“Some hotels now charge a ‘connectivity fee’ of about $4 a night for access to the phone, high-speed Internet, faxes and such, whether or not those services are actually used. … Companies are now adding new surcharges to all kinds of services and products.”–The New York Times, Dec. 28, 2002.
The trick, of course, is that companies don’t come right out and tell their customers about these surcharges. Thus, the smart consumer must always read the fine print. I happen to be an exceptionally gifted consumer, and here are some special fees I’ve recently uncovered.
– Taxicabs are adding a 50-cent “save your soul” fee if your driver is listening to a Christian radio station.
– The YMCA now tacks on a $5-a-month “looks like something–though I don’t know what–is going on again with Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown” fee for televisions with no volume tuned to “Inside Edition” and “Extra.” Hearing-impaired club members who would always watch with closed captions must pay $10 a month.
– The Courier font is now charging college students a $3-per-term-paper “yes, you are finished” fee for its uncanny ability to stretch a five-page paper in any other font into a 10-page paper.
– Ticketmaster has added a $5 “exit” fee for concertgoers who want to drive their car out of the parking lot after an event. They’re also considering enacting a $20 “volume” fee for the use of speakers at concerts.
– Several major wireless communication companies are sneaking a $2-a-month “we’d be crazy to just give tumors away for free” fee for obvious reasons.
– Paul McCartney is charging a $1-per-disc “now that I’m almost 64 and losing my mind” fee as he combs record shops across the world to personally black out “Lennon-McCartney” in the liner notes of Beatles albums and write in “McCartney-Lennon.”
– The Magnetic Poetry company will charge you a $10 “usage” fee if you’ve rearranged the words on your fridge once in the past three years.
– The caricaturists at Navy Pier are adding a $1,000 “likeness” fee if their drawing ends up looking anything like you.
– Nike has finally had the business sense to add a 0.000000003-cent “labor” fee per pair of shoes.
– Lettuce Entertain You restaurants now add a 10 percent “we’re really a chain” fee to diners’ bills to pay for the promotional cards for R.J. Grunts and Tucci Benucch at every restaurant’s entrance.
– Several cruise ship companies are adding a $500 “now you’ll have quite a story to tell at every family gathering for the next 50 years” fee if you witness more than half the passengers on your trip vomiting.
– Your dictionary will bill you a $4 “not again!” fee for every word that you have to look up more than five times. The fee jumps to $5 if the word is “peripatetic.”
– Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Merck are all adding a $1-per-prescription “side effect” fee if you have been married for more than 20 years and are happy that your medicine prohibits you from getting it up.
– The Art Institute is adding a $20 million “you break it, you buy it” fee if you ruin–even accidentally–a painting. Unless, of course, it happens on free-admission Tuesdays, when there also is no fee for vandalism.
– Loews movie theaters are charging a $2-per-ticket “emotion” fee if a film makes you laugh and cry.
———-
E-mail Mark Bazer at mebazer@yahoo.com.
