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Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

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Re: Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

#21

Post by stevespang »

Well, these TOS will be soon adopted by all other startups if they have not already.

Craig's already has excessive fines / fees in their TOS, good reason I NEVER give any of these digital devils my REAL credit card.

They are all given a prepaid card for like no more than $100, if they ever refuse to take it I refuse any further business with them. I cut off Google AdWords and send them to the bottom of the ocean for refusing my gift card. Will do the same to any others. I discovered all my competitors merely using SEO, nobody using AdWords, heck, I don't need that crap.

Re: Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

#22

Post by pdkl95 »

ShroudedNight wrote: post #10
_v7gu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way this is going to hold up in any kind of court. A 50-100$ fine might have flown under the radar, but 1000$ is enough incentive for taking this to a small claims court.

> There's no way this is going to hold up in any kind of court. The terms of service also include a binding arbitration clause. In my limited understanding (Not a lawyer), how the arbitrators come to their conclusion need not have any basis in law, and in the vast majority of cases, and will not get reexamined by a real court. I fear there is a real possibility for someone to be forced through a Kafkaesque nightmare…

Interesting... the arbitration clause includes a clause that might (if I recall correctly) be a response to a case where the person making the complaint ran out of money (Arbitration filing fees (and the arbitrators hourly fee) tend to be much more expensive than regular court). A higher court eventually ruled that requiring excessive fees to resolve a disagreement wasn't constitutio9nal (equal protection?), and the case was allowed to restart in regular court. Basically you could agree to arbitration, but you couldn't agree to terms that completely blocked any path to justice.

Which, again if I recall correctly, is why companies started adding clauses like this to their arbitration agreements:

> If the arbitrator finds that you cannot afford to pay AAA’s filing, administrative, hearing and/or other fees and you cannot obtain a waiver from AAA, Wag! will pay them for you.

The company doesn't have to worry you might fall back to the regular court if they ensure the fees are paid. This couod keep you in arbitration, but this is a double-sided weapon: the company agreed to pay potentially many thousands of dollars in arbitration fees. Even this stupid $1000 termination fee wouldn't justify paying for arbitration. The company would be very strongly incentivized to settle quickly, before they are required to pay $2k filing fees and $400+ per hour arbitrator fees..

(I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. Talk to an actual lawyer about the specific TOS for proper advice!)

Also, some interesting language right after that promise to pay arbitration fees:

> In addition, Wag! will reimburse all such AAA’s filing, administrative, hearing and/or other fees for proceedings involving claims totaling less than $10,000 unless the arbitrator determines the claims are frivolous. Wag! will not seek attorneys' fees and costs in arbitration unless the arbitrator determines your claims are frivolous.

Re: Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

#23

Post by rwmj »

I'm certainly not defending it, but these clauses can also be found in UK rental contracts made by estate agents. The clause will usually state that if you continue in the house after the term of the contract without renewing through the agency (and paying their exorbitant annual fees again) they will charge you a "finders fee" on the basis that you found the landlord through them originally.

No idea on the legality of it, but I guess it's likely legal since rental contracts are things that you read through and can even negotiate and amend, quite unlike the "contracts" that you click through when you sign up to a dog walking service.

Re: Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

#24

Post by bryanrasmussen »

colmvp wrote: post #11
goldcd wrote: post #9

I'm just imagining one of the wag investors asking "What's to stop your walker who lives nearby the dog's owner, just doing the walk independently with the person they've built trust with?" And the answer is "you have a shitty business model and this should have killed it years ago"

I don't know. Both Wag and Rover have fund-raised $300M from investors. I would think they'd have responded to that line of questioning at least once.

the answer would have to be that doing so would benefit the walker short term but over the long term would lead to them losing business because Wag would track the lost business and as such disqualify the walker from any more Wag business, thus walkers would not cheat on wag because wag would catch them doing it - probably by using something that they would call "machine learning" and "suspicious behavior tracking" that will also be "patent-able, someday"

Re: Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

#25

Post by Spooky23 »

colmvp wrote: post #11
goldcd wrote: post #9

I'm just imagining one of the wag investors asking "What's to stop your walker who lives nearby the dog's owner, just doing the walk independently with the person they've built trust with?" And the answer is "you have a shitty business model and this should have killed it years ago"

I don't know. Both Wag and Rover have fund-raised $300M from investors. I would think they'd have responded to that line of questioning at least once.

