Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Good afternoon everyone. Thank you to Councilmember Won, thank you to Assemblymember Valdez, to Senator Gonzalez, and Borough President Richards for being here today. And thank you to Deyanira Del Rio from the New Economy Project. Thank you also to our incredible Attorney general, Tish James, and our incoming speaker, Councilmember Julie Menin. It is a privilege to be here at Hunter's Point South Park Outdoor Gym, which certainly has to be in any conversation about the most picturesque gyms in New York City.
There are many in Long Island City for whom this gym is a refuge, a place where they can come to exercise, to free their minds, to blow off some stress. Because while there may be no weights here, those who exercise here are also free from the weight of junk fees that burden so much of the traditional gym experience. Now some of you may have seen me try to bench press, the key word being try. I have enough humility to know that I am not an expert in gym equipment or push versus pull workouts.
But I have heard from enough New Yorkers to know about the miserable experience of them joining a gym only to check their bank account and realize that they have been billed for fees or trapped into a subscription that they never knew they had signed up to pay. The proliferation of junk fees has exploded in recent years, and it is by no means limited solely to the gym industry.
We reckon with it when we try to buy concert tickets, when we book a flight, when we settle our credit card bill, or even when we pay rent. A $5 fee here, a $10 fee there, what seems small adds up quickly and the aggregate of all of these fees only buries New Yorkers deeper in a cost of living crisis that defines too many of our daily existences. These fees are not only making it harder for our neighbors to afford life in this city, they are also a sign of disdain and disrespect that corporations and bad landlords hold for working people.
When you scrimp and save for a Taylor Swift concert that you have been looking forward to all year, only for a massive corporation to add hundreds of dollars at the final moment, that is disrespect. When your landlord adds fees to your rent payment at the last moment, that is disrespect that leaves you uncomfortable in your own home. These fees are unfair to consumers. They do a disservice to other businesses as well that operate honestly without trying to deceive their customers. But here is the truth, we do not have to accept this broken system as permanent.
Under President Biden, the FTC took sweeping action to go after junk fees and they delivered change. Under Chair Leader Khan, they instituted a junk fees rule that they estimated would save Americans 53 million hours a year that they would otherwise spend searching for the true price that they would have to pay, or $11 billion in time savings over a decade. We are going to deliver similar action on behalf of the 8.5 million New Yorkers who call our city home.
Today I am proud to stand with so many leaders across our city and our state as we sign an executive order that will target those same junk fees and deceptive practices right here in our city. I am joined by Sam Levine, our commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, who served until last January as the director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protections. Put simply, there are few people in our entire country, if any, who have as much experience leading this work and achieving meaningful results as Sam does.
This executive order has three components. First, it will establish a citywide junk fee task force chaired by our deputy mayor for Economic Justice, Julie Su, and DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine to advance this work. Second, it directs Commissioner Levine to wield the power of the DCWP to crack down on hidden junk fees and deceptive business practices. And third, it empowers the DCWP to enforce compliance with city law. When businesses seek to circumvent and violate both existing and new junk fee rules, Sam will have my full backing to pursue enforcement actions.
We are also signing a second executive order to crack down on subscription tricks and traps. I am directing DCWP to monitor, investigate, and enforce violations related to these very tricks and traps. We will make recommendations to the City Council so that we can devise legislative solutions to these deceitful practices. And we will coordinate with our partners, including the Law Department and our very own Attorney General Tish James, to ensure coordination across government in this effort.
It is hard enough to live in New York City without having to worry all the time about whether you're being ripped off. Our affordability agenda is also about an agenda of dignity, and there are few things more undignified than feeling taken advantage of by someone you are already paying.
These are the first steps towards a future where New Yorkers know that they are getting what they're paying for, that companies are not draining their budgets with impunity, and where city government takes meaningful, tangible actions that materially improve the lives of New Yorkers across the city. Thank you very much. And now, our attorney general, Tish James.
New York Attorney General Letitia James: I want to thank the mayor, Mayor Mamdani, and of course, Speaker Menin, and my colleagues in government from the City Council, Commissioner Levine, and the advocates for their partnership and their leadership in the effort to lower costs for working families. The executive orders that the mayor released today perfectly show his deep commitment to addressing affordability in the City of New York and ensuring that the City of New York is a place where all of us can afford.
And today's executive orders tackle subscription traps, and those are the recurring subscriptions that you see each and every day that are difficult to cancel. As most of you know, we've taken action against a number of companies, Uber in particular for subscription costs that were hidden, as well as Equinox. Individuals had a difficult time canceling their gym membership, and we secured over $600,000 for individuals in the City of New York who were complaining that it was difficult for them to cancel their gym membership, and they continued over and over and over again getting these subscription memberships.
