{"id":254637,"date":"2026-07-29T14:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T14:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254637\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T14:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T14:34:12","slug":"consumers-feeling-the-pinch-from-growing-number-of-junk-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254637\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumers feeling the pinch from growing number of &#8220;junk fees&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From concert tickets to utility bills, many consumers say the price they see is not always the price they pay.<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia City Councilmember Rue Landau joined the latest episode of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLqFJWqJHPXL2Fh5FOa2TfEG60hkE5SDJh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">In Your Corner podcast<\/a>\u00a0to discuss the growing concern over so-called &#8220;junk fees,&#8221; the extra charges that are often added during online transactions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People really think that they shouldn&#8217;t have to pay to pay,&#8221; Landau said. &#8220;They shouldn&#8217;t have to pay another fee to pay the bill or to get the tickets online.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>      <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/42yNzCzr9cs\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Why you&#8217;re paying more: The fight against junk fees<\/a> by<br \/>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@cbsphilly\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">CBS Philadelphia<\/a> on<br \/>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Landau said transparency is key, arguing consumers should know exactly what fees they&#8217;re being charged before completing a purchase.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The consumer absolutely deserves to know what they&#8217;re being charged so they can make decisions,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/phila.legistar.com\/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=8068304&amp;GUID=6DDFC6AF-AE65-4917-AEDD-9BDAAF1F7CAF&amp;Options=&amp;Search=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Landau recently introduced legislation<\/a> to curb junk fees in the city by requiring businesses to disclose fees up front and prove &#8220;cost justification&#8221; for fees they wish to keep. The proposal also mandates online payment portals have at least one option that involves no additional fees, like an ACH or bank transfer.<\/p>\n<p>Standard credit card processing fees, which retailers must pay to credit card companies, would not be banned under the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Critics have previously argued measures banning these fees will increase costs elsewhere for consumers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Recently, Ticketmaster was found to have eliminated fees to comply with new federal rules, but the company then raised the cost of different fees in a number of its venues to ensure it didn&#8217;t lose money, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2026\/mar\/26\/ticketmaster-fees-hidden-charges\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The Guardian<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>You can watch the full episode of the In Your Corner podcast and find new episodes posted Wednesdays\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLqFJWqJHPXL2Fh5FOa2TfEG60hkE5SDJh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">on the CBS Philadelphia YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Looking for help with a consumer issue?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/in-your-corner\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to submit your complaint to In Your Corner<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From concert tickets to utility bills, many consumers say the price they see is not always the price&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[23054,28,69,71,70,5800],"class_list":["post-254637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-consumer-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}