification for it? Did you agree to such a fee when you moved in?

No, and it's not in my lease.

 

[Zantra]

I would at least talk to an attorney before going through with it. If it's not explicitly stated in your current lease, they would have a hard time enforcing it in court.

Personally I'd just move elsewhere, but if you're going to stay, don't let them stick it to ya!

 

[DoggerDan]

I think some people missed the "3 days" part. It was a condo rented out in lieu of a hotel room. It's quite common to charge a cleaning fee. They're only exorbitant to the good renters. They don't begin to cover the cleaning, repair, and restoration expenses when a bunch of partiers trash the place.

Still, I'm sure the condo owners make money. I'd prefer they charge a hefty refundable security deposit, but that would require detailed inspections before and after, which itself costs more money than simply sending in a professional cleaning crew to return the place to spotless condition.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I was reminded of the good old days, when I was quite young, when one could go to the local dairy and buy fertilizer on the honor system. This was still done even the Los Angeles area. They has a little slotted metal box next to the pile of manure bags, for the BS fee.

You could get mixed or total BS. Total BS cost more.

True story.

 

[JaWiB]

Bag fees on airlines. I'm a skinny dude, I should get my back fees refunded for saving them weight compared to the average American.

 

[Vagn]

Bag fees on airlines. I'm a skinny dude, I should get my back fees refunded for saving them weight compared to the average American.

It's worse when some 'cheap' airlines charge you for not checking in online, baggage costs, using the toilet whilst flying, typing your name wrongly or them printing it wrongly on the ticket, allows you to pay for priority boarding and then not deliver on it, with the head of communications saying said breach of contract is 'trivial'.
http://gospain.about.com/od/ryanair/tp/ryanair_fees.htm
http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-and-conditions#regulations-tableoffees