We've seen them all before, these hidden costs, oftentimes they're referred to as service fees, as add-on fees, as processing fees. At the end of the day, the bottom line is that they were all hidden fees, and it was difficult for individuals to cancel these fees, but not any more. Like my colleagues here today, I've spent my entire public career focusing on addressing the felt needs of New Yorkers, making sure that New Yorkers can afford to live here in the City of New York, from rising rents to, obviously, these ridiculous fees. And just last month, as I mentioned, my office took Uber to task for locking New Yorkers into these very, very expensive subscriptions that were impossible to cancel.
In addition to that, as I've just mentioned, we secured $600,000 from Equinox for making it difficult to cancel gym membership. We also held Nissan dealers throughout the state accountable for charging junk fees that drove up the cost of cars, returning millions of dollars to consumers, including a lot of those teachers that are staring out the window. Companies should not be able to profit by tricking consumers into recurring charges that require hours of time to basically prevent them from happening. And so we sued.
You know, it's important that individuals understand, if we heard from consumers all throughout the city and all throughout the state, that it basically took hours for them to basically cancel these subscriptions. And that's hours away from families, hours away from children, hours off of work. And in some cases, they had to deal with these customer service lines, and oftentimes it was AI, but in some cases, there was not even a customer service that they could even speak to, which is why they called our 1-800 office.
It's this concern for the lived experience of New Yorkers that is the trademark of this mayoral administration, and it's that same concern that guides me each and every day. And that's why it's great to stand here today as the whole of government, as we respond to the needs of New Yorkers. I also want to thank Governor Hochul. I want to thank my colleagues in Albany, because we just recently passed the Fair Business Practices Act. It just became state law.
Our UDAP laws, our consumer laws here in the state of New York, have not been updated for over 30 years. And so we were having a difficult time in getting judgments against companies for not just deceptive business practices, but unfair and abusive business practices. You know, these scammers and these fraudsters who think that they can basically nickel and dime New Yorkers, and they were doing that, and particularly preying upon vulnerable and senior citizens. But not anymore.
With these state-level protections in place, with this mayor in City Hall, with [incoming] Speaker Menin, with the members of the City Council, which are predominantly women, I might add, we're deploying a multilevel government defense in response to the needs of working families here in the city and across the state. And as the federal government, as all of you know, steps back from protecting New Yorkers, we are stepping up. We're filling the gap.
And I want to thank my colleagues who have been by my side for the opportunity to join them as we draw a line in the sand against basically corporate greed and those individuals who put profit ahead of people. Together we will build a New York that's as affordable and that will provide opportunities to New York. Again, I want to thank the mayor of the City of New York, and I believe, Mr. Mayor, you've allowed me to pass the mic over to [incoming] Speaker Julie Menin. Thank you.
Councilmember Julie Menin: Well, thank you so much. I first of all want to thank the mayor for inviting me here today. I want to thank our great New York attorney general, who's done incredible work on consumer protection, all the elected officials who are here, particularly my Council colleague, Julie Won. We call ourselves the Julie Caucus in the City Council. But I do really want to thank the mayor because this is a very important day focused on consumer protection.
I previously served as commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. I was a commissioner when we morphed the agency into Consumer and Worker Protection. I am so excited to work with you, Commissioner Levine. I know you're going to do a tremendous job and bring a lot of the expertise around the FTC here to New York City. But the junk fees, what we're here [for] and what the mayor is announcing today, is so important because junk fees affect so many New Yorkers.
You have to go through pages and pages of little type that you can't read for seniors, for those that have issues around language access. It becomes a real barrier. And I have to say, Mr. Mayor, when you were speaking about junk fees and magazine subscriptions, I thought about [when] I subscribed to a magazine not that long ago and then I tried to unsubscribe and I actually had to have my son help me figure out how to do it because it was that difficult.
What you're doing today really makes a difference for so many New Yorkers. And what I'm most excited about is the partnership between the City Council and the new administration around consumer and worker protection. We jointly are going to have some of the most aggressive consumer and worker protections in the country.
Recently, I had a conversation with the mayor about a bill that I'd introduced six months ago into the Council to prohibit dynamic pricing in food establishments. This is a type of work collectively in partnership that we are going to be able to do to be able to protect New Yorkers. So thank you so much for having me here today and really look forward to continuing to work on these very important issues.
