FairTab

Screenshot your checkout page before you pay. FairTab tells you if the total price just broke federal or NYC junk-fee law, then drafts the complaint for you.

Problem

Since May 12, 2025, the FTC has required every live-event ticket and short-term rental listing in the US to show the real total price up front, mandatory fees included. NYC added its own version on October 2, 2026, covering delivery apps, hotels, and ticketing platforms too, with a $525 fine per violation. Both rules are already in force. Enforcement runs on consumer complaints, though, and almost nobody checking out of a ticketing site or a hotel booking at 11pm knows the rule exists, let alone how to prove a company broke it.

Target user

A shopper booking a concert ticket, hotel room, or food delivery order who has been burned by a "service fee" or "resort fee" that only showed up on the last screen. They don't want a lecture on consumer law. They want to know, in the ten seconds before they hit "Pay," whether the price in front of them is legal, and if it isn't, a complaint they can file without learning the rule themselves first.

MVP scope

• Upload or screenshot the checkout screen right before payment; OCR extracts the advertised price and every line-item fee actually charged
• Rule engine checks the gap against the FTC Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees (tickets, short-term lodging, nationwide) and NYC's junk-fees rule (delivery, hotels, ticketing, NYC only)
• Tags which rule applies based on business type and the user's location, and flags a likely violation when the headline price omitted a mandatory fee
• One tap generates a pre-filled complaint: FTC's ReportFraud.ftc.gov fields for nationwide cases, NYC 311/DCWP fields for NYC cases
• Stores the timestamped screenshot and fee breakdown as evidence, exportable for a card-issuer chargeback dispute
• Running log of fees flagged, complaints filed, and any refunds or credits that came back

Monetization

Freemium. Free tier: 3 fee-checks a month. $4.99/month for unlimited checks, a saved evidence vault, and an auto-drafted card-issuer dispute letter when a fee wasn't disclosed.

Why now

The FTC's junk-fees rule for tickets and lodging has been live for nearly a year and a half with real enforcement teeth. NYC just added a second, broader rule on October 2, 2026 that covers delivery apps too, and city estimates put the average family's loss at $3,200 a year to undisclosed fees. Two live rulebooks, and no consumer tool that checks a real checkout screen against either one.

Risks & open questions

• Will someone actually stop at the payment screen to screenshot a fee instead of just grumbling and paying it? The annoyance has to beat the friction.
• OCR on checkout UIs varies wildly across ticketing sites, short-term rental platforms, delivery apps, and every hotel booking engine. A parser that holds up across all of them is a real solo-engineering lift.
• The rule set will keep growing as more cities pass their own junk-fee ordinances, and the app has to track that without going stale.
• A filed complaint doesn't guarantee a refund. FTC and NYC DCWP enforcement is complaint-driven and slow, so the pitch is documentation and leverage, not money back.
• Needs a clear line between flagging a likely violation and giving legal advice. The complaint drafts have to stay factual, not advisory.

Next step

Promote to weekly prototype: build the OCR-to-rule-engine pipeline against the FTC and NYC DCWP rule text, tested against five real checkout screenshots.

Sources

• https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-click-to-cancel-subscription-rule-how-work/6553926/ — NYC junk-fees rule effective October 2, 2026, $525-per-violation penalty, $3,200/year family loss estimate
• https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/05/ftc-rule-unfair-or-deceptive-fees-take-effect-may-12-2025 — federal junk-fees rule effective May 12, 2025, covering live-event tickets and short-term lodging nationwide