The hidden fees that can drive up the cost of what you buy
CBSN
Like most Americans shopping for cars these days, Bret Bonnet is fairly resigned to paying a stiff price. So he was thrilled when he came across a 2022 Ford Expedition with a MSRP of $70,000 advertised on Cars.com for just $63,000. Until, that is, Bonnet spoke with the dealership and discovered the actual price would be far higher.
"They said, 'There's a 'market adjustment' fee of $5,000 on all our cars," said Bonnet, co-founder of a branded products distributor. The hidden fee made the 40-year-old Chicagoan so angry he scrapped the entire purchase.
It wasn't the price, Bonnet explained. "I get it… things cost more, and cars are in short supply these days." Rather, it was that, in his view, the dealership was trying to put one over on him. "You can put the actual price online — you don't have to artificially deflate the price and then say, 'By the way, there's a $5,000 fee,'" he said. "Now that they wasted my time and had the audacity to bait and switch, I'd never give them my business."
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.