Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review • Hacker News Board

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#111

Post by rmc » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:03 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #76

rmc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU has the "Unfair Contract Terms Directive", which means contracts which are just presented to you as a consumer are not always valid. It lists things are "unfair" and hence not binding. e.g. enablying the seller to alter the terms. When deciding if a contract term is fair, it must be decided on the side of the consumer. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contra... http://eur-lex.europa.eu/leg…

falling on the side of consumers (as we mostly do here in the EU) isn't the right solution either. I don't think this is about a contract being fair. Some laws about legal agreements are ok, but they aren't the tool for this job. At least not in my opinion. I think before you can determine if a contract is fair, you need to determine if a contract is even a contract . If a standard contract is "agreed" between some c…

This law refers to "A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated ... A term shall always be regarded as not individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term ... if an overall assessment of the contract indicates that it is nevertheless a pre-formulated standard contract. .. Where any seller or supplier claims that a standard term has been individually negotiated, the burden of proof in this respect shall be incumbent on him."

Which I think is a fair balance. If a company presents you a big long standard contract that their lawyers due up 5 years ago, then it's not really a contract between 2 equals.

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#112

Post by justincormack » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:03 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #100

scott_w wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what countries you've been in, but British culture is definitely not like that. B2B transactions do have more emphasis on following the rules of the contract, as two businesses are seen as being on a more "even playing field". B2C transactions, however, rely heavily on consumer protection legislations (Sale of Goods Act, Supply of Goods and Services Act, Unfair Contract Terms Act), which recognise that m…

[deleted]

I recommend you leave HN until you grow up.

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#113

Post by madaxe_again » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:05 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #110

madaxe_again wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the note of bullshit contracts... We are about to shell out ~£15k to a recruiter who sent us the CV of someone (completely cold, without the person's consent, or us having any relationship with them) we hired via another recruiter, but a year down the line are pressing a claim, as in their contract, receiving an email from them is deemed acceptance. This is apparently perfectly legal in the UK, and I'm considering…

Really? A judge is actually ordering you to cough up? Can you share any more details?

No, we're fighting via our lawyer, but if it does end up in court, we will likely lose as contract law is pretty strong in the UK - and apparently this is a significant part of this recruiter's business model, so they're well practised at it and have test cases in which they've been victorious.

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#114

Post by mortov » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:08 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #98

netcan wrote: post #47

I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or policy so long that it's impractical to read…

On the note of bullshit contracts... We are about to shell out ~£15k to a recruiter who sent us the CV of someone (completely cold, without the person's consent, or us having any relationship with them) we hired via another recruiter, but a year down the line are pressing a claim, as in their contract, receiving an email from them is deemed acceptance. This is apparently perfectly legal in the UK, and I'm considering…

You need a better lawyer.

If the situation is as you describe, sending unsolicited email and then charging you for receiving it (that's essentially what you're describing) when you have clear evidence you hired via the prior contact with another agency (they have that documented, right ?) is something which can be easily fought - albeit in court with some initial costs if they're going to be ass-ish.

You would win both your case and the legal costs if things are as cut and dried as you suggest.

However, if you replied to the unsolicited email (establishing you saw it) and there is no evidence of the prior agency being before that, you have a more difficult case. My personal experience of two agencies being involved was that the agencies sorted it out amongst themselves how to split the single fee which was paid to one of them - this was in the UK as you seem to be.

Only an experienced lawyer familiar with the details of your situation can properly advise you. I'm curious that you've been advised to settle if you've consulted a lawyer and appraised them of the situation you describe. Normally lawyers like slam-dunks like this.

My experience is recruiters don't send unprompted candidates because, without a prior agreement/contract, they will have difficulties in establishing they made an initial introduction and hence qualify to get paid. Otherwise they can just mailbomb you with millions of name variations and claim they introduced you to everyone on the planet and you owe them $$$$$s. [I think you realize this with your 'proposed' new business venture. ;-) ]

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#115

Post by mortov » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:13 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #113

JonnieCache wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? A judge is actually ordering you to cough up? Can you share any more details?

