UK Bans Fake Reviews and 'Sneaky' Fees For Online Products

The United Kingdom has banned "outrageous fake reviews and sneaky hidden fees" to make life easier for online shoppers. From a report: New measures under the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumer Act 2024 came into force on Sunday that require online platforms to transparently include all mandatory fees within a product's advertised price, including booking or admin charges.

The law targets so-called "dripped pricing," in which additional fees -- like platform service charges -- are dripped in during a customer's checkout process to dupe them into paying a higher price than expected. The ban "aims to bring to an end the shock that online shoppers get when they reach the end of their shopping experience only to find a raft of extra fees lumped on top," according to Justin Madders, the UK's Minister for Employment Rights, Competition and Markets.

Re:

[spacepimp]

I suppose it is difficult for you Limeys to understand the American attachment of value to free speech... If you had it, you would hold on to it with a revolution if necessary.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

Sort of like the attachment to guns. You'll cheer on the first and second amendments as you descend into fascism.

Your king has already declared that the wrong ideologies must be scrubbed from the government, truth be damned. And you've somehow managed to lock up more people than anywhere else in the world, a status which makes them not have free speech.

So you might want to check the windows in your glass house before flinging rocks.

Think is in I'm happy to crap all over my government and their record, bit n

Re:

[newcastlejon]

In the USA drip pricing violates laws against bait and switch as well as false advertisement.

"Bait and switch" is different:

~ Store advertises product X at what sounds like a good price. (The bait.)

~ Customer goes to buy X and is told it's sold out or 'unavailable'. The store likely never had product X in the first place.

~ Store offers a different product Y that will make them more profit. (The switch.)

Drip pricing is where you go to someone like Ticket Master. They are selling tickets to the event you want to attend; there's no switch involved. Instead, they advertise a ticket at, say $100, but th

Re:

[spacepimp]

You do have decent consumer protection laws, but your freedom of the press and freedoms of speech are getting closer to nonexistent. I do not think people are bothered by your consumer protections. As an American watching the attempts to govern speech at home an abroad is depressing. Seeing many countries running headlong to recreate 1984 to save the populace from being offended makes me sad.

Re:

[Richard_at_work]

You really do slurp up the right wing propaganda over there in America dont you?

Theres nothing wrong with the UKs freedom of press or freedom of speech for the average person - sure, hate speech is banned, which is good. It also means we dont have anywhere near the issues that you do in America.

By the way, your President recently called a boycott of a private companies products "illegal", and many of your states have laws which make boycotts of Israel illegal. Is everything ok over there?

Re:

[Teun]

Hmm, in that US it is quite common to see the price and get a tax added at check out, that is also a form of drip pricing.

Re:

[alvinrod]

The U.S. has different tax rates for every state, and many counties or municipalities have additional taxes on certain goods or services on top of those. Requiring the list price include taxes makes it impossible for any national chain to advertise a price for some product that accounts for all of the different rates across the country. No business is interested in eating the added costs from local tax codes just so they can keep the $599 sticker price that stores in other states with no/lower sales taxes o

Wishful Thinking

[Bahbus]

I just wish all prices, everywhere in the world were required to be "the price" - in person and online. If an item has a price tag for $139.99 and it's the only item I'm buying, I should only be paying $139.99. Not $139.99 plus taxes, plus fees. Calculate that ahead of time and include it in your prices before I get to the register/checkout. A long time ago, when you had to do everything manually, I could see it being a pain in the ass, but it would be trivial to do it now a days. Hell, it's one of the smartest things a retail business could do nowadays.

Re:

[chiefcrash]

There's something to be said about taxes and government-imposed fees being separate: the business doesn't control them, and makes advertising across a wide area difficult. Sales tax rates can vary as much as almost 10% between neighboring states...

Re:

[ewibble]

No there isn't business can't control a lot of thing, like rent, price of electricity whatever they know what sales tax they are paying. As a consumer, in general I don't care what portion of the cost comes from where, all I care is what price it is going to be to me. Things like tax rates varying between states only makes it harder because how is a consumer meant to know and keep up to date with all the variations in tax rates. If you wish for more clarity shops are quite welcome to put the price, or amoun

Re:

[Bahbus]

Why should I care about the tax rate where...

When traveling and used to very low, if any, sales taxes, it's not very appreciated when I suddenly have to pay more than expected for the same items advertised at the same prices. Traveling is one actually an argument FOR including all taxes into the advertised price.

it's packaged into a box with the price on it

Why would you think anyone would want, or even think it's a good idea to start with, to print the price directly on the packaging? When the store can either get digital price tags (I know, BestBuys in the US use them) which would allow them to

Re:

[Bahbus]

and makes advertising across a wide area difficult. Sales tax rates can vary as much as almost 10% between neighboring states...

Not a problem that I care about. That only affects chains and is something for them to figure out. "Oh no, we can no longer create one nationwide advertisement, oh whatever shall we do?!"

Ban credit card data upfront next

[devslash0]

The next step should be to ban another sourge of the internet being "free" trials of online services that require your credit card details upfront, on day 1, and where it automatically autorenews at the end of the "free" period. If something is free, in the light of GDPR and other related regulations, you should not be asking for credit card information because there is no payment to make therefore you don't need credit card data to fulfil the function of setting up a free trial. Then, the default policy should be for the subscription to expire by default at the end of the trial.

Re:

[Petersko]

This pattern appears darker than it really is. In this world of unlimited email addresses on demand, a completely wide open free access period is just begging to be abused. Requiring a verified payment method is one way of keeping trials limited to one per user.

Now expiring with a negative option, as in defaulting to not entering into a paid subscription, that could still be done even with the card now on file. But if the complaint is against up front provisioning of a payment method, how would you prevent

real reviews for fake products

[awwshit]

Whew, real reviews for fake products are safe. Trust me, the fees are real too.