The Title I Wanted To Use For This Post Is Too Dirty

Fees. I want to talk about fees. We are presented with fees all the time.

The way they are used, fees are lies!

If a company wants to advertise one price and charge another, let the difference be a fee not disclosed (or poorly disclosed) in the advertisement.

AT&T, thank you for this opportunity to use you as an example.

“Consistent with similar fees charged by other carriers, the monthly fee of 61 cents per line will help cover certain expenses, such as interconnection and cell site rents and maintenance,” AT&T’s executive director of media relations, Mark Siegel, told The Huffington Post. The fee applies to all “postpaid (contract) consumer wireless customers.”

“Certain expenses?” How exactly does that differ from what usually goes into the actual quoted price?

Oh, and that 61&#162 translates into $500 million per year for AT&T!

It’s wrong if it’s a convenience fee, fuel surcharge, shipping and handling or any other after-the-fact add-on.

So here’s the question: Why is this legal?

One more thing. The title I originally wanted to use was alliteration with the second word, fees.