MSE News: Unfair price promotions to come under OFT microscope

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"The competition watchdog today said it is investigating potentially misleading pricing practices to help protect consumers. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is looking at ..."

Read the full story:
Unfair price promotions to come under OFT microscope

Rafter

About time too!

Hopefully they will remove booking fees on entertainment tickets, any premium charged for paying by debit card (which is cheaper for the airline or company to process than cash - which is legal tender). Perhaps a 7 day cooling off period for any purchase of goods and services over £100 to allow the customer to cancel or return goods if after the 'thrill of the auction' or 'heat of the moment' actually it was a bad deal or bad idea.

R.

bap98189

I don't object to companies having additional charges such as booking fees, credit card charges etc., but I do object to them not being included in the advertised price. Hopefully the OFT will end this practice......yes Ryanair we are looking at you!!!

RadoJo

Rafter wrote: »

About time too!

Hopefully they will remove booking fees on entertainment tickets, any premium charged for paying by debit card (which is cheaper for the airline or company to process than cash - which is legal tender). Perhaps a 7 day cooling off period for any purchase of goods and services over £100 to allow the customer to cancel or return goods if after the 'thrill of the auction' or 'heat of the moment' actually it was a bad deal or bad idea.

R.

I thought it was only recently that ticketing companies had to separate out their booking fees to allow transparency - I personally would rather have them listed so that if I want to shop around/go into the box office and pay by cash I have the option rather than trying to work it out myself. I do see the point about 'drip fees' but I think it's more of a problem to advertise a price which is impossible to actually get rather than bundling everything together under one banner and not allowing customers to shop around.

I also don't think it's fair on retailers to allow a 'cooling off'period for any transactions over £100 - presumably you are expecting them to bear the cost of returning these 'cooled off' items and of trying to sell something, which could have been in use for seven days, as new? I think we need to take responsibility for ourselves, and people who make a mistake which costs them are less likely to make it again. If everyone knew you could return anything for any reason then they would be much more inclined to buy without thinking and end up costing retailers a fortune. And as for services - what if someone performs a service and the customer uses the 'cooling off' period to cancel once it's done?

yorksrabbit

Gawd Almighty, the sheer scale of this investigation is such it'll be another century before anything's done. Why can't the OFT narrow its focus and sort out priorities?

dougz_2

Will they be looking into BskyB? They are one of the worst offenders at drip pricing rip-offs. i.e they advertise a big headline price for a satellite receiver box, for which they maintain a monopoly of supply, but hidden in microscopic print at the bottom are hefty additional compulsory charges for 'setup' or 'installation' of the box even though you don't need anything installing.

Esqui

I suppose short of imposing regulations on what shops can charge, it won't happen, but I'd like to see an end to "establishment" - putting products on sale at a price above what they are worth in order to claim a bigger saving when they go on promotion below what they're worth.

michaels

I need to be protected from complex pricing such as '3 for 2'...

Still keeps some civil servants in a job whereas the real online rip-off of natural monopolies (ebay + paypal) seem to get away scot free...

MothballsWallet

You just know that the OFT will palm this off to Consumer Focus, the new and yet to prove itself organisation that replaced groups like Energywatch and concentrates on policies rather than people (consumers).

yorksrabbit

Ah, Consumer Focus!

A substitution of the Cavalry with more Indians instead, just as Custer needed.

Freddie_Snowbits

I cannot understand inthe local supermarket, in one aisle the have the super all things life changing new ultra slim super fast HD ready oggle box.

Shame the toothless fairies from the Office of Farting and Raiding do nothing about the fact that this tele can be viewed if you turn in the aisle, but cannot be viewed from a distance!

One ponders the treason why!