Businesses use a variety of pricing strategies to extract more money from their customers – some of which are unfair, unethical, or outright illegal.
These practices can make it difficult for you, the consumer to determine whether the price, quote or estimate you’ve been given is reasonable (within a range of what other have paid) or fair (close to what other’s in a similar circumstance have paid).
It’s important to note that “fair” pricing doesn’t necessarily mean equal prices. Costs can vary depending on a wide variety of fair and reasonable factors such as cost-of-living in your area, expertise of the service provider and complexity of the work.
Here are a few examples of nontransparent pricing practices:
Price Discrimination
Definition: Charging customers different prices for the same product or service based on certain attributes in order to charge each customer the maximum price he or she will pay.
Example: The airline industry uses price discrimination when selling the same tickets to different market segments. Tickets vary based on the location within the plane, the time and day of the flight, the time of year, and what city the aircraft is traveling to. Airlines also use other forms of price discrimination including discounts, vouchers, and member perks for individuals with membership cards.
Other examples of industries that have opaque pricing include:
- Car dealerships
- Healthcare
- Home improvement
- Airlines
- Hotels
Criticism: Price discrimination is illegal if it’s done on the basis of race, religion, nationality, or gender, or if it is in violation of antitrust or price-fixing laws.
Congestion Pricing
Definition: Increasing prices during temporary or cyclic increases in demand.
Example: A variety of congestion pricing known as surge pricing has been implemented in recent years by companies such as Uber, which surcharges rideshare customers during peak hours.
Criticism: One criticism of congestion pricing is that it acts like a regressive tax, harming low-income users more than other groups.
Price Fixing
Definition: Price fixing is an agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given level by controlling supply and demand.
Example: A business fixes price by colluding with one or more of its competitors to buy or sell goods and services at an agreed price. In October 2018, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division ordered Nippon Chemi-Con to pay a $60 million criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices for electrolytic capacitors.
Criticism: In the United States, price fixing can be prosecuted as a criminal federal offense under Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. However, in many cases it’s hard for governments, and consumer protection agencies to detect and prove that companies are participating in an illegal scheme.
Our Mission
Our mission is to make pricing more transparent by providing comprehensive, relevant and useful pricing data for free.
Our Vision
Complete price transparency. The prices for all products and services are known at any point in time.
How?
We built Cost Charts, the best place for consumers to view and share price data, and use that data to make better decisions.
You, the consumer and our user, matter the most to us. Not companies, not investors (we don’t have any). That means that everything we do, any feature we build, is to help you know how much something should cost, while also maintaining your anonymity.
Why does all this matter?
We believe three things about a better world for everyone:
- Having more information helps you make better decisions.
- Our data can help keep companies accountable.
- Transparency creates a culture of openness and trust, where everyone’s on the same team.
Get Started Now
To accomplish these goals, we depend on accurate data from people like you!
Contributing to the project is easy. All you have to do is submit
a photo or copy of any receipts, invoices or other pricing document.
1) By uploading it here:
2) Or by forwarding it to the email: [email protected]
Privacy
All submissions will always stay 100% anonymous to protect your privacy. The only information we use are the following (when available in a submission):
- Date
- Price/Cost
- Product/Service
- Company Name
- City, Country
For now, all we can give in return is our sincere thanks and the appreciation of other users who save money and avoid being ripped off because of your submission.
In the future, we will implement a system that rewards you for each submission you add to the project.
Have a question? You can get in touch with us using the contact page.
– Cost Charts Team