SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Many have experienced buying a ticket to an event or booking a place to stay for vacation, realizing the advertised price is lower than the actual price when you check out.
There is an effort in both the California and federal government to get rid of what are often referred to as junk fees.
CJ recently bought tickets to the Justin Timberlake concert in San Diego. The extra fees surprised even him.
“This is insane,” said CJ, who only wanted to use his first name for privacy reasons.
He first logged on to Ticketmaster to purchase two tickets, which led him to StubHub. He admitted he was on a meeting at the time and paid quickly with his credit card.
CJ paid roughly $489 per ticket, with the extra fee being about $348. It came out to more than 26% of his total ticket price. “I assumed they had charged me for three tickets,” CJ said.
When he realized it wasn’t an error, he questioned the high fees.
“First thought was, how are the getting away with this?” he questioned.
CJ said he called StubHub for a breakdown of those costs, but a representative wouldn’t give it to him.
“When you're a corporation that's monopolizing things that we the public would enjoy, and then putting an extra tax on top of it without any actual value [added]… why are you charging me this money?” CJ said.
The Council of Economic Advisers shows billions spent by consumers on these fees, everything from high credit card late fees to event tickets.
“Junk fees are unnecessary, unavoidable or surprise charges that inflate prices while adding little to now value,” said Brian Shearer, the Assistant Director of Policy Planning and Strategy at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Last year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced an effort to fight the fees in California.
“It’s misleading. It doesn’t allow consumers to do price comparisons to make the decision that’s best for them, and it’s wrong,” Bonta said during a news conference in Balboa Park in May 2023.
The bill was signed into law and goes into effect in July. It is designed to prohibit drip pricing, “which involves advertising a price that is less than the actual price that a consumer will have to pay for a good or service.”
“Companies charge what they think the market will bear… then they add junk fees to squeeze just a little more profit from Americans,” Shearer said.
Shearer said by one count, junk fees make up more than $90 billion in costs for Americans every year.
“We’re talking about hundreds or even thousands of dollars in additional costs for households,” Shearer added. “We at the CFPB are committed to rooting out junk fees wherever they find them.”
The Federal Trade Commission is currently in the process of writing a comprehensive junk fee rule that would apply to the entire economy.
ABC 10News reached out to get clarification about the fees for CJ’s tickets. A representative for StubHub said they were working on an answer and then never responded to follow up questions.
CJ is still going to the concert. He says he’s fortunate he can afford it, but knows not everyone can.
“You're gouging them blindly,” CJ said. “It's just not right.”
