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How to Deal w/ Dubious 'Contracts'?
phorm asks: "It seems that for almost every service out there nowadays businesses want to fix customers into a contract. Some are pretty obvious (cellphone service, etc), but others are downright sneaky. About a year ago, my grandparents signed up for internet service with one of the bigger ISP's (Telus). They were offered an lesser rate for the first year, followed by $10/month more for following years, as well as their DSL modem for free (to be returned when service ends). None of the documentation received with the modem indicated that any 'contract' was being entered, nor were any documents signed. However, when they recently tried to cancel their service, Telus has indicated they will be charged a fee due to being within the 'contract'." Similar to EULAs, sometimes companies will enter you into a "contract" without providing anything to sign and will hold you to terms you may not even know about simply by your use of the service. How can you deal with companies practices, especially if dealing with their representatives becomes...difficult?
"On first questioning of this, they believed that they had somehow been contracted by agreeing over the phone when initial service was setup (despite that they don't remember being told about such a thing). However, when I called the ISP to dispute this, they indicated that upon connecting the service they would have been presented with a dialog indicating the contract terms and had to click 'OK' online.
My assumption would be that this was done through their setup CD, which comes with the modem. However, the ISP's software is not installed on their machine (I don't trust it not to have snoop-ware), as I had their machine manually registered through a web-interface (which did not indicate contracts at that time, I am not sure about now).
Despite this, calls to their hotline have indicated that they will not rescind the cancellation fee. Moreover, the last operator from the 'Loyalty Department' I talked to refused to separate the internet bill from the phone bill despite being told they would no longer be authorized to bill the given VISA account (they said they will not change that billing process unless given another account, and refuse to just 'send a bill' in the mail). When I questioned the legality of this the operator told me to 'get a lawyer and have them contact the legal department.' Obviously, this is an option but seems rather to be a bit extreme and I'm sure the company realizes it. So what does one do when a big company is bilking pensioners with contracts they have no proof of? Certainly there are no signed documents, and whether a particular button was clicked or not seems to have no proof except in the ISP's say-so, as well as the dubiousness of button-click legality under local law. My next step will likely be to explain the situation to VISA but then things can definitely get ugly as the ISP is also the local telco.
By the way, this is in Canada, so Canadian law would apply, but I would definitely appreciate suggestions as such cases seem more and more common."
My assumption would be that this was done through their setup CD, which comes with the modem. However, the ISP's software is not installed on their machine (I don't trust it not to have snoop-ware), as I had their machine manually registered through a web-interface (which did not indicate contracts at that time, I am not sure about now).
Despite this, calls to their hotline have indicated that they will not rescind the cancellation fee. Moreover, the last operator from the 'Loyalty Department' I talked to refused to separate the internet bill from the phone bill despite being told they would no longer be authorized to bill the given VISA account (they said they will not change that billing process unless given another account, and refuse to just 'send a bill' in the mail). When I questioned the legality of this the operator told me to 'get a lawyer and have them contact the legal department.' Obviously, this is an option but seems rather to be a bit extreme and I'm sure the company realizes it. So what does one do when a big company is bilking pensioners with contracts they have no proof of? Certainly there are no signed documents, and whether a particular button was clicked or not seems to have no proof except in the ISP's say-so, as well as the dubiousness of button-click legality under local law. My next step will likely be to explain the situation to VISA but then things can definitely get ugly as the ISP is also the local telco.
By the way, this is in Canada, so Canadian law would apply, but I would definitely appreciate suggestions as such cases seem more and more common."
If you really want to stick it to them, you might be able to get the local TV news to do a story on the practice (around here, Austin, TX, we have `[channel] 7 on your side' stories, where they go into detail about how somebody was being screwed and how the TV cameras made all the problems go away.
If you're out for blood, get a lawyer.
If you're out for justice, demand a supervisor.
In either case, point out that they cannot produce any record of signing the contract.
And it needs to stop.
people who sell hardware, music, videos insist that youre licensing it.. but licenses and contracts indicate that actual negotiations took place..
this is not the case with shrinkwrapped or 'clickwrapped' products.
Microsoft claims it's illegal to modify my xbox.. nowhere is there a contract on that box.. it's my hardware and they sold it to me.
How do you get rid of this?.. well there have been some court cases which have overturned them.. but the proliferation of ultra-right corporate owned judges has made that record spotty at best.
You need actual substantive law at this point effected through real reforms in the political system in order to rid the consumer universe of this corporate idea that they own everything they sell to you after you buy it... like some neo-serf.
