Eight Infuriating Fees You Can Do Nothing About

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It seems as if we’re charged something every time we take a breath. That may be a bit of hyperbole, but there are certain fees that everyone hates. And the most infuriating thing about them: there’s nothing we can do about it.

For instance, there is the hated credit card interchange fee. Every time you purchase an item at a store, anything from a can of pop to a flat-screen TV, the credit card companies suck up 2 percent of that purchase’s price. That’s 2 percent of a sale that the retailer loses. How do retailers make up for this lost income? That’s right, they increase their prices, penalizing not the credit card companies but you, their customer.

And credit card interchange fees are just the beginning of the list of maddening fees.

There are also foreign transaction fees. Credit card companies charge these whenever their customers use their credit cards in foreign countries. They say they charge these fees as a way to fight fraud, but the fees also bring them extra revenue. It’s unclear exactly what the fees allow credit card companies to do.

If you don’t like paying extra fees, do everything you can to avoid online ticket site Ticketmaster. This giant company not only charges customers for the tickets to concerts and sporting events that they buy, it also tacks on big charges that it calls facility fees, convenience fees and order-processing fees. Ticketmaster will even charge you for printing out your tickets.

Uninsured drivers are another cause of big and infuriating fees. Today, about 25 percent of motorists lack the insurance that the law requires them to have. Insurance companies know this. So they charge their customers uninsured motorist fees to protect themselves in case drivers without insurance hit them. Yes, this means that you, even though you are following the law, are the one who is financially punished.

A new fee has made headlines recently, the baggage fee that airlines are increasingly charging. Yes, it used to be free for you to bring along bags when you hit the airport. Today, though, most airlines will charge you $25 for having the nerve to bring a bag with you on your trip. And if you have more than one bag? The price goes up, often incrementally. To make matters worse, many airlines charge you a baggage fee both when you fly to your destination and when you return back home. That $25 fee, then, becomes $50 if you actually want to return to your home once your vacation ends.

Currency conversion fees also can cause travelers some major headaches. Foreign exchange offices will charge you a fee to trade your dollars in for their currency. Don’t try avoiding this by using your credit card for purchases. If you’re in a foreign country, many major issuers of credit cards charge you a fee that’s generally about 3 percent more than what the foreign exchange office will levy against you. What’s worse is that you might not realize this until you return home and open your credit card statement.

It’s expensive enough to see a doctor or stay in a hospital. These costs keep rising, though, in part because of the huge amounts of malpractice insurance that doctors are forced to take out to stay in business. Doctors, even good ones, live in constant fear of being sued by their patients. They then charge you higher costs to make up for the insurance that they have to take out.

Finally, minimum balance fees can also drive you crazy. Many bank savings accounts or investment accounts require consumers to have a minimum balance in their accounts. Consumers who dip below this will be charged a fee. Here’s the kicker: If you’re already struggling financially, enough so that you can’t keep a minimum balance in your account, all those fees are only going to make your life tougher.