
Tell Peloton: Manufacturers shouldn’t charge fees on secondhand sales
Recommendations for Colorado policymakers in 2025.
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In some ways, it has never been easier to be a consumer. A global marketplace is just a click away, and millions of products and services can be delivered straight to our homes. But today’s marketplace is also full of hidden dangers that threaten our financial security and unfair practices that undermine our freedoms.
In 2025, state and federal elected officials have an opportunity to protect consumers in the marketplace by increasing price transparency, stopping predatory lending products and unfair business practices, and defending Colorado’s nation-leading Right to Repair laws.
They go by many names – “service” fee, “environmental” fee, “resort” fee, “administrative” fee, “processing” fee and the frustratingly named “convenience” fee.
And we’re seeing more and more of them, often popping up after we’ve shopped around and are in the process of checking out.
If a fee is mandatory and you’ll pay it no matter what, that fee needs to be disclosed up front with the price of the product.
Colorado’s federal leaders should defend the Federal Trade Commission’s recent rule that stops surprise, hidden fees on concert/game tickets and hotels/short-term housing. Colorado’s state leaders should expand last year’s law that covers hidden fees on tickets to games, shows, and concerts.
Colorado voters overwhelmingly supported reining in predatory payday loans in 2018, ensuring that small loans of $500 or less can’t exceed a 36% APR. Colorado’s state leaders should ensure that any new products, like services that offer advancements on employee wages, don’t exceed the predatory lending caps in Colorado.
And Colorado state and federal leaders should support Attorney General Phil Weiser’s effort to protect Colorado from rent-a-bank companies suing to overturn a state law that stops out-of-state lenders from skirting our lending laws.
Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription. But companies that offer subscriptions such as streaming services, gym memberships, newspapers and beauty products should allow consumers to cancel a subscription just as easily as they signed up.
Many companies also fail to disclose introductory prices, cancellation fees or other terms and conditions. All of this would be prohibited under click-to-cancel.
Colorado federal leaders should defend the Federal Trade Commission’s “click-to-cancel” rule. State leaders should consider enshrining the rules into state law.
Colorado consumers and businesses currently have the broadest repair rights of any state in the country.
The state enshrined the Right to Repair for powered wheelchairs in 2022, agricultural equipment in 2023 and most consumer and business electronics in 2024.
Right to Repair for electronics is important because it ensures the owner of a product, whether it’s a blender, tractor, wheelchair, appliance, cell phone, laptop, or IT equipment, has a choice in how repairs are made and the freedom to repair it themselves or take it to someone they trust from a local repair shop to the original manufacturer – this saves us time and money while also reducing the amount of waste that we produce.
Colorado leaders should resist any efforts to weaken Colorado’s repair options and ensure the companies are following the law.
Companies collect huge amounts of data about us, often without us knowing. These practices put us in harm’s way for no good reason.
Companies shouldn’t collect more data about us than they need to deliver the services we’re expecting to get.
Colorado’s federal leaders should support a recent proposed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule that requires data brokers selling sensitive information about consumers to follow the guidelines including limiting the use of information for permissible purposes only, such as when making a lending decision.
State leaders should continue their work to enhance Colorado’s Privacy Act including strengthening data minimization provisions and protecting kid’s information collected by teaching programs.
Danny has been the director of CoPIRG for over a decade. Danny co-authored a groundbreaking report on the state’s transit, walking and biking needs and is a co-author of the annual “State of Recycling” report. He also helped write a 2016 Denver initiative to create a public matching campaign finance program and led the early effort to eliminate predatory payday loans in Colorado. Danny serves on the Colorado Department of Transportation's (CDOT) Efficiency and Accountability Committee, CDOT's Transit and Rail Advisory Committee, RTD's Reimagine Advisory Committee, the Denver Moves Everyone Think Tank, and the I-70 Collaborative Effort. Danny lobbies federal, state and local elected officials on transportation electrification, multimodal transportation, zero waste, consumer protection and public health issues. He appears frequently in local media outlets and is active in a number of coalitions. He resides in Denver with his family, where he enjoys biking and skiing, the neighborhood food scene and raising chickens.