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First and foremost don't believe you have to accept it. Contact the company and keep asking for a supervisor. If he doesn't help, ask for his and keep it up. That works most of the time because they just can't stand dealing with you. If that doesn't work, then write a letter... no email... a real letter. That usually gets a good response. When all else fails, take it to the Net, a lawyer, local media, etc. The key is to not take no for an answer.
http://religiousfreaks.com/90% of the time, contracts made for consumers-at-large are heavy handed and unfair.
Tried to get a gym membership lately? Oh wait..this is Slashdot..anyway..They try to lock you into these multi-year contracts at a very high price. Imagine having to pay $50 a month for three years. Can you honestly say that three years from now you'll live in the same area and still be making the most out of their services?
What about a cell phone? Most of them have massive early-termination fees.
Credit cards? Surprise clauses that very few people read. You're just making ends meet and then SURPRISE! You've spent 50% of your limit. Interest rates triple!
Car loans? You're a day late on a payment for any reason (even if they refused to post the check) and the car becomes theirs, your payments nulled (they keep the money) and its resold to another sucker.
I could go on and on, but the point is, contracts are mostly one-sided. Why? Because we want their service. Its not about service anymore, its about locking you into monthly fees, termination fees, fee fees, payment fees, early payment fees, etc. What if you bought a rake with your credit card and somewhere in it, it has a hidden transmitter to charge your card for more money whenever certain conditions are met. Its fair, right? You agreed to it, its right there on the back of the warranty you threw away because a $3 rake is easier to buy than send back and wait for a replacement.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Get ready to call in and argue. Don't take no for an answer. If you don't get the answer you want, call back.
I recently signed up with Bellsouth for internet, and I was lied to at every step of the way. They signed me up for the $89 3M plan, when I asked for the Lite, they told me that my bill would be about $90 and I haven't seen a bill under $160 ( business account ). It's disgusting, but their legal and sales teams don't have much decency.
You may have to stoop to their level unfortunately. I've heard of of people getting out of cell phone contracts by stating that they are moving out of the country, or that they object to some obscure but recent change in policy.
I've also heard that many companies either have a conflict policy of giving you a refund if it is reasonable if you go though enough levels of customer service. Otherwise, managers often have some amount of leeway to make exceptions.
The bottomline. Fight it. If even people do, it may just have then reconsider those policies ( to wishful thinking... )
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
I could go on and on, but the point is, contracts are mostly one-sided. Why? Because we want their service.
this is only the tip of the iceberg..
the current legal and regulatory structure centering around incorporation and securities allows people to centralize power and resources while being spared the majority of the risks.
This results in an uneven playing field where incumbent corporate owners have tremenous amounts of market power, but the common man has none.
The ways to combat this are:
-from labor standpoint.. pro union laws which allow labor to do the same thing as the companies that employ them.. centralize power and resources without reprisal from anti-union companies.
-from a consumer standoint.. pro consumer laws which put a cap on contract demands. Consumer unions are not enough.. they will only be able to tackle "main stream" products.. regulation to balance out concepts like limited liability and corporate personhood are needed.
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IANAL but if I recall correctly Canadian law (yea, I'm a Canuk) says that you cannot agree to any contract that you have not read and signed. This may have changed, but at the time when I was looking into it, the law said that you cannot give up rights without reading what rights you are giving up. This was in relation to an AUP and a EULA. The clause "subject to change without notice, and continuation of using said service constitutes that you agree to the changes" did not hold water. The contract that I had entered at the time (about 7 or 8 years ago) was the contract that the company was bound to uphold because that is the contract that I'd signed, and I could not enter a new contract without explicitly agreeing to it.
Again, IANAL, but since Canadian and American contract laws do differ in some very serious ways, I'd at least talk to a lawyer and/or hit the local library. One thing that I found works pretty well is if you know someone taking law at a colledge/university level. They generally know a lot, and can always ask their prof. Since profs have to teach it, I've found that the better ones are really good at answering off the wall topics...they've seen them come up in papers n such and have to determine the relevance of them.
As for the billing, you should not have any issues with cancelling any other services that you have with them (as long as they are not under contract). If it's a service that you actually want with them, but want the billing method changed, you still have the option of cancelling the service, then setting it up again. It's a pain in the ass, but it is an option.
Zro . two
"I come from Canada...they say I'm slow....eh?"
What about a cell phone? Most of them have massive early-termination fees.
They have to, they subsidized that cool new feature laden cell phone you are carrying, US cell phone deals are not as one-sided as you think. If you take the phone and quit the service they lose big time. Some parts of the world do not subsidize, you pay full retail for your phone, and customers have an easier time changing providers. US consumers have voted with their dollars, they would rather have the Motorola Razor for $50 than have an easier time switching providers.