Commissioner Samuel Levine, Department of Consumer and Worker Protection: Good afternoon. Thanks to the leadership of Mayor Mamdani, today we are shutting the door on the era of hidden junk fees and illegal subscription traps in the City of New York. The two executive orders the mayor just announced take decisive action to save New Yorkers time and money, help honest businesses thrive, and deliver on the promise of a more affordable city. For years, some of the largest corporations in the world have padded their profits by hiding fees and trapping people in subscriptions they do not want.
Whether it's Amazon engineering an Iliad Flow to trap its customers, Uber and Grubhub hitting New Yorkers with hidden fees, or Ticketmaster sneaking charges onto tickets that fans are already paying too much for, ripping off the people of the city has become a business model for far too many companies.
Starting today, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and the Citywide Junk Fee Task Force will bring a whole-of-government approach to stopping these abuses, putting money back in people's pockets, and leveling the playing field for honest businesses.
Let me be clear, Mayor Mamdani has charged us with using all of our tools to crack down on these abuses and we will. But to all the businesses that continue to rip off New Yorkers with these practices, stop now. It is already illegal to hide fees and trap people in subscriptions.
We will not hesitate to bring enforcement actions under our existing authority. Don't wait for a subpoena, do right by your customers today. And for those not tuning in today, don't worry. In the days and weeks ahead, we will be putting businesses across the city on notice.
Follow the law or face significant consequences. And to the people of this city, if you are being trapped in subscriptions or fleeced by junk fees, tell DCWP. We want New Yorkers to be partners in our effort to make the city more affordable. I am deeply grateful to incoming Speaker Menin, a long-time champion for consumers and former leader of this department, for backing this effort.
And I'm proud to stand alongside Attorney General James, the best AG in the country, for being a national leader in fighting for consumers. I look forward to working with the Council and with the Attorney General to deliver on this bold agenda. Thank you for the opportunity to be here, and it's now my honor to introduce another fierce champion for consumers, Deannira Del Rio of the New Economy Project.
Deyanira Del Rio, Executive Director, New Economy Project: Thank you so much. Thank you to Mayor Mamdani and Attorney General Tish James, to Commissioner Levine, and welcome to New York, and incoming Speaker Julie Menin for taking strong action today with these executive orders to crack down on predatory subscription fees and other junk fees that are draining New Yorkers' paychecks, their public benefits, and really extracting tens of millions of dollars in wealth from low-income and immigrant and Black and brown communities across our city every single year.
These problems are not only making life, day-to-day life, harder for New Yorkers, but they're serving to fuel the affordability crisis and widening racial and economic inequality. At New Economy Project, we've worked for 30 years with community groups and low-income New Yorkers across our city to fight back against financial extraction, predatory fees, and all sorts of other abuses that really are pervasive across our economy, from our banking system to our grocery shopping and beyond, that unfortunately the New Yorkers who have the least are too often paying more, including often for inferior or predatory services.
We are thrilled to work with this new task force, with everyone here today to take this on, particularly in the context of the Trump administration's continued dismantling of critical regulations and agencies. We need New York City and New York State to work together like never before to protect New Yorkers from this kind of unleashed exploitation, and we're looking forward to doing exactly that in the coming years. So thank you.
[Signs Executive Order.]
Question: Can the commissioner say more about what exactly these authorities do to expand DCWP's authority? Is it more than symbolic? Are there real, like, legal authorities that you're relying on here? I have an off-topic question as well.
Mayor Mamdani: This is– and my commissioner is also here with me, this is a clear directive to DCWP to exhaust all of the existing authority that it has in ensuring full compliance with the law as it is, as well as a robust investigation into the practices that are taking place across the city and potential legislative fixes to those practices. And that's also part of why I'm so appreciative of the partnership in [incoming] Speaker Menin and the fact that her background stems in this very kind of work.
Because ensuring, as she said, that this city has the strongest consumer and worker protections in the country is not something that can be done alone. It is something that can be achieved when an administration and a Council are working hand-in-hand, and when we have a commissioner whose knowledge, fluency, and experience on the topic is unparalleled. I don't know, commissioner, if you want to add anything else.
Commissioner Levine: Sure. You know, what I would add is I have heard a lot of companies and their fancy lawyers argue that junk fees are not deceptive. So I want to be clear, and the executive order made clear as commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, it is deceptive to hide fees. It is deceptive to trap people in subscriptions.
The mayor has directed us to use all of our tools to enforce the law to make the city more affordable, and that's exactly what we're going to do. So, again, my message would be companies might not think it's deceptive, but they should actually examine our authority. If they don't, we're going to be making it very clear to them that the era of ripping off New Yorkers is over.
