Ask LH: Can Parking Prices Be Quoted Without Booking Fees?

Dear Lifehacker, I regularly use Wilson Parking’s Book A Bay service on its site. However, while the site offers special deals, the prices quoted aren’t what you actually end up paying.

There’s often a deal for a $10 bay, and the price is listed clearly as that. However, later on in the booking screens, you are charged a booking fee of 50 cents, which you can’t escape no matter what payment method you use.

I thought that prices in Australia have to be the minimum price at which you can buy the goods or services. There’s no way to avoid this fee, so shouldn’t it be included in the price when it’s quoted up front?

Thanks
Parking Mad

Dear Parking Mad,

You’re quite right: it’s not legal in Australia to quote a price if there are hidden fees which everyone ends up having to pay. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) explains this quite clearly on its site:

When you present prices to your customers, you must state the total price of the good or service as a single figure, which is the minimum total cost that is able to be calculated. This should include any tax, duty, fee, levy or other additional charges (e.g. GST or airport tax).

The “compulsory booking fee” clearly falls into this category. Here’s Wilson’s own explanation for what it does:

The booking fee is charged solely to recover the expense of processing your online booking transaction. Where possible, the total fees including the booking fee are less than the standard fees at the car park for the same parking period.

Ultimately, if the price is much lower than the drive-up price, you might well choose to ignore the difference — but that doesn’t make the car park’s behaviour right. As we’ve explained before, companies are entitled to recover reasonable costs associated with a transaction, but they have to make those costs clear up-front. Since you’re not offered any alternative means of paying for this booking, the quoted price should indeed be $10.50, not $10.00.

What can you do about it? You can complain directly to Wilson Parking, and then complain to your relevant state consumer body if you’re not happy with its response. Lots of people are going to figure that the energy isn’t worth saving 50 cents — but that’s not entirely an attitude we endorse. Yes, your time is valuable, but deceptive pricing behaviour is not a good thing.

Cheers
Lifehacker

Got your own question you want to put to Lifehacker? Send it using our [contact text=”contact form”].


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


4 responses to “Ask LH: Can Parking Prices Be Quoted Without Booking Fees?”