Ep. 319: Are ‘Junk Fees’ Headed For The Trash?

The Federal Trade Commission is moving ahead with a proposal to crack down on what are commonly called “junk fees,” the often-obscured extra charges applied to concert tickets, hotel bookings and other purchases, that can cost customers upwards of $80 million per year. Joining Pro Say this week is Columbia Business School professor Vicki Morwitz, whose research into those fees and their effects on consumer behavior has informed much of the government’s response to what it considers a transparently deceptive business practice. Also this week, Robins Kaplan gets ripped for snooping around in a litigation opponent’s accidentally-shared corporate files and a Texas bankruptcy judge reveals a previously secret romantic relationship with an attorney whose former firm regularly brought cases before him. Finally, U.S. solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar faces a grilling of a different sort on NPR’s “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”