Consumer Reports wants to help protect you from “junk fees” that you might see on some of the bills that you pay.

“Unfortunately, two-thirds of consumers tell us they’ve experienced a hidden fee for a good or service in the last two years,” said Chuck Bell, programs director-advocacy for Consumer Reports. “These are fees you get hit with, particularly in the travel industry, say for airlines, travel, hotels, but also for utility payments, cable, telecom, internet, concert tickets. Unfortunately, lots of retailers and sellers chose to bury a hidden fee somewhere in the fine prints and expect consumers to pay for it.”

How can we spot hidden fees, and what can we do about them?

“The federal government is showing a lot more interest in the issue right now because it does undermine the ability for consumers to make competitive choices in the marketplace,” Bell said. “So, one of the key ideas we’re looking at is how do you ensure that there’s full upfront transparent pricing. So, any hidden fees that a consumer gets in a transaction should be disclosed at the time of sale. If it’s an unavoidable fee, it’s part of the price of the item.”

One example is concert tickets. Experts said consumers will often buy a ticket and end up paying more during checkout.

“So, we have a bipartisan bill now called The Ticket Act, which would give consumers the full transparent price as soon as they pick out their tickets online,” Bell said. “There is a bill that was offered up by the Biden administration, which targets four types of junk fees, and that bill is also pending in both houses, so we may see some action on that. One of the notable ones there would allow families to sit together on an airplane with no extra fee … and also ban early termination fees for telecom, contracts, hotel resort fees, and it also has a provision related to concert tickets.”

Consumer Reports said hidden fees can cost consumers thousands of dollars a year in unwanted fees.

“One of the encouraging things on the horizon is some of the regulatory agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are planning to take direct action to limit the fees that companies can charge.

“They’ve proposed a rule to drop credit-card late fees from an average of about $40 for late payments to less than $8. So that change alone would save consumers more than $9 billion. It’s expected to go through in November or December,” Bell said.

“Also, CFPB is looking to protect consumers from overdraft fees, which we get hit with to the tune of something like $15 billion a year.”

As a consumer, you should check your bills closely and ask questions about fees that you are being charged.

“The most expensive one is usually your cable bill, and we have estimated at Consumer Reports that consumers pay 24% of each cable bill in company-imposed fees. These are fees that are often listed, they make it sound like they’re required by government, but they’re actually additional fees the cable companies decided to charge, and that adds up to about $28 billion per year,” Bell said.

Find more information at Consumerreports.org.