{"id":2485,"date":"2008-05-28T12:42:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-28T12:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/2008\/05\/28\/buyers-big-frustration-hidden-fees\/"},"modified":"2023-06-26T08:19:50","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T12:19:50","slug":"buyers-big-frustration-hidden-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/buyers-big-frustration-hidden-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"Buyers&#8217; Big Frustration:  Hidden Fees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett is fighting to require businesses to include fuel charges in their advertised prices.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t miss updates on Procurement &amp; Supply Chain, Subscribe here!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe total price of a product or service is a key factor in any purchase, and is something that needs to be disclosed to consumers upfront,\u201d Mr. Corbett said. \u201cAny business intending to collect an added fee for fuel or energy must disclose those charges when they advertise their prices.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amen.<\/p>\n<p>Consumers and businesses base their purchase decisions on the price information at hand. Finding out later that you chose the wrong supplier, store, etc. because the one you chose charges hidden fees is an unfair situation to be in.<\/p>\n<p>One of my biggest frustrations in the early part of my purchasing career was dealing with those \u201cover-and-above charges\u201d that somehow never were mentioned in a response to an RFP, but seemed to show up in an invoice as if they were quite expected and common.<\/p>\n<p>I learned to minimize these occurrences through RFP language, negotiation questions, and contracts. In one crazy situation when I was buying aircraft component maintainence outsourcing services, there was an unbelievable amount of discussion between myself and a prospective supplier over the contractual definition of \u201csevere damage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Basically, if a component qualified as having \u201csevere damage,\u201d the supplier had the right to charge more than its contractually-agreed fixed cost for the repair to that component. Well, obviously, my company wanted the frequency of severe damage diagnosis to be rare. The supplier wanted it to be applicable on seemingly every occasion.<\/p>\n<p>We decided to do a pilot program with the supplier and that really exposed the differences in opinion on what severe damage was. We ended up actually choosing another supplier after it became clear that the first supplier had its eyes on frequent \u201cover and above charges.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The contractual relationship with the second supplier went great. Perfect quality, 100% on-time delivery, and never an over-and-above charge.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m glad that the government is coming to the aid of consumers to protect them from over-and-above charges.<\/p>\n<p>But for us B2B buyers\u2026we\u2019re on our own to a certain extent. We have to be smart about really capturing total cost when we get proposals from suppliers. A \u201cNo Fuel Surcharge\u201d clause in your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/articles\/rfp-templates.php\">RFP templates<\/a> and contract templates may not be a bad idea.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recommended Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"row-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/buyers-big-frustration-hidden-fees\/\" aria-label=\"\u201cBuyers\u2019 Big Frustration:  Hidden Fees\u201d (Edit)\">Buyers\u2019 Big Frustration: Hidden Fees<\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"row-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/purchasing-tidbits-for-the-holiday-weekend\/\" aria-label=\"\u201cPurchasing Tidbits For The Holiday Weekend\u201d (Edit)\">Purchasing Tidbits For The Holiday Weekend<\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"row-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-spsm-certification-cost-savings\/\" aria-label=\"\u201cThe SPSM Certification &amp; Cost Savings\u201d (Edit)\">The SPSM Certification &amp; Cost Savings<\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"row-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/managing-supplier-relationships\/\" aria-label=\"\u201cManaging Supplier Relationships\u201d (Edit)\">Managing Supplier Relationships<\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"row-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/returning-from-iasta-resource-2008\/\" aria-label=\"\u201cReturning From Iasta reSource 2008\u201d (Edit)\">Returning From Iasta reSource 2008<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the Pennsylvania Attorney General [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.13 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Buyers&#039; 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