Why Did CAMP Charge Me a Service Fee? What the Extra Charge on Your CAMP Tickets Means Under California Law
You picked a showtime for Gabby's Dollhouse x CAMP, Bluey x CAMP, or PAW Patrol x CAMP, saw a per-ticket price you were fine with, and entered your card. Then the total came out higher than the tickets you'd added up—or you didn't catch the difference until you read the confirmation email from hi@camp.com. If that happened to you, you're not alone, and you may have more options than you think.
We're investigating whether CAMP's practice of adding a mandatory service fee to ticket purchases—CAMP's own help pages call it a "processing fee"—violates California law. This article explains what the fee is, why it may be a problem, and what California customers can do about it.
→ Already know you were charged the fee? Tell us about your CAMP purchase here.
What is CAMP?
CAMP (camp.com), operated by Camp NYC, Inc., calls itself a family experience company. It runs stores in 11 locations across the United States—including CAMP Los Angeles on the second floor of Westfield Century City—that pair a toy shop with ticketed, timed "immersive experiences" built around kids' shows. The current lineup includes Bluey x CAMP, PAW Patrol x CAMP, and Gabby's Dollhouse x CAMP, and the experiences rotate among CAMP's locations over time.
As of early September 2026, CAMP Los Angeles is hosting Gabby's Dollhouse x CAMP, which CAMP's website advertises at "from $25" per ticket.
What is the CAMP "service fee" or "processing fee"?
When you buy tickets on camp.com, you see a per-ticket price on the experience page, then pick a date, a time, and how many tickets you need. CAMP's help center states that a processing fee is charged on every purchase transaction—it repeats that sentence in at least five separate answers on its Ticketing and Scheduling page. What the help center doesn't say is how much the fee is.
Our investigation focuses on whether that fee is included in the ticket price CAMP advertises. We believe it isn't. We believe the fee is added at or near checkout, and that many customers don't notice it until they read their receipt—if they notice it at all.
That pattern has a name: drip pricing. It happens when the price you first see is lower than the price you actually have to pay, because mandatory fees get tacked on as you move through checkout. It's one of the practices California passed a law to stop.
Is it legal for CAMP to add a service fee at checkout in California?
It may not be.
On July 1, 2024, California's Honest Pricing Law—also called the Hidden Fees Statute, and known as SB 478—took effect. The idea behind it is simple: the price a business advertises should be the price you actually pay.
The law, found at California Civil Code section 1770(a)(29), prohibits a business from advertising, displaying, or offering a price for a good or service that doesn't include all mandatory fees and charges. There are only two exceptions: taxes and fees the government imposes on the transaction, and reasonable postage or shipping costs to send you a physical item. A CAMP processing fee isn't a government tax, and a digital ticket isn't a physical good that has to be shipped, so neither exception appears to cover it. If the fee is mandatory, the law generally says it belongs in the advertised ticket price—not added at the end.
The California Attorney General's office has published official guidance on the Honest Pricing Law, and it addresses this situation almost exactly:
The Attorney General's FAQ names event tickets as one of the prominent industries the law covers.
A business can't comply just by disclosing the extra fee before you finish checking out. The listed price has to be the full price.
A business can't advertise one price and then add a service fee later in the transaction.
The law applies equally to online and brick-and-mortar sales.
You can read the Attorney General's plain-language FAQ on the California AG's website, and our blog has a longer guide to California's hidden fee law.
Even before the Honest Pricing Law, California law prohibited undisclosed mandatory fees as a form of bait-and-switch.
So if CAMP charges a mandatory processing fee that isn't built into the ticket prices it advertises, that practice may run afoul of California's Honest Pricing Law. Whether it does is exactly what we're looking into.
I bought tickets for CAMP Los Angeles in Century City. Does this apply to me?
Customers of CAMP Los Angeles are at the center of our investigation. If you bought tickets to Gabby's Dollhouse x CAMP—or to an earlier experience at the Century City store—and were charged a service or processing fee, we want to hear from you.
And if you live in California but bought tickets on camp.com for a CAMP location in another city (for example, Bluey x CAMP in New York, Boston, Houston, or Philadelphia), we'd still like to hear about your purchase.
What does this mean for CAMP customers?
California has some of the strongest consumer-protection laws in the country. The Honest Pricing Law amended one of them—the Consumers Legal Remedies Act—and California law gives consumers real tools when they've been charged this way.
Depending on the facts, customers who paid these fees may be able to recover money and seek a court order requiring the practice to stop. We can't promise any particular result; every situation depends on its own facts. But you don't have to sort through any of this on your own, and finding out where you stand costs you nothing.
What can you do now?
A few steps help:
Find your confirmation email. CAMP emails tickets from hi@camp.com right after purchase (check spam and promotions folders). Compare the total you were charged against the per-ticket price you were shown. Save the email.
Screenshot the price you saw first. If you can still find the experience page showing the per-ticket price you relied on, a screenshot is useful.
Tell us about your purchase. Use the short form on our investigation page. There's no cost and no obligation, and the information you share is kept confidential.
→ Tell us about your CAMP purchase by completing this form.
Frequently asked questions
How much is the CAMP processing fee? CAMP's help center says a processing fee is assessed on each purchase transaction but doesn't say how much. Check your order confirmation from hi@camp.com and compare the total against the per-ticket price you were shown. Sharing that number with us helps the investigation.
I bought my tickets at the store, not online. Does that matter? CAMP's help center indicates the processing fee applies to ticket transactions generally, and California's Honest Pricing Law applies equally to online and in-store sales. Tell us about your purchase either way.
Are my CAMP tickets refundable? CAMP's help center says tickets are non-refundable. Whether customers can recover the processing fee through a legal claim is a separate question, and it's the one we're investigating.
Does this involve Bluey, Gabby's Dollhouse, or PAW Patrol? Our investigation concerns CAMP's own pricing and checkout practices, not the shows or the companies behind them.
What does it cost to talk to you? Nothing. Completing the form is free, creates no obligation, and is confidential.