Question: So I wonder if you could give us an example of what kinds of fees you're talking about. Because I know, for example, if I order food from, say, Grubhub or DoorDash, it has a whole bunch of things that say fees, but you really never know what they are. And if you order tickets from Ticketron or any of these other subhubs, they say fees, but you really don't know what they are. So are those junk fees?
Mayor Mamdani: I think you're listing them out right there.
Question: Are they junk fees? And how do you tell the businesses that they can no longer do that? And as a second part of the question, are there any estimates of, like, how much each individual New Yorker is hurt by these junk fees, both individually and as citizens of 8.5 million people in New York?
Mayor Mamdani: Well, I think first I want to make clear that we are so lucky here in this city to have an attorney general like Tish James who provides us in her work an example of the very kinds of fees that have been charged under the guise of legality when, in fact, they are blatant attempts to rip New Yorkers off. I mean, the attorney general went through fees when it comes to ride-sharing agencies, fees when it comes to car dealerships, fees when it comes to gyms.
And this is what we're seeing is throughout New Yorkers' day-to-day lives, they are, like you said, engaging with fees that are often not delineated, and they are being asked to trust that these are, in fact, legal. And so what this will do is illuminate what of these fees are legal and what of them are being grouped together under the guise of those that are actually outside the bounds of the law. Because as you've said, we know that the practice of buying concert tickets, for example, is one that is a fraught experience for many New Yorkers.
You time your day around the moment those tickets are released. You wait and wait and wait, hoping to get through to the portal. And then if you are lucky enough to get through that portal with any tickets being left to purchase, you often cannot blink when you see fees being added at the last moment, because you know if you were to, you would lose your place in line. And so that is a company taking advantage of the excitement of New Yorkers to see their favorite artists, to see their favorite teams.
And now what we are going to do is make clear both to those New Yorkers that they have protection coming through DCWP, but also to those companies that they need not wait for the subpoena. They need not wait for a piece of mail that informs them. They can just turn on CBS Channel 2 or any of the channels that are here and hear about the fact that this directive is now going to be the law here in New York City.
Question: Hi, yes, I have an on topic and off topic. But my on topic is, you know, with these fees, it's like whack-a-mole, you know. They could add it to the administration fee. They could say you need, if you pay with your card, we need to charge you $2 extra. Some people don't even know that their bank accounts are being charged that extra fee. I mean, how do you go after that part? Because I think that's where New Yorkers are being charged and are unaware.
Mayor Mamdani: You know, I think a lot of this comes down to a sense of impunity, frankly. If you allow companies to violate the law on a regular basis, the lesson that they will learn is that they can continue to do so at an ever-increasing scale. And the importance of taking action today, learning from the example that we've seen at a federal level, at a statewide level, is to finally have New Yorkers be able to trust that they are paying for exactly what it is that they are receiving and that they are not being trapped into fees.
I mean, how many New Yorkers find out only when looking at their bank statement that they're still paying for a subscription that they thought they had canceled years ago? And I think, like the speaker said, it's not just about money. It's also about time. You know, when the FTC took this action, one of the ways they measured it is in time being saved.
I cannot tell you the time that I have spent trying to figure out what I'm signed up for and how to get out of it. And that is something that New Yorkers just don't have the time for, so they eventually say, “Whatever, I'll pay this $3, I'll pay this $4, I'll pay this $20.” That's not a way that we actually have to live any longer. And I'm so glad to have someone with the national experience here in New York City, in our commissioner, to take this on.
Question: You don't have a deputy mayor for Economic Development. I was wondering if you could explain your thinking on that, and how do you balance regulating bad actors in the business community while encouraging the good employers to invest and grow in the city? Who is their point person in their administration if they have questions?
Mayor Mamdani: Their point person will continue to be our deputy mayor for Economic Justice, Julie Su. We as an administration are focused on not only generating prosperity and continue to do so here in our city, but also in ensuring that that prosperity reaches the lives of each and every New Yorker who calls this city home. And I am excited by this action, not just for what it does to protect consumers and workers, but also, frankly, businesses that are law-abiding.
We see so many businesses who are following the regulations as they are, and then they look at someone across the street who's violating them, and then they ask themselves, what am I doing? Why am I the chump at the end of the day? And what this does is actually show that that is the correct way to approach business in New York City.
That is the kind of business that deserves our support. This is the business that has to get into compliance. This is not about punishment. It's about compliance. We want people to follow the law as it is so that New Yorkers can thrive in this city.