First off, IANAL; however, under Contract Law in Canada there has to be a meeting of the minds (consensus ad idem), which I belive could be argued with a click-through agreement which could be easy missed if their software was not installed, this would not be considered the case.
For small matters like this, contracts do not need to be written, verbal contracts have been recognised by the court, so click-through agreements (if read and understood), could hold up if there was an expectation that the contract was read.
The requirements of a contract were fufilled otherwise, something was offered in exchange for compensation, and an agreement was made (witnessed by paying the invoice). I think that may be the problem in the end, even if the click-through agreement is not upheld, the service was requested (verbal contract) and paid for (witness of acceptance).
Also, as there was an initial discount, it could be inferred that there was a minimum term to the contract (yes, contract law allows for common practice), which would in turn imply that a penalty may exist.
In short, Telus is probably right enough that they can keep things in court, and stand a reasonable chance of succeding with their case. If you want to try getting a lawyer to send a letter, that may get you something; however, I'd assume Telus isn't going to back down from a legal perspective.
The first step when you have a dispute with a company is always, always, ALWAYS to try to resolve it amicably with them. Don't skip this step. Show that you're making every effort to resolve the problem.
Note that "amicable" does not mean "walkover". If they say something you disagree with, don't roll over and take it; argue the point. If you can't get it sorted to your satisfaction, ask to speak to the next level up. Don't take no for an answer. If they say "You'll have to call back another time", or "Somebody will call you back", don't accept that without asking "Whom will I need to speak with, and when will they be in the office next?" Allow a reasonable time for the individual to call you back; if they don't, call the company and ask immediately to speak with whichever group you were told you needed to speak with.
Always remain polite and keep your cool. Don't blow up at them. That gives them an excuse to throw the blame on you.
After making reasonable efforts to resolve the matter amicably without success, you have several courses open to you. How much money are you talking about? If it's not too much (the limit in Australia is around $5000, IIRC, maybe more), you could try Small Claims (on the understanding that it does cost to file, so it may not be worth it if the amount is small). Or a chargeback on your credit card. Or ask a lawyer to write an appropriately worded letter.
At each step along the way, you need to ask yourself if your time and aggravation is worth the money. Sometimes you'll get the bit between your teeth and fight on, regardless of the money, as a matter of principle, and that's fine as long as you know you're doing it, and you know what's at stake.
Example: I had a trial period at a local gym. I specifically asked them if I could cancel at any time in that period without penalty, as I needed to double check my financial situation and decide if I could afford it. They indicated that I could. I ended up calling them to cancel in this period. Long story short: they didn't abide by my request (nor did they indicate what I needed to do to follow on with my request to make sure it stuck); when I tried to escalate up to the next level (the gym's manager), he refused to talk to me. So I issued a chargeback. One month later, the gym's head office called me asking why I'd issued a chargeback, so I explained. I eventually won out, but I won't be going back to that particular gym again.
I was completely prepared to go to court over it (knowing that if it did go to court, I could just file at Small Claims and the case would revert to its jurisdiction, meaning that I'd be out at most the money the gym claimed I owed them plus filing fees), but it didn't get to that point. You could also check out any ombudsman in your region, and possibly the local consumer watchdog.
Good luck.
Telus truly is a marvel of customer service. We used to be customers until we moved into an older apartment building, and in order to move our service they had to send a tech by to ... I'm not quite sure what. Anyhow, our connection appointment happened to fall on the same day as their labour dispute started. Not taking sides, just bad luck on our part. We started calling the help line, which is a topic in itself. Who decided it would be a good idea to force customers to thrash about with a horrible voice recognition system with sometimes lengthy interludes of "Margaritaville" and that goddamn "Take it eeeeeeeasy, take it eeeeeeeasyyy" song? Anyway, they strung us along for about two months, promising us a great deal on a cell phone that never arrived, install appointments every second week, and finally "free call forwarding". What they didn't tell us about the "free" call forwarding was that it would trigger the start of full phone line billing. We didn't find out about that until we got the bill in the mail three months later, long after we'd switched to Shaw. A couple of phone calls making it extremely clear where they could send that bill made the situation disappear, and they ended up sending us a cheque for 15 bucks due to a "billing irregularity".
Long story short, I understand that labour disputes suck. Please don't lie to me. Repeatedly. And then bill me fraudulently. Not good.
I talked to their legal department and a lawyer friend a few months ago about telus's contract and get this - even if they reduced the level of service, or implemented a drastically lower bandwidth limit, you would still be charged the cancellation fee unless you took them to court.
