Fees and penalties are the staples of many service industries. Remember that great expression from your local video store.
“Be Kind, Rewind”
Back then, some places even charged a penalty if you didn’t rewind your VHS tape. The fee no longer applies, as there is no tape industry. That sounds like a fairly sarcastic commentary, but how many fees disappear?
- My home telephone bill (yes, I still have a landline) had a “Touch Tone” charge on it (up until July 2015), but if I tried to use a rotary phone, I got nasty remarks from Bell, pointing out the technology isn’t supported anymore. This fee no longer applies after Bell was shamed into removing it by the CBC.
- Paper billing charges were a thing for a while. Wasn’t that Green and cool? That went away (mostly) after the Government said they were not allowed. I actually can see why that charge was there.
- Account fees for day-to-day banking continue at most major banks. Even though many smaller banks offer free banking (PC Financial, Tangerine, and others), do we continue to pay for the services at major banks? Michael James has pointed out that eventually, the Major Banks will take a dive and may finally stop charging these fees. Nah, it’s never gonna happen.
- Online trading fees start at $29.95, and it has dropped steadily since (and are around $9.95 or lower). Since I am pretty sure the trading houses are still making money on this, I wonder how low these fees could go.
Fees That Are Not Long For This World?
Are there any fees that may go away sometime soon? I can't think of many (maybe gas taxes once gas cars go away). Pretty sure overdraft fees will never go away.
Home phone? 2 comments.
1) Dude, really. Home phone? You’re spending money on a bell home phone. Everyone has a cell phone, the landline is arbitrary, and expensive.
2) if you’re really going to keep a landline, then you need to buy an ATA (you can get them for a few $10 bills) and go voip. That’ll eliminate long distance charges as well as that horrible monthly Bell bull.
My favourite fee is the embedded 2.5% Management Expense Ratio of most mutual funds. I have been able to take that down to under 0.5% by using ETFs. This is one of those fees that should become very visible when CRM2 goes live at the end of the year.
I have to agree with you about the airline fees. This is what happens when you have a “race to the bottom” on price. It is getting absolutely ludicrous. I am surprised that they don’t charge for the washrooms. Although the washroom often has more space than my seat!
cheers,
You and me, young Master Robert, are not designed to fit in a mass transit vehicle (Plane, Bus, Monorail, etc.,), the only way I fit in a plane is Biz Class (and I am not paying for that).
The big banks are unlikely to reduce their fees any time soon, but the new fin-tech competitors with their much lower cost structure will be able to compete on price. We see this with Tangerine checking accounts that charge no fees and even pay a tiny bit of interest. Interestingly, even though Tangerine got bought up by a big bank, they still don’t charge fees (for now). Having to buy up every low-fee upstart will become expensive for big banks and it also just encourages other upstarts.
I suspect Tangerine may add fees slowly for now. PC Financial’s back-end is a Big Bank (CIBC right now?) one of those head scratchers about why PC Fin are free, but CIBC account isn’t?