Question: We have heard you say that there's been a restructuring. We see it in the executive order that you issued. And you've also said that the police commissioner's role won't change under that. But it's getting a lot of attention. Some people still believe that you're demoting your police commissioner. I just want to know, can you tell us a little bit more about the thinking behind the actual reorganization, and specifically to whom will your police commissioner report to?
Mayor Mamdani: My police commissioner will continue to report directly to me. My police commissioner, just like my school's chancellor, will report directly to me. The executive order is in terms of the question of coordination. This reporting continues to be directly to the mayor.
Question: So it's more of like day-to-day management, dealing with all the–
Mayor Mamdani: Exactly. This is about the daily minutia of coordination, not about the question of reporting.
Question: My question is about the executive orders. What does the enforcement action look like for these businesses, and what specific industries are you planning to target first?
Commissioner Levine: Well, thank you. One of the things that the mayor made clear in the executive order is that these are industry neutral. There is no industry that is above the law. There is no industry in which it is legal to trap people in subscriptions or hit them with junk fees. Should we fine companies that are engaging in these practices? We're going to take them to court. We're going to make sure that they pay back consumers who got harmed.
We're going to make sure they pay a penalty to the city for breaking the law. And we're going to make sure that they're not allowed to continue ripping off New Yorkers. So we're going to be looking across the marketplace to make sure people aren't getting ripped off, and we're prepared to use all of our tools to make that a reality.
Question: The thing about dynamic pricing, I'm wondering has there been any update there? It seems sort of related to this. And now that you're no longer a candidate for the mayor, is there anything that this group can do in terms of enforcing dynamic pricing?
Mayor Mamdani: I am thankful that we have an incoming speaker who, as she said, had introduced legislation not even less than a year ago that spoke to dynamic pricing specifically within the question of groceries. And I continue to voice my opposition to the use of dynamic pricing here for the soon-to-come World Cup and the necessity of it being a more affordable experience for all. And I look forward to the conversations, ones that have already begun, both internally and externally, in making that case.
Because what we are seeing, you know, I had a New Yorker the other day, come up to me and ask me if there was any way I could help him get World Cup tickets, because he was saying that the cost that he saw for a game was $600. This is increasingly out of reach. We have made what used to be a working-class game into a luxury experience.
And there are too many for whom it doesn't matter where the World Cup is being played in the world, they know where they're going to watch it. It's TV. And we want to ensure that there are more experiences available to each and every New Yorker.
Question: I know you were asked about this over the weekend, but I'm wondering if there's been any updates at all in terms of the transportation of Maduro from Brooklyn to Manhattan, the ride by helicopter report today. Have you gotten any information about whether or not that's going to change? Did they continue or are they going to shut down the bridge as they did with El Chapo?
Mayor Mamdani: So I continue to stay in constant communication with my police commissioner and the NYPD. And my job as the mayor of New York City is to ensure that any federal action has a limited impact on the day-to-day lives of New Yorkers, and that's what we're going to continue to deliver on.
Question: I was wondering if you could give us any updates on your security clearance. And on the timeline, do you sense anything is, like, amiss or unusual, or does it seem like this is the standard course of business? And since you don't have it yet, can you walk us in a little more detail about how you're getting information and what kinds of information?
Mayor Mamdani: Absolutely. Everything is going according to a typical timeline. I'm in the process of applying for that clearance, and I'm also thankful that there are senior members of my team that already have that clearance thanks to past positions that they've held. And so as a result of that, New Yorkers have nothing to fear about my ability to both represent our city and also to deliver for it.
Question: [Inaudible] like the police commissioner and some other people?
Mayor Mamdani: And my chief counsel.
[Crosstalk.]
Mayor Mamdani: We do have another item, which is, as New Yorkers know, junk fees, you don't always know where they are. They surprise you at the last moment. And so I would invite members of the press to look underneath their chairs and to find a very example of a junk fee just like that.
[Crosstalk.]
Question: I wanted to know, are you speaking to the Venezuelan community at all? As part of one of your transition committees was the Immigration Justice Transition Committee. I'm hearing that the Venezuelan community is trying to reach out to you. Have you made any attempts to reach out to them? And what type of assurances are you giving them or, you know, feeling that you're giving them since you don't have security clearance in there?
Mayor Mamdani: I have made clear from the first time that I spoke about this that the priority that I have is the safety and well-being of Venezuelan New Yorkers of whom there are tens of thousands who call our city home, as well as New Yorkers as a whole. And we have in our conversations internally also made it clear that this is a time when many are looking for additional guidance, for additional recommendations, and additional ways to contact city government. And that's going to be a priority for the team that we've already put together and the one that we're putting together now. Thank you, guys.
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