It’s about to get easier to compares prices for tickets to live events.
The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday finalized a rule requiring businesses to disclose total prices, including any hidden fees, in a transparent and upfront manner.
In a statement, FTC chair Lina Khan said that the rule will save consumers “billions of dollars and millions of hours in wasted time.” She added, “People deserve to know up-front what they’re being asked to pay—without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid.”
The rule doesn’t prohibit any type of fee. Instead, it requires businesses to tell consumers the total price, inclusive of any mandatory fees, whenever they offer the cost. The true total must be displayed more prominently than other pricing information. Companies that exclude allowable fees, like shipping or taxes, must clearly disclose them before payment information is entered.
The FTC proposed the rule last year. Thousands of consumers wrote in favor of the proposal, with many complaining of hidden fees imposed by Ticketmaster.
“I bought 7 concert tickets for a group of friends via Ticketmaster’s website,” wrote Jennifer Davis to the FTC last year. “The advertised price of each ticket was $53. The actual price was $74.70 because FOR EACH TICKET I was charged a ‘Service Fee’ ($14.70) and a ‘Facility Charge’ ($6). There was also an additional ‘Order Processing Charge’ ($5) for the whole transaction. That’s almost a 50% markup. Ticketmaster is a monopoly and it has been allowed to overcharge customers with these junk fees for too long.”
The rule was issued as Ticketmaster continues to fight an antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up the company. Parent company Live Nation supported the all-in pricing initiative.
“Because the practice of adding these charges to the ticket’s face value has been so longstanding, consumers have come to expect service fees when purchasing a ticket to a live entertainment event – but it is impossible for consumers to anticipate the amount of applicable fees because those rates are set by hundreds of different venues and can vary accordingly,” it wrote in a comment to the FTC. “Consumers therefore need clear disclosures about the true price of a ticket.”
The rule passed on a four-to-one vote. The lone dissent came from Andrew Ferguson, who will serve as the agency’s next chair. Like with other rules proposed by the FTC he dissented on grounds that the FTC doesn’t have the authority to adopt the regulation. He wrote, “The Democratic majority’s four-year regulatory assault on American businesses has hindered economic growth and increased costs to the American consumer. The American people resoundingly rejected this approach at the ballot box in November.”
Khan’s tenure as head of the FTC has seen the passage of consumer and labor-friendly rules, including a ban on noncompetes and a requirement that companies make it as easy to cancel subscriptions as it is to sign up. Ferguson voted against both rules.
“I urge enforcers to continue cracking down on these unlawful fees and encourage state and federal policymakers to build on this success with legislation that bans unfair and deceptive junk fees across the economy,” Khan said.
English (US) ·