No, we're fighting via our lawyer, but if it does end up in court, we will likely lose as contract law is pretty strong in the UK - and apparently this is a significant part of this recruiter's business model, so they're well practised at it and have test cases in which they've been victorious.

sender domain please ? I need to update my block list on my mailservers to protect my customers (and myself).

There must be public links/references if this is their business model - care to share those ?

Also, what test cases ? Those are public record in the UK - they are no liablity issues in pointing to matters of public record/factual court records.

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#116

Post by mimog » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:19 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #107

mimog wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are thinking of reddit. HN has submission guidelines.

Which amount to "whatever piques one's intellectual curiocity" and "whatever good hackers like". Apparently this piqued HN users intellectual curiosity and they like it. Besides an intelligent person can have an intelligent discussion about any topic, even Kim Kardassian. And the post is in final analysis about policy, freedom of speech, adapting to the digital age, etc.

>> Which amount to "whatever piques one's intellectual curiocity" and "whatever good hackers like"

It only amounts to that if you completely disregard this part: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. "

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#117

Post by mpweiher » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:26 PM UTC

tomcorrigan wrote: post #99

mpweiher wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have a clause that says "If anything in this contract was missed or is in violation of the law, the law prevails. The contract is ruled by laws of X country" Yeah, I've also seen this in many contracts. It's silly. The law prevails whether you write it in the damn contract or not. That's why it's The Law. (You can also try the opposite test: "If anything in this contract is in violation of the law, this contract prev…

Actually what most of those clauses are about is stating that only the contractual clauses that are inconsistent with the law are to be ignored, as opposed the entire contract being considered void.

Yes, that's a separate bit "Salvatorische Klausel" we call it.

However, I usually see this separately. For example (German):

"Es gilt das BGB". (The BGB is valid) -> No shit, sherlock.

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#118

Post by mpweiher » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:31 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #85

ajuc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The alternative is - expect all the clients to read small print on everyday contracts and interpret it correctly. That would be dumb and would slow economy considerably. Imagine hotel making the contract 200 pages long. Staying for a night at hotel shouldn't require you to hire a lawyer.

What if you declare it up front, in big print. Really. I wonder how many people would still stay. Just put it right above the dotted line on the front page. By signing this receipt and accepting the key to your room you agree you not place a negative review of this facility on any public accessible site.

Still not a chance. Big ink, flashing letters, PA announcements. Same as invisible ink. Courts have a very low opinion of people getting "tricky".

In Germany at least, for example, ALL Click-Through licenses are invalid (last I checked).

A US company I worked for had various (illegal in Germany) data tracking stuff activated. When I pointed this out, they just pointed to the license agreement. Morons. (It was a hardware/software combination, and you only got to the software a long time after you had bought the hardware).

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#119

Post by gadders » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:34 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #91

On the whole, freedom of contract (a characteristic feature of Anglo-American law since that body of law was located only in England) is a feature rather than a bug. Most of what we do each day in Britain, in the United States, and these days around much of the developed world is regulated by private agreements--that is, contracts--rather than by legislation or administrative regulations. That's a good thing. Parties…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525 verifies it.

Re: Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

#120

Post by newuser88273 » Wed, Nov 19, 2014, 2:47 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #76

rmc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU has the "Unfair Contract Terms Directive", which means contracts which are just presented to you as a consumer are not always valid. It lists things are "unfair" and hence not binding. e.g. enablying the seller to alter the terms. When deciding if a contract term is fair, it must be decided on the side of the consumer. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contra... http://eur-lex.europa.eu/leg…

falling on the side of consumers (as we mostly do here in the EU) isn't the right solution either. I don't think this is about a contract being fair. Some laws about legal agreements are ok, but they aren't the tool for this job. At least not in my opinion. I think before you can determine if a contract is fair, you need to determine if a contract is even a contract . If a standard contract is "agreed" between some c…

The whole setup is also about transaction cost; basically a legal cartel to standardize routine consumer transactions, reducing cost (of evaluating and constantly re-evaluating complex contracts for routine business) and risk for all parties.