“The price they say, really should be the price you pay.” 

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, today called for a crackdown on “junk fees” and demanded fee transparency and upfront pricing so consumers can have confidence in knowing the real price of services and be able to accurately compare prices across the market. Last month, Sen. Cantwell cosponsored the TICKET Act, a price transparency bill.  

“The price they say, really should be the price you pay,” said Sen. Cantwell. “The bottom line is we can’t make comparison shopping harder. We can’t reduce competition. And we don’t want to see things that distort the market.”

“Junk fees” include fees that are added on to the price of a product or service after a price is advertised to a consumer or later in the transaction process. According to the White House, American consumers have spent around $60 billion annually on hidden fees in the past five years. These fees negatively impact consumers by creating confusion for shoppers and limiting the ability to compare prices. In the ticket industry, studies from the New York Attorney General’s office and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) show that fees can contribute anywhere from 21% to as much as 58% of the total cost of event tickets.

A 2022 consumer survey by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office found that in the last four years, 61% of Washington state consumers were charged a fee they didn’t know about until the final stage of ordering a product or service and 39% were charged such a fee they didn’t know about until after a purchase. 

Last month, consumers in Washington state once again encountered the reality of junk fees when KIRO 7 reported that – after the addition of unavoidable hidden fees – it would cost more to watch the Seattle Kraken play the Dallas Stars in Game 3 of the NHL playoffs in Seattle than it would to fly to Dallas on Alaska Airlines. 

“At the time, KIRO 7 reported that the cheapest re-sale ticket available was $294. Or, at least, that’s the price the ticket platform would have you think. After a $61 ticket processing fee and a $3 order processing fee, the real price of the ticket, before tax, was $358 — an extra 22% on top of the advertised price.” Sen. Cantwell said.  

In the hearing, Sen. Cantwell focused on how the lack of transparency in fee pricing hurts consumers and the ability to compare market prices.

“Do you think this is so important, not just with ticket sellers, but the true price overall, including mandatory fees? What complexity does that bring to the market when you have this level of distortion?” Sen. Cantwell asked.

“Consumers can't comparison shop because they don't know what the end-all and all-in price is going to be. So it distorts the market from that perspective,” explained Sally Greenberg, CEO of the National Consumers League. “Consumers are angry about it and they feel like they get trapped into paying for goods and services with these add-on fees that they had not expected.”

Sen. Cantwell and Sen. Cruz recently introduced the bipartisan TICKET Act to require all ticket sellers to display the total ticket price—including all required fees—in any advertisement or marketing materials. The bill would also disclose to consumers if a ticket being offered for sale is a so-called “speculative ticket,” meaning it is not within the seller’s possession.

Video of Sen. Cantwell’s remarks is available HERE, and a transcript HERE.