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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.
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.
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.
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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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.
My lawyer tells me a verbal contract is as good as the paper it's written on...
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.
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.
Hi Super Nintendo Chalmers! - Ralph Wiggum
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.
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.