Are “service fees” and “restocking fees” the biggest “in your face” scam today?

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So I ask, what am I paying for?

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CC processing fees

Yes

Stop speeding to improve your gas mileage. Problem solved

Dementia Man is doing away with those things for you. Watch

Service fees are shite

But my company lost a million dollars last year because they won't charge the 3% on credit cards.

Finders fee

It's not a scam if they're not misleading you into paying it. "Racket" is the word I would use.

I think restocking fees just makeup for the lost margin that the company has already recorded as revenue.

I have utilities through the city I live in. I used to write a check and mail it in because of the service fee it cost to pay online.

That was until I received a letter informing me that my payment was late and I had so many days to pay until my utilities would be shut off. I called the sons of bitches and told them I mailed in my payment and they said they didn't get it. So I went there to write them another check, it was a more complex situation than it should have been.

When I went in person to pay it was a student worker who processed it, it was at lunch time and the full time workers were at lunch. Didn't think anything about it until about a week and a half later when the city was at my house to shut down my electricity.

It was about an hour and a half before they closed. I was pissed and called them up. My power got shut down, they called me up about 10 mins after getting off the phone to tell me they found my original payment and that they were coming restore power but told me I had a late fee. Ever since I started paying online and still have not paid the $10 late fee. I told them I wasn't, its still on my account, but it cost me $4 extra a month to pay online.

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That seemed backwards to me. Why penalize the person trying to pay online? Why encourage someone to go in person? In person requires a lot more overhead (building maintenance, electricity, employees, cleaning staff, etc.) It seems you'd want to encourage people to pay online so that you could close down the offices and save money.

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I’ve found that the government agencies are the worst, especially at the state and local level.

There’s little logical rationale behind when and how they apply the fees, and they were slow to adopt any kind online option at all. Every other private sector entity asking for a payment of any kind has been pushing for electronic and online billing and payment for years.

It’s either incompetence by government bureaucracy, or it’s intentional in order to protect government employees.