President Joe Biden introduced new progress Wednesday on his administration’s “competitors agenda,” particularly taking purpose at junk charges whereas calling on Congress to go laws concentrating on hidden charges throughout a number of industries.
These prices can “drain a whole lot of {dollars} a yr from the pockets of hardworking American households, particularly people who’re already struggling to make ends meet — however not anymore after right this moment,” Biden stated on the fourth assembly of the Presidential Competitors Council on Wednesday.
The proposed laws in partnership with the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau, known as the Junk Charge Safety Act, would goal 4 varieties of extreme charges:
- extreme on-line live performance, sporting occasion and leisure ticket charges
- airline charges for households sitting collectively on flights
- exorbitant early termination charges for TV, telephone and web providers
- shock resort and vacation spot charges
In short remarks earlier than the assembly, Biden had known as out bank card late charges specifically as “a junk price if there ever was one,” saying the brand new steering from the CFPB would cut back these charges.
“At this time’s rule proposes to chop these charges from $31 on common to $8,” he added. “That change is predicted to avoid wasting tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} for People, roughly $9 billion a yr in complete financial savings.”
Biden known as on Congress to go the junk price laws, saying it will give “hardworking People just a bit bit extra respiratory room.” It is a part of a plan, he added, to construct “an financial system that is aggressive and an financial system that works for everybody.”
‘Firms have exploited a loophole’
Rohit Chopra, director of the CFPB, famous earlier than the announcement that “over a decade in the past, Congress banned extreme bank card late charges.”
“However firms have exploited a regulatory loophole that has allowed them to flee scrutiny for charging an in any other case unlawful junk price,” he added in an announcement to CNN. “At this time’s proposed rule seeks to avoid wasting households billions of {dollars} and make sure the bank card market is honest and aggressive.”
One other price class that frustrates many shoppers is occasion tickets bought on-line, for which extra charges are continuously excessive — and usually seem late within the checkout course of when a buyer is about to make the acquisition.
For instance, earlier this yr, lawmakers grilled Dwell Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold following a ticket gross sales debacle over exorbitant ticketing charges. Though the corporate stated Wednesday it helps reform, it additionally stated it opposes the proposed laws.
“We stand able to work with the President and Congress on many frequent sense ticketing reforms, whereas additionally talking out in opposition to proposed laws that might profit scalpers over artists and followers,” the corporate stated in an announcement.
Biden’s Transportation Division additionally took steps final fall in the course of the earlier assembly of the Competitors Council to scale back “pointless hidden charges,” from airline and journey websites that the the President warned had been “weighing down household budgets.”
The-CNN-Wire
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