So while your prices may stay constant, the level of service would noticably be decreased. Lovely, eh? Sort of how sprint pulls a cell tower out of your neighborhood and all of a sudden you can't make calls without roaming, but oh, no, cancelling your contract will cost you $200*
As you may or may not know, about 4 months ago, both telus(dsl) and shaw (cable) started cracking down on bandwidth usage. First both started from ~100 gigs (which was an unofficial "you're abusing the network because we say so" limit) and then it started dropping gradually. At one point, shaw's service dropped to a pathetic 30 gigs a month, and telus dsl users were limited to 25 or so.
The interesting thing is that the bandwidth caps dropped very quietly - only a press release and a small change on the sales page (meanwhile, shaw continued to advertise unlimited service. Belive they still do actually, even though the cap is set at 60 gigs - you can pay another $10 a month to get back to the previous limit of 100 gigs). Also - when one company dropped the cap, the other would follow within days. Now - I'm not saying that there was collusion, but it sure as hell stank of something.
After a few months of this, they finally figured out that it cost them more to have a csr make a 15 minute call to the customer to discuss their bandwidth usage than it does to pay for a hundred gigs of bandwidth - so the bandwidth limits are now 40 for telus and 60 gigs a month for shaw (for the mid range personal accounts). BTW. It is impossible to get an account where I live that gives you more than 150 gigs of transfer a month.
Really, this isn't as big deal, the monopolies up here act like arrogant assholes and have the idea that contracts only apply to the users using their service - a bit better than BellSouth, but still annoying to deal with. Eventually, these bullshit "contracts" of adhesion will be challened in court just like their magical bandwidth limits and this will be resolved. Unfortunately, Canucks are less likely to sue, so it may be a while before this is resoved.
Good luck in your quest, although I honestly can't reccomend shaw. Shaw, at least doesn't block access to union websites during a lockout though.
* a hateful "I hope you fucks are all gunned down and shot in the knees" goes out to all the sprint employees.
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My wife works for National City bank here in Michigan. She's in the chargeback department, and had mentioned to me that visa will take the money back from the merchant unless they have a signed contract/agreement to fight a customer dispute. Visa does not recognize clicking on a button or any other method of getting someone to sign-up for a service other than signed docs. Visa will take the money from the merchant without them being able to do anything and credit it back to the customer, also if the merchant violates visa's rules enough they will not be allowed to use visa for payments anymore. So I don't know what it's like in Canada, but I would recommend contacting your bank and disputing the charges saying you didn't sign any contracts what so ever, and they are unwilling to credit your account. I know National City is not on the merchant's side when it comes to these, I personally just had to have them do the same thing with some stupid credit report internet site. Good luck!
If you don't feel like bluffing, you can often exploit a loophole in service contracts by telling the company that you are moving to a place where they do not have coverage. I used this on SBC by telling them that I was moving to Afghanistan (obvious lie) and would like to remain in my service contract as long as they could provide an internet connection for me in Kandahar. The customer service rep was skeptical and asked me my address, so I made one up (123 Islam way). They cancelled my DSL connection without charging me a penny.
Say you had a child click "I agree." Children can't engage in contracts, right?
Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
My lawyer tells me a verbal contract is as good as the paper it's written on...
They still demand a contract if you own the phone. My father bought a v60 in Hong Kong, before the US release because he liked the design and wanted to switch to a GSM phone. He got AT&T service for it, but they still demanded a 1 year contract. Why would they need it? It was no strings attached for them, he'd provided the phone, what did they need to make back?
I can count on one hand the times that people in my family have failed in our attempts to get large companies to settle issues to our satisfaction. Companies are banking on the fact that people either are too lazy or don't know how to follow a chain of command and that if they give you enough run around you'll give up and go away. My dad has even gone so far as to call up the president of the company on several occasions when dealing with the customer service reps and their supervisors wasn't getting him anywhere. Sometimes you have to try multiple approaches to get an issue resolved to your satisfaction--know that customer service reps are supposed to be logging calls, so even if you don't succeed with one rep, it's helpful if they have logged in their records that you're threatening to call the State Attny. General's office to get them to pursue a fraud case if the issue isn't resolved (or, on the flip side, if there isn't a log of the conversation and you just got transferred into no-man's land, that can also be worked to your advantage because the rep isn't following protocol).
It's a bit harder when you're dealing with offsite call centers, especially if they're not in your country and you have to deal with a cultural barrier as well (British Airways, for example, is a pain to deal with because they have different cultural protocol for complaints), or if there aren't multiple levels of supervisors in the same location, but given persistance, more often than not you'll succeed.
