In April 2026 the Competition and Markets Authority fined AA-owned driving schools £4.2 million and ordered refunds of more than £760,000. The reason? A £3 booking fee that only showed up at checkout. A month earlier, the CMA opened five investigations into fake and misleading reviews, hitting everyone from car marketplaces to food delivery apps.
Most coverage of this stops at “here’s a scary fine, don’t do this.” What almost nobody mentions: Google isn’t just watching from the sidelines. It updated its own advertising policy in October 2025 to go after exactly the same thing – hidden fees, bait-and-switch pricing, ads that promise one price and deliver another at checkout. Get caught, and it’s a warning, then a disapproved ad, then a suspended account if it keeps happening. If your pricing page would fail a CMA drip-pricing test, it’ll probably fail Google’s ad policy too. That’s not just a legal problem any more. That’s a “your campaigns stop running” problem.
Quick explainer: what actually is the CMA?
The Competition and Markets Authority is the UK’s consumer and competition regulator. Since April 2025 it’s had new powers to fine businesses directly, up to 10% of turnover, without a court involved. That’s the bit that’s changed, it used to send strongly worded letters. Now it sends invoices.
The hidden-fee problem: drip pricing
Drip pricing is simply this: the price you see isn’t the price you pay. A booking fee that appears at the till. A “processing charge” at checkout. A deposit that’s non-refundable, but only if you’d read the small print. The CMA doesn’t need to prove this changed anyone’s mind, just that it happened. Google’s rule works the same way, whatever price is in the ad has to match the landing page. No wiggle room either side.
You don’t have to run a driving school for this to apply to you. A wedding venue quote that leaves out a mandatory catering minimum. A golf club green fee that doesn’t mention the “visitor levy” at the pro shop. An accountant’s fixed fee that excludes VAT. None of it is fraud, exactly but it is pricing habits the rules have caught up with. And it costs more than you’d think as every visitor who reaches checkout and finds an extra charge is a click you paid for and a sale you didn’t get.
The reviews problem
The CMA isn’t only chasing outright fake reviews. It’s looking at how reviews get collected and shown, such as only asking happy customers, quietly not publishing complaints, blending review sources into one star rating without saying so.
It’s worth remembering that your reviews aren’t just a reputation thing. They’re a ranking signal on your Google Business Profile, feeding your click-through rate and your visibility in local search, both of which feed straight into what you pay per click. Get this wrong and it isn’t just a legal headache – it shows up in your ad spend.
Four things worth checking this week
- Follow your own booking or quote journey, like a customer would. Is every mandatory cost visible before they commit, or does something appear at the last step?
- Read your terms for the word “optional.” If most customers actually have to pay it, then it really isn’t optional is it?
- Put your ad next to your landing page and check the prices match, exactly. This is the one Google will actually act on.
- Look at how you’re asking for reviews. If only happy customers get asked, or complaints quietly don’t make it onto the site, that’s the thing the CMA is currently investigating.
None of this needs the expense of a compliance department. Most of it is an afternoon rewriting a pricing page, or changing how you ask for reviews. It’s not a substitute for proper legal advice on your specific wording, but if you want a second opinion on how any of this shows up in your ad performance or conversion numbers, that’s a quick conversation, not a big one.