(Ottawa) Cineplex practices harmful “drip pricing” with its online reservation fees, and moviegoers have no way to avoid them, Canada’s competition commissioner has argued.
A lawyer representing the commissioner made the position Wednesday as the Competition Tribunal hears arguments in the case against the cinema giant.
Cineplex maintains that customers can purchase their tickets in person at the cinema, but the commissioner says that is not a real alternative because they are two separate services.
“Does the fact that the customer can abandon their purchase, go to the cinema and buy a ticket mean that the fee is not mandatory? The answer is no,” said attorney Jonathan Hood.
He argued that customers have no choice but to pay the fees to complete the purchase.
Drip pricing, also known as junk fees, is a deceptive practice in which customers are lured into a purchase without full disclosure of the final cost.
Cineplex charges an additional fee of $1.50 to the price of each ticket purchased online, but Scène+ members receive a discount and CinéClub members are waived the fee.
The company has made almost 40 million from online booking fees since it implemented them in June 2022.
The same month, the Competition law explicitly recognized the indication of partial prices as a harmful commercial practice.
The Competition Bureau says additional fixed charges or fees are a false or misleading practice under the law unless they are imposed by government, such as sales tax.
For its part, Cineplex maintains that the case is without merit. It mentions that the fees are not misleading, that the information regarding the fees is clearly stated on its website, and that the fees are optional.
The competition commissioner says the prices are misleading because moviegoers don’t see the full price of a movie ticket on the very first page they look at when buying tickets.
Rather, prices are disclosed “below the fold” or off-screen for the vast majority of moviegoers, thereby misleading people about the final price they will pay.
“Consumers are gullible. They are prepared to believe the first indications of ticket prices that they see on the screen,” argued Mr. Hood.
“The consumer is inexperienced in detecting lies or the subtleties of commercial indications,” he added.
According to the lawyer, consumers “will not pay particular attention to the subtotal to see if it corresponds to the price of the tickets.” He said customers also won’t scroll the website “because Cineplex doesn’t give them any reason to.”
Cineplex attorney Robert Russell responded to these points Wednesday afternoon, saying scrolling should not be an issue in this case because it is an integral part of using a computer or smartphone.
“We are going to talk about it in the business world as the “scrolling” affair, by the way it is presented to this court,” he said. You can’t use an app on your phone without scrolling through it. You can’t read your email without it,” Mr. Russell remarked. “It’s ridiculous that this is a factor in this case.” »
Me Russell also argued that the prices displayed on the website are “accessible” to consumers.
Cineplex displays two total prices on its website, one for in-person purchase and one for online tickets, he said.
Me Russell pointed out that almost half of consumers choose to buy their tickets inside the cinema.