And, if all else fails, threatening negative publicity doesn't hurt. My mom had an issue where she paid a department store credit card bill but because of a cash register glitch the payment never posted to the main system. After months of unsuccessfully trying to resolve it with politeness, she sent off an e-mail through the corporate feedback site threatening to call up the TV stations and then walk into the store manager's office at the local store and cut up her card--the payment miraculously credited to her account within a matter of hours after she sent the e-mail.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
No, the across-the-board "either you're rich enough to have lawyers or are a peon" doesn't apply to every capitalist country in the world, but seems to be largely a USA issue. In a sense it's the price you pay for the culture of not trusting your own government, or for that matter for ending up with a government which you can't trust. Unfortunately, then, yes, your only recourse are lawyers, and that's why in the USA they breed like rabbits.
Down here in Europe most things aren't solved by class action lawsuits, but by having a set of laws regarding the consumers' rights, and some government agencies whose job is to enforce those. If a company tried to screw me over, believe me, I wouldn't do any of the three options you describe. Instead I'd go to a consumer rights bureau ("Verbraucherzentrale") and see what they have to say about it. Because it's their job and are backed by the government. They can have a lot more teeth than a lawyer, if it's warranted.
In a sense, it's the difference between having an organized police force and wild-west each-man-for-himself vigilante justice. The USA seems still stuck at the point where your rights and protection are determined by whether you can hire a posse to fight for them. Only now it's the more expensive lawyers with ties and briefcases, instead of desperados with sombreros and Winchester guns. Most of the rest of the world moved over to more efficient model of having a centralized "police" equivalent.
And let me stress that again: it's not just that it's more fair (I could get help even if I didn't have a dime to pay for a lawyer's advice), it's also more efficient for society as a whole. You don't have to feed armies of lawyers when a handful of government officials can do the same job _and_ serve as a better deterrent. A company can imagine they'll smoke _me_ with legalese gibberish, or bully me into submission, or just hope that I don't want to pay a lawyer. But they will know from the start that they're never going to bully the government into submission, and that there'll be someone there who reads legalese as fluently as it gets and knows if what is in there is legal or not.
If you will, it's like in the police vs everyone-with-his-own-posse analogy again. A police is more efficient than everyone hiring his own desperados to guard his ranch, because it _doesn't_ have to actually send policemen to stand guard on every ranch. Just the knowing that that police force exists is enough of a deterrent for 99% of the population.
Downside: of course, you need to trust that the government is on your side and not just ruling for the highest corporate bidder. I.e., it comes in handy to have a real multi-party system where they have to work hard for their votes.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
He'll write the letter for free, you'll just have to buy a sheet of his special "legal writing paper" which comes at $500 apiece.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
If they don't have a signature or a recorded conversation where you agreed to this then you don't have a contract with them. Stop all payments at the bank, tell them to come and collect whatever they consider is "theirs", then hang up the phone. End of story.
No sig today...
I had an Earthlink DSL account in the US, and although I was aware through common knowledge that all local DSL carriers considered a customer to be in a contract from the time the modem connected to the line, I made a point to look for one at every point in the set-up process. The only thing that vaguely resembled legal mumbo jumbo was in the software envelope which I never used.
I had nothing but problems with the service itself and cancelled within two months. They informed me that I would be charged $150 for early termination and another $200 if I didnt return their POS modem. I told them to stuff it and I refused to pay. They sent me to a collection agency and I immediately sent a letter disputing the debt and asking for proof of contract. The collection account was wiped clean and never appeared on my credit record. I even kept their crappy modem out of principle.
Although corporations can be a brick wall to deal with, collection agencies are held to very strict regulations and a quick stroke of the pen leaves them without option. These companies think they are screwing you when they send you off to collections, but infact they are playing right into your hands.
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No problem... Call Visa, explain the situation, dispute any existing charges you know you don't owe, and tell Visa that automated charge is no longer authorized. If they won't stop the charges, complete your dispute(s) and then cancel the card (or better, threaten to cancel the card.) You'll find that CC companies, when they have a customer with good credit/payment history on the phone are a little more flexible once you start complaining and make waves about cutting up your card...
Then when the ISP sends you a bill in the mail because your card is cancelled, you can return it to them with a threatening letter from your barrister. Something along the lines of "Please present evidence that our client signed a contract (ie. a copy of the signed contract) or stop harassing them."
I think you'll find they fold like a house of cards... There is a reason the Cell PHone companies force you to SIGN an ACTUAL contract in real life--so they can't get sued for trying to collect the "early termination" fees.
Who did what now?
