The meter is running. — Time is being charged, and waiting costs money.
Can I get an itemized bill? — A request to see every charge on its own line.
Separate checks? — A restaurant server asks whether each person will pay for what they ordered.
Nickel-and-dime. — To add small charges until they become a large one.
No hidden fees. — A promise in advertising. It works because hidden fees are expected.
In the Friends episode “The One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant,” Monica wants to celebrate her promotion at an expensive restaurant. Phoebe, Rachel and Joey have little money and order only side dishes.
When the bill comes, Ross divides it equally. It comes to $33.50 each. Phoebe objects that she only had cold cucumber soup and should not have to pay $33.50 for it.
In the film The Firm (1993), Tom Cruise plays Mitch McDeere, a young lawyer at a Memphis law firm whose top client is a Chicago crime family.
Mitch discovers that the firm regularly overbills its clients. Sending the inflated bills by mail is mail fraud. He copies the billing records.
Every new car sold in the United States carries a window sticker, named after Senator Mike Monroney. The Automobile Information Disclosure Act, signed by President Eisenhower on July 7, 1958, requires it. The sticker lists the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, the price of each optional item, and the transport charge to the dealer.
Removing or altering the sticker before the car is delivered to the buyer became a federal crime. Monroney had called the dealer practices of the time “flimflam.”
On October 6, 2016, Uber announced upfront fares for its riders in New York City. “Enter your destination and get the actual trip fare before you request a ride.”
The rider sees the price and then decides. A taxi meter shows the price only at the end of the ride.
On May 21, 2008, American Airlines announced that passengers would pay $15 for their first checked bag, starting June 15. The airline gave high fuel prices as the reason.
Southwest Airlines held out longest. For years it advertised “Bags Fly Free” and let passengers check two bags at no charge. On March 11, 2025, it announced that passengers booking from May 28, 2025, would pay for checked luggage.
On February 20, 2013, Time published a cover story by Steven Brill, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us.” Brill read hospital bills line by line. One patient was charged $1.50 for a single 325-milligram Tylenol tablet. Brill noted that a hundred cost about $1.49 online. An alcohol pad was billed at $7.
The prices came from the hospital’s chargemaster, “a list – six-, seven-, 10,000 items long of everything the hospital provides.” Brill found that the uninsured were the only patients asked to pay those prices.
Since January 1, 2021, every American hospital must publish its standard charges for all items and services in a machine-readable file. It must also display at least 300 “shoppable services,” services a patient can schedule in advance.
Under the 2021 rule, a hospital that did not comply could be fined up to $300 a day. Since 2022, large hospitals can be fined up to $5,500 a day.
In the 1980s, reports of a $435 hammer, a $640 toilet seat and a $7,600 coffee pot bought by the military were widely publicized. They were used to show that the federal purchasing system was broken.
Senator Chuck Grassley returned to the example in a 2018 op-ed. He gave the price of the hammer as $436 and wrote about the Pentagon’s $14,000 3-D printed toilet seat lids.
Since April 30, 1984, a federal rule has required American funeral homes to hand out a General Price List. It must give “itemized prices for the various goods and services that you sell.” The list must be given when the family begins to discuss arrangements.
The FTC’s guidance states the purpose: “Consumers must be able to choose only the goods and services that they want,” with certain limited exceptions. A person who asks by phone must also get accurate prices.