Are hidden fees illegal in California?
Since July 2024, California's "Honest Pricing Law" (Civil Code §1770(a)(29)) makes it a CLRA violation to advertise or display a price that does not include all mandatory fees and charges other than government taxes and shipping. Service fees, resort fees, convenience fees and "platform" fees revealed only at checkout are exactly what the law targets — for tickets, hotels, delivery apps, rentals, and anything else sold to consumers.
When is a "sale" price false advertising?
Business & Professions Code §17501 prohibits advertising a "former" or "regular" price unless it was the prevailing market price within the previous three months. A perpetual "50% off" from a list price that was never charged is false advertising, not a discount.
What must a company do before it auto-renews you?
California's Automatic Renewal Law (Bus. & Prof. Code §17600 et seq.) requires companies to present renewal terms clearly and conspicuously before you buy, get your affirmative consent, send an acknowledgment you can keep, remind you before a free trial converts to paid, and let you cancel online as easily as you signed up. When a company fails any of those steps, the goods and services delivered are treated as an unconditional gift — meaning charges may be recoverable.
- You were charged more than the advertised priceMandatory fees appeared only at the end of checkout.
- The "sale" wasn't a saleThe strike-through price was never the real price.
- A free trial or subscription kept charging youNo clear disclosure, no reminder, or no easy way to cancel.
- You were billed for something you never agreed toAdd-ons, memberships or "protection plans" slipped into the order.
What changed for subscriptions in 2025?
California rewrote its Automatic Renewal Law through AB 2863, effective July 1, 2025, and the new version is considerably stricter. A company must now obtain your consent to the automatic renewal terms separately from your consent to the purchase itself, and it may not collect your billing information before making the required disclosures. It must tell you plainly that the subscription will renew until you cancel, disclose the renewal period and price, and let you cancel through the same channel you used to sign up — without a retention gauntlet. Free trials that convert to paid are expressly covered.
This matters more than it might seem, because the federal rule people read about is not in force. The Federal Trade Commission's "click to cancel" rule was vacated by a federal appeals court in 2025 on procedural grounds and a replacement is still only at the proposal stage. For a California consumer, the state's Automatic Renewal Law — not the federal rule — is what actually protects you today.
What can you recover?
When a company fails to meet the Automatic Renewal Law's requirements, Business & Professions Code §17603 treats everything it delivered as an unconditional gift to you, which is the basis for recovering the charges. Hidden-fee and fake-discount claims run through the CLRA and the Unfair Competition Law, where a prevailing consumer can recover restitution, an injunction stopping the practice, and — under the CLRA — attorneys' fees. Because these charges are usually small per person and identical across thousands of customers, they are typically brought as class actions.
We are prepared to discuss your case and determine what legal action should be taken — whether it is an individual claim or a case on behalf of everyone affected. We offer free consultations and charge nothing upfront. Our office is in San Diego, and we routinely handle cases in all State and Federal Courts throughout California — wherever in the state you live or work.