Consumer Groups, Free Press, UCC and Others Push FTC on Junk Fees

Poverty Law Center, the United Church of Christ Media Justice Office and several consumer groups. “Instead of incentivizing honest and transparent pricing, businesses are incentivized to bait consumers with low prices and hide fees until later,” said the joint submission from the Consumer Federation of America, Free Press, Consumer Reports and others. A proceeding against junk fees is consistent with past FTC practice and is needed because the FTC’s authority to pursue redress for deceptive business practices without a specific rulemaking was restricted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s AMG Capital Management v. FTC ruling, the groups said. The “prevalence of forced arbitration and class action bans” is also a reason for the FTC to step in, the filing said. “Individual arbitrations will not have the impact that is necessary to deter misconduct and change practices,” the groups said. The FTC should institute an “all-in pricing rule” that would require the clear disclosure of all fees in advertising and before the time of purchase. A joint filing from the National Consumer Law Center, Prison Policy Initiative, UCC, SPLC and a host of justice advocacy groups concentrated on junk fees in prisons. “Justice-involved consumers are all too frequently forced to pay junk fees imposed by private companies operating in the market for correctional services,” said the NCLC joint filing, citing fees for money transfers, “free” tablets, and email inside prisons. Prison email “appears to suffer from many of the same perverse pricing dynamics that spurred the FCC to regulate phone rates and fees in corrections facilities,” said the filing. Those include “prices that bear little relation to cost” and “consumer choice vested in corrections officials who are not obliged to protect the rights of end-users.”