Yet plenty of galleries, trading floors and factories have managed perfectly well concealing these features, and hence saved themselves large maintenance bills for services bared to the elements.
For others, the constant changes in policy guidelines — annual shifts in what's covered and what's not, monthly shifts in which doctors are in and out of network — can produce surprise bills for services they assumed would be covered.
Often arbitration clauses are invoked in cases where consumers feel they have been financially slighted seeing charges on their phone bills for services they never wanted, for instance but the Times investigation found arbitrations used in more serious cases of medical malpractice, theft, hate crimes, and discrimination.
The nationwide scheme was sophisticated, officials said, but the idea was simple: Callers responding to advertisements for free samples of services like psychic phone lines, telephone dating services and adult chat lines were unknowingly charged up to $40 a month on their phone bills for services they never requested and never used.
The former boss of Sainsbury's has waded into the row over the tax paid by multinationals such as Amazon and eBay, saying it was unfair that that traditional retailers must pay huge rates bills for services such as roads and waste collection, while their online rivals paid little but received the same benefits.
For at least four years content providers have been sneaking charges onto AT&T bills for services like ringtones, jokes and horoscopes.
