Shake it off: how Taylor Swift helped end hidden storage fees in Connecticut

In November 2022, Taylor Swift fans across the US tried to buy tickets for the Eras Tour. The presale went so badly that it ended up in front of the US Senate. For plenty of fans, the queues and crashes were only half of it. Once they finally got through, they watched the price climb at checkout as service fees and other charges were added on.

That frustration didn’t stay with ticketing. In Connecticut, it helped start a chain of events that ended with a law covering almost everything people buy or rent, self-storage included. Senate Bill 3, signed by Governor Ned Lamont in June 2025, requires businesses to show the full price from the start. Its fee rules came into force on 1 July 2026.

New York City’s new storage rules, which we looked at recently, focus on what happens to your price after you move in. Connecticut deals with the step before that: whether the price you were shown in the first place was real.

Why did Connecticut pass Senate Bill 3?

Senate Bill 3 is a big package. As well as hidden fees, it covers price gouging during emergencies, yearly reminders for auto-renewing subscriptions, smart devices that can record you at home, and the right to repair your own electronics and appliances. Senate Democrats made it one of their top priorities for 2025, and it passed the state Senate by 25 votes to 10.

What ties it together is a sense that everyday buying had become harder work than it should be. Senator James Maroney, who steered the bill through, said it was about protecting families from predatory practices, including surprise junk fees inflating their bills.

He also told a story most people will recognise. While comparing hotel booking sites, he chose one because it looked cheaper. Once the fees were added, he ended up paying more than he would have on the site that showed the full price from the start.

From the Eras Tour to Senate Bill 3

Connecticut didn’t arrive at this law out of nowhere. Years of anger about ticket fees laid the groundwork.

After the chaos around Taylor Swift ticket sales in late 2022, the state’s Attorney General opened an investigation into the live event ticketing industry. In 2023, the legislature’s General Law Committee voted for ticket sites to show fees right at the start of the buying process, before anything goes in your basket. The following year, Governor Lamont pushed for upfront pricing on event tickets, hotels and food delivery. His description of a junk fee was a cost they don’t tell you about until they slip it in at the very last moment.

Attorney General William Tong explained why these fees annoy people so much. They catch you at the point where you most want something, ready to pay whatever it takes and least likely to shop around.

Ticket sellers like Ticketmaster became the public face of the problem, and that made the case easy to understand. Almost everyone has watched a ticket price climb at checkout. Senate Bill 3 took that shared frustration and widened it, so Connecticut now has one rule for almost everything a business sells or rents to consumers.

What the law means for storage prices

The rule itself is simple. A business can’t advertise, display or offer a price that leaves out fees you’ll be required to pay. For storage, the price on the website, the roadside sign, the search ad or the phone quote has to include any compulsory extras.

That hits a familiar pattern in storage. A unit is advertised at a low monthly rate. Then, at the desk or the final booking step, an admin fee appears. Perhaps a lock you have to buy, or a protection plan you can’t turn down. The headline price was never the real price.

Storage also has its own version of the ticket checkout moment. By the time the full price appears, you may have booked a van, packed the car and taken a day off work. Walking away at that point is hard, so most people pay up.

Under Senate Bill 3, a compulsory fee belongs in the advertised price. Leaving it out, or making it deliberately unclear, counts as an unfair trade practice under Connecticut law. There are a few exceptions:

• Taxes can still be added at checkout.

• Charges that depend on what you choose, or can’t be worked out when the price is first shown, can be added later. You still have to be told they exist upfront and given the exact amount before you pay.

• Optional extras can stay optional.

One thing the law doesn’t do is limit price rises after you move in. A separate 2025 bill would have capped storage rent increases at 10% a year, but it never made it out of committee. Connecticut has focused on the price you see at the start, while New York City has gone further on what happens afterwards.

What this means in the UK

This one is closer to home than the California and New York rules. The UK has already banned “drip pricing”, which means showing a low headline price and adding compulsory fees as you go through checkout. The ban came in on 6 April 2025 under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. Admin fees, booking fees and other unavoidable charges now have to be included in the headline price.

The Competition and Markets Authority opened its first cases under the new rules in November 2025. Two of the businesses it looked at were the ticket resale sites StubHub and viagogo, so ticketing is at the centre of the story here too.

So the direction is already set. Connecticut, the UK and a growing list of US states have all landed on the same principle: the first price you see should be the price you pay. The question for storage customers is which companies were already working that way before the law told them to.

What to check when you’re comparing storage

Laws set the minimum. When you’re comparing storage options, it’s still worth asking a few questions before you book:

• Is the advertised price the full monthly price, or are there admin or setup fees on top?

• Do you have to buy or rent a lock from the facility?

• Is a protection plan or insurance compulsory, and is it included in the price you were shown?

• Do you have to pay a deposit?

• Is the advertised rate an introductory offer, and what happens when it ends?

• Can you get to your things whenever you need them, including late at night?

• Can you sign up and cancel online, without paperwork or phone calls?

If you only find out the real cost on moving day, that tells you a lot about how the rest of the relationship will go.

Where Pocket fits in

The frustration behind Connecticut’s law, and behind every fan who watched a ticket price climb at checkout, is the feeling of being caught out. We built Pocket so that feeling never comes up.

Inside Pocket Storage Bermondsey

When you browse our units, you can see what you’ll pay. The only addition is insurance for your belongings. That follows Self Storage Association UK guidance, which advises operators to make sure every customer’s things are insured. There are no admin fees, no setup fees, no deposit and no gimmicky offers. And under the Pocket promise, our rates stay stable, with no sudden or unexpected price jumps once you’ve moved in.

Plenty of storage operators charge for things you’d assume were included, like a lock or a visit outside office hours. At Pocket those charges simply don’t exist. Entry is keyless, so there’s no lock to buy, and our sites are open 24/7 with no extra charge for coming in late.

Signing up takes a few minutes online with a photo ID and your phone camera, and you can move in the same day. You can share access with family, friends or staff, cancel online when your plans change, and call our support team any time of day or night.

We’d like people to choose Pocket because it’s easy, and stay because it stays easy. Nobody should need to read the small print twice to work out what storage costs.

Pocket vs. traditional storage

Connecticut’s law gives customers a simple test: does the first price include everything? Here’s how Pocket compares with the traditional model.