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Woman Fined For Bad Review Striking Back In Court
An anonymous reader writes "Here's an update to the earlier Slashdot story about KlearGear.com 'fining' a couple for a bad review left four years earlier on RipoffReport: Not only did KlearGear report this as a bad debt to credit reporting agencies, but KlearGear is hiding behind a DomainsByProxy domain name to making finding their real identities harder. Now Public Citizen is representing the couple and is going after KlearGear for $75,000. The TV station that broke this story, KUTV, now reports that RipoffReport will likely be on the couple's side. The BBB and TRUSTe say their logos were used by KlearGear.com without permission, and credit reporting agency Experian is also investigating."
The main claim is that the puchase was a contract that imposed the condition of "never acting to harm KlearGear". That could encompass pretty much anything you do. Did you consume a resource that resulted in higher costs to them, did you loan the item to a friend and the friend did not like it. So many accidental ways to breach the "contract"
We the people need the right of fair dealing. We can't have weird contractual conditions imposed. I am not a lawyer so don't know how to put it.
Normal actions, including criticism should not result in violations.
Do you have an interest that you need to declare?
Yea, based on the facts as offered, they can go rot...
Out of business is not good enough
Dead right.
The right wing are forever claiming that corporations are people. Let's see these lowlifes in jail, and I will believe the rightists for once.
All of the company staff will get IRS jobs. They've shown the proper mindset.
IRS? Nah. Wall street. We never did fix those problems.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
Nothing trumps basic consumer law and contract fairness.
Too many people forget this.
The EULA's can say what they like. If it's deemed unreasonable, especially if it's one-sided, courts will just ignore those portions of it.
I think commenting your own opinion on a product/service you used can't really ever be deemed unreasonable until it becomes harassment, and that's relatively easy to determine and prose cute for.
Fact is, all this company have done is said they'll sue their own customers unless they never have a problem and/or never tell anyone about it. It's a perfect way to lose customers.
They can claim anything they like, but that doesn't mean that a court will back them - especially not when they breached the contract themselves first (thus making all the other party's obligations under that contract null and void).
Just because someone says "But you signed/agreed to this", it doesn't mean that you are bound by it. It's a complete fallacy. It just means that you have to prove it's unreasonable rather than, in the case of not signing it, do nothing.
There was a lot of cases about whether automatic "if you park here, you are agreeing to pay a £100 'fine'" signs put up by private landowners. Loads of people ignored them and paid fines. And then courts said that it was unreasonable and not legal. And now those landowners are having to pay all that money (and expenses) back.
A contract has to be fair and reasonable, or it's not a contract at all. And yet you can still be held by your side of the contract (e.g. providing the damn service you were required to) while having all your provisos (e.g. NDA's or termination clauses) rendered void. It all depends on the balance of contract law.
But, honestly, don't agree to such things in the first place (this person says they didn't, for instance), and don't let people get away with such things when they can't keep their own side of the agreement.
Well, it used to be that nothing trumped the Constitution, but that seems to have changed too.
A predecessor to the United States already tried this. It was an abject failure. Did you know that rich people who think "someone" should fund the government almost always mean "someone else, obviously, I've got yachts to buy" ?
Did you know that rich people who think "someone" should fund the government almost always mean "someone else, obviously, I've got yachts to buy" ?
I haven't noticed that being rich had an effect on that particular mindset. The point of government is to give me free shit. Having me actually pay for that defeats the purpose - whether I'm rich or poor.
Ding Ding Ding Ding
You have identified the fundamental problem with our system of government.
Couple the principle of free shit with that of lack of term limits and fiat money and I am amazed we have gotten this far.
They print it right now with reckless abandon. Its not enough. This nation, even with its recognition as a world reserve currency provider, is still sinking ever deeper in debt.
We have grown dependent on freebies and handouts as our government tries to "domesticate" its citizenry into the role of owned beasts of burden.
Its now at the point if the government handouts cease, there will be rioting in the street that would be remind anyone of the kind of violence one ususally sees in the Middle East.
So America, prior to Roosevelt is your idea of paradise.... I gotta love you right wingers trying to repeal the 20th century as if the 19th century was some kind of utopia.
It's because the Right doesn't believe in Freedom or Liberty. They believe in power and control and more importantly being able to decide what rights other people have based on their socioeconomic status.
"We have grown dependent on freebies and handouts as our government tries to "domesticate" its citizenry into the role of owned beasts of burden."
What freebies and handouts would these be? By developed nation standards we do not spend that much on social welfare programs.
Can anyone comment reliably on whether this strategy actually holds up in the US? Here in the UK, I would expect that knowingly and deliberately running a company into the dust like that would be grounds for piercing the corporate veil.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
EU....electronics connections
You are actually complaining about things like the rule that phones must be chargeable over mini USB?
Apple's refusal to do this properly is one of the reasons I have a different kind of phone, despite happily using their computers.
This rule is a seriously good move, allowing you to be near certain that your phone will be chargeable when you are at a friend's house without your charger.
Corporations would never do this without being forced. In fact they would do the opposite, and deliberately use mutually incompatible charger connections.
It might be fun for you to take a vacation to a country with no building codes, no food inspectors, no labeling laws, no noise bylaws, no courts to enforce contracts, and all the other "freedom surprresing" rules. Then you should read Hobbs, Mills, and Locke so that you understand exactly why it is that we are more free with street lights then without. One could easily argue that a red street light is a gross violation of your liberty by the gubberment. But do your really want to live in a city without street lights? If you want to discuss the nuances of spefic laws and how balance between personal liberty and common good, there are many people who would love to have that talk. And they would respect your views. But if all you say is that all government and taxes are bad, you will quite rightly be dismissed as an idiot not worthy of listening to. This is the proplem with the tea party. All the valid viewpoints of the right are lost in the noise of all the nonesense.
Because you're thinking maintenance costs as entitlements. You're so used to living in a peaceful, lawful society you think it's the natural state of things rather than something that was won by ensuring Joe Beggar has options besides starving or mugging you. Or maybe you're simply subconsciously assuming the opportunities inherent in frontier period America still exist today, and any disenfranchised person can simply go West and grab some land to farm.
Or, to put it another way: Breaking Bad Canada.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.