Free Fenzy

SEPTEMBER 29, 2003 COVER STORY Fees! Fees! Fees! | Companies cant raise prices, so theyre socking consumers with hundreds of hidden charges--and thats creating stealth inflation and fueling a usual backlash | America used to be the work of the free. Now, its the land of the fee. Companies, hard-pressed for money, are taking every possible probability to nickel-and-dime people to death. Need a monthly brokerage account statement mailed to you? Ameritrade (AMTD ) may charge you $2 per statement. Want your hotel room cleaned? The Alexander Hotel in Miami Beach, Fla., will bill you an extra $2.50 daily for housekeeping. Have to return a impudently camcorder? Best Buy (BBY ) Co. will dock you 15% as a restocking fee. Want to buy a season tatter for pro football? The New York Jets will make you give way $50 for the privilege of getting on their waiting list. The U.S. miserliness has become sneaky. Inflation is officially low, but Americans face an ever-growing stilt of extra charges that are pushing up the true make up of purchases. No area is safe, from retail to finance to travel to sports. You gestate companies charging fees for things that were free on an unprecedented scale, says Claes G. Fornell, marketing professor at the University of Michigan Business School.

The extra hits -- each one typically small by itself -- add up to big money. AT&T (T ) could bring in as much as $475 one thousand million by charging its long-distance customers a new 99 cents monthly regulatory assessment fee. Fresh fees for services such as housekeeping will generate $100 million for hotels this year, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Fees on consumers who pay bills online bring avers an estimated $2 billion. And credit-card late-payment fees -- up by 11% over the past year, on average out -- could reach an astonishing $11 billion this year, estimates investment bank R.K. Hammer. The fee frenzy is mainly an attempt by corporate America to escape the brutal price wars of the past few... If you motive to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

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