As I understand it judges have upheld EULAs as valid since you can be "reasonably expected" to know software comes with such a thing (yeah, right, like they teach that in schools. You don't know that until you have bought your first PC program). This justification fails to explain why any non-standard terms in an EULA (i.e. that go beyond the common ground present in all EULAs and as such aren't common sense anymore) still apply.
Additionally I do not see how a company can turn a sale into a licensing deal post sale. The sales contract predates the EULA, it did not make any mentioning of any licenses and it did not state that additional contracts are required to use the software. As such I'd argue that a piece of software sold without informing the customer of the required additional contract prior to the sale is fraudulent as the seller claimed the product was something it isn't (sale vs. license).
Furthermore I will not accept it as legal to use technical measures (DRM, installers, whathaveyou) to interfere with customer rights granted by the law. The law gave these rights to prevent companies from dictating terms through the vast imbalance of power (i.e. the contract is not negotiated and the company can dictate it any way they please, even worse if they and their competitors form an oligopoly through agreeing on using similarily exploitative terms and there is noone else to turn to), if a company was allowed to design a product to deny those rights that would undermine the whole purpose of the law. But then again I'm a proponent of making exploiting loopholes in a law a serious crime.
The European Union has a directive that severely limits the terms that can be present in a contract that is non-negotiable and presented by a large company. You could try proposing something comparable to your representative(s).
This may apply here:
(e) requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation;
As a sidenote, many online gaming services (MMOs especially) fall afoul of this one by keeping any advance fees the customer paid when he is banned for any reason:
(f) authorizing the seller or supplier to dissolve the contract on a discretionary basis where the same facility is not granted to the consumer, or permitting the seller or supplier to retain the sums paid for services not yet supplied by him where it is the seller or supplier himself who dissolves the contract;
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
That's a great theory, and I used to believe it, too. A recent encounter has introduced a lot of doubts, though: after my father received a bad DVD about a hobby from a company that was generally well regarded in the field, it turned out not to play properly. The attitude he got from the staff when he called about this was unconstructive, sometimes outright rude.
He got the local Trading Standards people involved, and the best they could do was say that the company in question was entitled to examine the merchandise before providing a refund, and that my father was obliged to send it back (at his expense in both time and money) so that could happen, with no apparent mechanism available to compensate him for this if it did turn out that the goods were faulty.
Now, letting the merchant examine the goods before refunding seems fair enough, particularly for something like a DVD that's easily ripped. However, if the merchant requires the customer to arrange the return, it seems only fair that if the goods are faulty, the merchant should also be required to compensate the customer for their time and costs returning the item. This, apparently, is not the case. As long as the rules on faulty returns are this one-sided, with the overheads falling almost entirely on the customer, all the legal safeguards about distance selling and the like aren't really worth very much other than for items of high value.
Incidentally, does anyone know the deal with returning box sets of DVDs if, several months after buying them, you discover that disc 6 of 7 doesn't play? It seems unreasonable to expect a customer to watch the entire box set within a few days of buying them, but there's also potential for abuse if a retailer must accept the set back several months later when any damage may or may not have had anything to do with the condition of the DVDs when they were sold.
For TV licences, if you pay monthly, you basically pay six months ahead. To be fair, and from recent personal experience, if you stop needing a licence at a particular address, they seem pretty good about refunding any overpaid months reasonably quickly. There have been a few horror stories about the TV licensing people in the past, mostly due to database screw-ups and/or assuming that there's no way anyone in today's society could possibly not need one (remind you of any big software firms? ;-)), but it seems like they've cleaned up their act in recent years and generally do their job pretty well now.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I've been here and here is the answer that worked for me.
Write a letter contesting the bill, stating your reasons, clearly indicate a means of redress (i.e. a written letter detailing the type of data they don't have time to produce but a reasonable person would accept as necessary for them to make their case), and then change the account number of the credit card they may be charging and close your account they are debiting (banks will transfer your history making this a way of changing your account number). This is what will happen - they will bill you, they will dun you, they will sell your name to bill collectors who will threaten you with finely crafted threatening letters and phone calls calculated to get under your skin. Despite all this ultimately you will not pay a cent because there are a lot of other fish in the sea and just as it is too expensive for you to sue the same applies to them.
When you are dunned it is actually good news because dunning firms have fewer resources and usually follow a script; emphasis on usually. When you get a dunning letter print out a form letter you have prepared and mail it back within 30 days requiring proof of the debt and disputing the payment. For dunning calls use caller ID and skip the phone calls you can't identify - let them leave a message. Get good at checking and returning messages so people understand leaving messages works.
