Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 156 posts

Re: Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

#11

Post by jacquesm »

Mandatum wrote: post #9
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone forged my signature on docusign on a pretty official document and I raked them over the coals for it. Highly annoying these services, they don't do even the most basic verification that the person signing really is the person that should be signing.

They do. You just won’t pay for it. When you sign a mortgage or take out a loan and it’s all online, lenders will pay someone to come to your house, take a photo of you, verify it, and then video tape you signing. It’s just not convenient.

I won't pay for it because I don't want to use Docusign.

Re: Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

#13

Post by petesergeant »

baz00 wrote: post #2

Someone did this recently to me i.e. showed me something I'd signed which I didn't. Fortunately this lead to their demise as I am friends with their manager which was unknown by the party in question. Historically I tend to try something on with employment contracts too - I return an unsigned copy to the company. Only 1 out of 6 companies I worked for didn't just stick it in a filing cabinet and forget about it. Ulti…

> I tend to try something on with employment contracts too - I return an unsigned copy to the company.

So you email it back without comment, which shows you received it and understood what it was, and then started work… I suspect that’s binding in many jurisdictions, and the lack of an actual signature is simply an inconvenience

Re: Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

#14

Post by dmix »

bdjeudug wrote: post #8
baz00 wrote: post #2

Someone did this recently to me i.e. showed me something I'd signed which I didn't. Fortunately this lead to their demise as I am friends with their manager which was unknown by the party in question. Historically I tend to try something on with employment contracts too - I return an unsigned copy to the company. Only 1 out of 6 companies I worked for didn't just stick it in a filing cabinet and forget about it. Ulti…

You’re intentionally returning unsigned contacts to employers hoping they don’t notice? Seeing how you’re first action in each of your new jobs is done in bad faith I think I see why you’ve had to fill out six of them…

You could easily get by by saying it was just a mix up and you emailed the wrong PDF. Not saying it's ethical though.

I'm also not really sure which situations an employment contract would really hurt you in tech besides maybe some IP stuff. NDAs are usually separate.

Re: Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

#15

Post by jacquesm »

8organicbits wrote: post #10

> until recently the online tool who.is indicated that the [Polish arbitration court, Pan-Europejski-Sąd-Arbitrażowy] PESA website was set up by Villa Europa itself in September 2021 Quite alarming. Is it normal to charge speakers such high fees? I remember some conferences giving free admission to speakers as encouragement.

No, it's normal to pay speakers or to at least accommodate their expenses. This was just a scam.

Re: Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

#16

Post by dmix »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
Mandatum wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do. You just won’t pay for it. When you sign a mortgage or take out a loan and it’s all online, lenders will pay someone to come to your house, take a photo of you, verify it, and then video tape you signing. It’s just not convenient.

I won't pay for it because I don't want to use Docusign .

Any reason? What about emailed only PDFsS Email is a minor identity validation.

Re: Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

#17

Post by constantly »

dmix wrote: post #14
bdjeudug wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re intentionally returning unsigned contacts to employers hoping they don’t notice? Seeing how you’re first action in each of your new jobs is done in bad faith I think I see why you’ve had to fill out six of them…

You could easily get by by saying it was just a mix up and you emailed the wrong PDF. Not saying it's ethical though. I'm also not really sure which situations an employment contract would really hurt you in tech besides maybe some IP stuff. NDAs are usually separate.

Not that I necessarily agree with the person you’re responding to, but their point seems to be that this is a bad faith action, not that they will get in trouble for it and need to cover it up with further bad faith.

Re: Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

#18

Post by ghaff »

Mandatum wrote: post #9
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone forged my signature on docusign on a pretty official document and I raked them over the coals for it. Highly annoying these services, they don't do even the most basic verification that the person signing really is the person that should be signing.

They do. You just won’t pay for it. When you sign a mortgage or take out a loan and it’s all online, lenders will pay someone to come to your house, take a photo of you, verify it, and then video tape you signing. It’s just not convenient.

I had to do a one-off brokerage (where I don't have a personal representative) transfer fairly recently and, although they loosened up a bit during COVID, they were back to basically requiring me to show up at a brokerage branch in person. In theory, I could have gotten a Medallion Signature from my bank but it turned out they couldn't do it at my local branch and getting their central system to do it failed, so I just drove the 40 minutes or so to a brokerage branch.

This is the problem with things like account recovery. If you really want to minimize social engineering etc., you'll do something requiring a physical presence and various sorts of government issued ID and will probably cost money. And people won't like that. (And the companies won't like it because there's a lot of overhead.)

Re: Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

#19

Post by keltex »

Reminds me of a SPAM email we get quite frequently, the "World Company Register". The attached PDF reads, "To update your company profile, please print, complete and return this form. Updating is free of charge. Only sign if you want to place an insertion."

Then at the bottom in tiny type it says that you've agreed to a 3 year insertion at 995 Euro per year.

I can see small businesses easily falling for this.

Re: Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’

#20

Post by londons_explore »

petesergeant wrote: post #13
baz00 wrote: post #2

Someone did this recently to me i.e. showed me something I'd signed which I didn't. Fortunately this lead to their demise as I am friends with their manager which was unknown by the party in question. Historically I tend to try something on with employment contracts too - I return an unsigned copy to the company. Only 1 out of 6 companies I worked for didn't just stick it in a filing cabinet and forget about it. Ulti…

> I tend to try something on with employment contracts too - I return an unsigned copy to the company. So you email it back without comment, which shows you received it and understood what it was, and then started work… I suspect that’s binding in many jurisdictions, and the lack of an actual signature is simply an inconvenience

Indeed - as soon as you start work, and get paid, then an employment agreement exists between you.

If they emailed you terms beforehand and you still started work, then most courts would take that to indicate your acceptance of the terms.

Post reply on HN