They probably waved it off.

Since their solution is to sue their customers and affiliates in increments of $1,000, sounds like a pretty dumb business model.

Re: Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

#26

Post by rwmj »

chrisseaton wrote: post #12
BooneJS wrote: post #7

If I recall correctly, when an employer signs up with a headhunter service to bring resumes, you're also agreeing to a 1 year term of exclusivity. Often resumes are shared without a name or other basic identifying information until you agree to meet with them. If you end up hiring them anytime from then to 1 year out, you pay the headhunter their fee. Seems fair, only because the headhunter needs to make a buck. Base…

> Seems fair, only because the headhunter needs to make a buck. Seems like a relationship built on deep mutual mistrust! I spoke to a recruiter once who wouldn't tell me the company she was hiring for, presumably to stop me going directly. But it was a ludicrous situation because of course I'm not going to agree to spend my time interviewing with an unknown company!

I'm wondering how that would even work. Do they blindfold you and take you to a mystery location!?

Re: Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

#28

Post by traek »

pdkl95 wrote: post #22
ShroudedNight wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no way this is going to hold up in any kind of court. The terms of service also include a binding arbitration clause. In my limited understanding (Not a lawyer), how the arbitrators come to their conclusion need not have any basis in law, and in the vast majority of cases, and will not get reexamined by a real court. I fear there is a real possibility for someone to be forced through a Kafkaesque nightmare…

Interesting... the arbitration clause includes a clause that might (if I recall correctly) be a response to a case where the person making the complaint ran out of money (Arbitration filing fees (and the arbitrators hourly fee) tend to be much more expensive than regular court). A higher court eventually ruled that requiring excessive fees to resolve a disagreement wasn't constitutio9nal (equal protection?), and the…

An interesting case of a company shooting itself in the foot via forced arbitration is Chipotle. They convinced a court to exclude employees who agreed to arbitration from a class action, so those employees each filed individually (helped by the class action lawyers), which has turned out to be vastly more expensive for Chipotle.

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-chipo...

Re: Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

#29

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

chrisseaton wrote: post #12
BooneJS wrote: post #7

If I recall correctly, when an employer signs up with a headhunter service to bring resumes, you're also agreeing to a 1 year term of exclusivity. Often resumes are shared without a name or other basic identifying information until you agree to meet with them. If you end up hiring them anytime from then to 1 year out, you pay the headhunter their fee. Seems fair, only because the headhunter needs to make a buck. Base…

> Seems fair, only because the headhunter needs to make a buck. Seems like a relationship built on deep mutual mistrust! I spoke to a recruiter once who wouldn't tell me the company she was hiring for, presumably to stop me going directly. But it was a ludicrous situation because of course I'm not going to agree to spend my time interviewing with an unknown company!

My favorite one is just typing the stuff they asked for into google and finding the original job posting and going 'so it's Chewy?'

Re: Wag's new TOS charges users $1000 for going off Wag

#30

Post by xkcd-sucks »

ShroudedNight wrote: post #10
_v7gu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way this is going to hold up in any kind of court. A 50-100$ fine might have flown under the radar, but 1000$ is enough incentive for taking this to a small claims court.

> There's no way this is going to hold up in any kind of court. The terms of service also include a binding arbitration clause. In my limited understanding (Not a lawyer), how the arbitrators come to their conclusion need not have any basis in law, and in the vast majority of cases, and will not get reexamined by a real court. I fear there is a real possibility for someone to be forced through a Kafkaesque nightmare…

I am also not a lawyer, and wonder how far arbitration stretches: If an anbiter determines that damages are owed, and the person doesn't pay, does that dealing with that revert to the courts? Who enforces the arbitration -- The police? If an arbiter makes a decision which is clearly illegal, will a court refuse to enforce it?
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