Check your credit history occassionally and write a letter to a credit reporting agency indicating any errors (e.g. an entry for a bill for which you are, in fact, not liable). These errors will be removed for a few months - then send another letter. Keep it up for a few years and you are done.
Yes, it takes years for this to wash out of the system, because you are dealing with a machine that calculates marginal returns and acts accordingly. Just don't be a jerk while you are doing this. Stay polite and civil and they won't get angry enough to make an example of you.
If it ever does come to court you will have lots of documents showing you tried to resolve the matter in good faith but they were unresponsive to your reasonable requests (i.e. the letter I mention in the first sentence and all the letters you wrote subsequently).
Remember "the nail that stands up is hammered flat." Don't attract attention to yourself or you will get burned with this approach.
And remember this is my story so your results will definitely differ. Best of luck!
The USA seems still stuck at the point where your rights and protection are determined by whether you can hire a posse to fight for them. Only now it's the more expensive lawyers with ties and briefcases, instead of desperados with sombreros and Winchester guns. Most of the rest of the world moved over to more efficient model of having a centralized "police" equivalent.
Actually, we have offices in every state here in America, run by state / federal governments, to aid consumers with problems like these.
It's not America's fault that this guy is ignorant of their existence. A 2 second google search would have revealed this to him. Maybe that's the problem with America - we turn to Slashdot for legal advice.Also, dude, you watch too much American TV.
There was a lot of this happening in the late 90's when internet companies were using telephone billing. Basically, as them for proof. If it was over the phone, they needed to record your conversation affirming that you entered into the contract. Adding terms to the back of a manual (aka a shirnk wrape license) has never been shown in court as being binding.
When they can't offer proof file a formal complaint with your Attorny General. Usually a formal inquiry from the AG office gets fasts results.
Um verbal contracts are absolutely NOT valid in real estate. That would be the absolute last place they would be valid in. That is why offers are not valid when there is an accepted offer, and hell they can still fall apart even then.
I dont know where you got your info from, but verbal contracts are valid in man circumstances, real estate is not one of them
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Unsolicited commercial faxxing is illegal in many parts of the world- at least sans the USA.
Now lets recall that this is:
- solicited: they asked to get copies of the receipts, multiple times.
- non-commercial: this is an individual who is a customer of the company, sending requested information.
While all you want, but it sounds like that wouldn't last long in court anyway
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Credit card companies are on not on your side, they just want to make money any scummy way they can. Just because some company rightfully got the brunt of it doesn't make them your friends.
They're a business; they're on no one's side in particular other than their goal of staying in business. As long as you're careful to not carry a balance and to skim any terms of use changes (I read all of mine; for instance cashback gets paid off last and has the highest interest rate; not that I use cashback except in dire emergencies, but I know about that) and you make sure you don't get a card with an annual fee, and pay regularly, you should be fine.
But given that federal law, at least here in the US (the original story took place in Canada) severely limits your liability in fraud situations and you have the ability to reverse bad charges without any money leaving your real bank account, I'm going to keep right on using credit cards. Never had a problem; being informed is your friend.
i am a soviet space shuttle
This is probably not something in 'mainstream' legal culture, but there is a legal theory that you can use the Uniform Commercial Code to your advantage. See http://www.worldnewsstand.net/freedom/ucc4.htm Basically, you sign a document (such as a check) with "Without Prejudice UCC 1-207" and you are able to protect yourself from 'hidden clauses' and 'hidden contracts'. I had a rubber stamp made for my checks, and this is how I sign them, it is recommended. I have never had to try this in court. It may not be of real legal value, but it was only a couple of dollars for the stamp and it may end up saving me a lot in the long run. Yes, I did read the part in the referenced article where in court you have to prove you know what that part of the UCC is about, and you can be sure I will have it all memorized if I ever have to go to court.
Trust me, noone is asking for the government to come over and take our rights away or anything. But you illustrate exactly the kind of a attitude that I was talking about.
The element you seem to be missing in your all-or-nothing argument is: control. Noone proposes to give the government _unchecked_ power. In fact, it's not even as much giving it power, it's making it do its duty: to serve the citizens that elected it.
The jaded American idea seems to be that that any government power is some kind of a toggle with only two possible (final) states: (A) complete unchecked self-serving power, or (B) not having the government involved at all. And that any good citizen should fight to keep anything into category (B). But at any rate, that there are inherently no shades of grey between the two.
The European idea is that the government is there to _serve_ us. Yes, we know that politicians have no morals, are easily corrupted, etc, and generally that governments are very dangerous things. It just means we have to be more careful about it, not that we should avoid involving it altogether.
