I made a car sales inquiry recently, and yes, there were some extra fees (like "shipping fee", "premium paint fee" on every colour except black, and so on) when buying a car, that amounted to a couple thousand bucks for the car I was looking at. So looking at the advertised price in the newspaper etc., it was not accurate, and they all do this.
When you see these sorts of fees, that's just their way of raising the price without saying they're raising the price.
Same goes for "fuel surcharges" on everything from BC ferries, to deliveries, to airline tickets. Even airport improvement fees and so on are part of this lie. Does anyone think that a plane is even able to fly without fuel, as if fuel is some kind of extra bonus cost that airlines unexpectedly had to pay for? Of course not. Costs go up, prices go up, and the public shopuld see that true price reflected in all advertising - that's how it should work.
However, they all choose to play this ridiculous game of misleading all customers at all times. It's a scam, but the government allows it because the fraud is so widespread that if the government cracked down on certain businesses misleading about the true price, they'd be faced with an angry campaign from a lot of pearl-clutching business lobbyists, claiming that having to tell the truth would destroy their ability to do business.
Can you imagine going into some grocery store, buying meat, and then being charged a surcharge for it being refrigerated at all, or going to a restaurant and being told you must pay higher than the menu price because they issued you a knife, fork, and spoon to eat with?
No, nobody would stand for that shit. But for some businesses, there's this unwritten aura of bullshit that allows them to chop their costs up and make you pay for them piecemeal just so they don't have to tie their costs directly to their prices in their advertising.