If you will, let's use the metaphor of a big and dangerous pitbull for the government. The difference is basically like this: the American notion seems to be that you have a big dangerous pitbull in your back yard, and it could get rabies any day now, and your duty is to fight it off and keep it away from you and your family. The European notion is that since it _is_ your dog and you're feeding it anyway, you might as well get some use out of it. Get it trained to do _your_ bidding instead of fighting it off. And better be a responsible owner and make sure it doesn't get rabies in the first place.
In a nutshell, that's what gets some of us, you know, _wondering_ about _some_ Americans. (I do realize that blanket generalizations tend to be false, so I'm not extrapolating over everyone.) That black-and-white view, completely missing any shades of grey in between. E.g., missing the intermediate shade of a government that is under enough control so it _can't_ just bend over to the highest corporate bidder.
The view that the any government is, unavoidably, destined to be corrupt and whore itself to whoever pays the biggest bribe, is in fact something I consider _dangerous_. It's the kind of thing that, in a perverse way, _legitimizes_ it when it goes and does just that. It just gets people to shrug and go "well, what did you expect?" instead of doing something to stop it. Seeing some of the overt cattering to corporate/cartel interests instead of the interests of their own voters that seems to be the norm in the US Congress... I just have to wonder, basically, how much of that overt corruption (not to mention perversion of what "democracy" was supposed to mean) is the result of the mindset that it's normal and inevitable for a government to do that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The contact details on the phone line (BT) that my ADSL connection (Demon Internet) was associated with changed. Demon noticed the change & cut off the service, despite previous assurances that this would work flawlessly. They apologised, and a few weeks later reconnected. Six months later, we try to shift the service to Bulldog, but are told that we have six months of a 12 month contract remaining. No, we tell them, the contract expired a while ago. No, they say, it started again when the reconnection occurred.
To cut a long story short: we told BT to force the connection of our line so that Bulldog could take it over. Demon will probably try to recover the remaining 6 months payment from us in a small claims court. Good luck to them, I say. They have no proof of a contract, and we have details of many weeks of service that wasn't supplied but we were still charged for.
for going with telus... Should have gone with Shaw. As an ex-Telus employee who worked in the business repair department, I thought it odd when I was first hired that virtually no one on the floor had Telus DSL at home, even though as employees we were offered it at $16/month. Then I worked there, it explained everything. Telus is anything but a communications leader, they are totally a follower and customer service, despite the best effort of the call centre staff, isn't a company value. I'd sign up with Shaw. About your phone, it might be time to consider VOIP, however, if I remember my training correctly Telus cannot disconnect phone service to an account as long as the BASIC PHONE CHARGES have been paid. Even if you have a $2000 1-900 number balance, CRTC regulations prohibit it. They can kill your features, but they MUST provide basic land line service and all you are required to pay to maintain that service is the basic charge plus taxes. It's in the tariff information in the front of the phone book, if they want to get into it with you, tell them to look it up. BTW, Shaw hs Internet and Primus voip is still cheaper than any telus solution.
- The Google Toolbar has a spell checker button AND it works, consider that before hitting submit next time k?
It's very hard for me to believe that there wasn't a contract in there somewhere.
I think a good question to ask, then, is "what was the text of the agreement that you claim I agreed to?". For this debate to be settled, we'll need to see (1) a copy of the terms of service that were agreed to at the time, to see if it says "can be changed, and you agree by continuing to use the service" -- I'd guess that it probably does say that, but we need to see it to be sure, and the ISP needs to provide that text; (2) if it does say that, what are the terms now?; and (3) what does it say about cancelling your account and any related time limits?
I don't think we can settle this without that information. So I think the original poster needs to talk to their credit card issuer and get them to provide that information, since it seems as if the ISP isn't exactly going out of its way to do it when the poster asks. In fact, I have to wonder at this reluctance -- if they have ready evidence that yes, a contract was agreed to, why have they not produced it? Cynical, I know, but big business these days seems all too willing to extract money from people who these days are being bombarded by so many other expenses that they can't afford to be cheated (gas, wage increases being behind, etc).
i am a soviet space shuttle
Here's a question I'd like to see answered:
Given that the "right" way to handle any contract is to seek professional legal advice,
and given that consumers are now seeing as many as 30 or 40 EULA's annually, my question
is: how much would a diligent legal review of all purchases (per consumer) cost if
consumers were to enter into these "agreements" with diligent review by a legal professional.
I think the answer to that question would be so eggregious that it would reveal the EULA
system to be as silly as it seems.
Any experienced purchasers of legal services care to make an estimate for what a
diligent review of a single EULA would cost?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )