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Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

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

#131

Post by netcan »

rmc wrote: post #111
netcan wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cla…

Interesting. Thanks.

Some more context:

   defines the principle of unfair:
   - If a contractual term has not been 
   individually negotiated *and*
   - the term causes significant imbalance 
   in the parties rights and obligations, 
   *then*
   - the term is contrary to the requirement of good faith.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Terms_in_Consumer_Contra...

It seems UK law is trying to define the principle of "unfair contract" in terms of "good faith," an existing and longstanding principle in contracts. Makes sense, but I don't think this is the best approach. (a) It just leaves an opening for creating consumer protection rules regarding what is and sin't fair. (b) There's still no reason not to keep adding stuff to your TOS or whatever.

I think it would be better if the law just didn't recognise contracts that are clearly out of place and don't really represent and agreement between parties.

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

#132

Post by jackmaney »

reduce wrote: post #125
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…

I'll just put this here, since I can't edit my previous comment: Thanks for all the downvotes for sharing a differing life experience, you who downvoted. You shouldn't downvote just because you disagree. Hacker news is so hostile. By the way, I wasn't talking about Briton, Germany, France or any of Western Europe.

I didn't downvote your earlier comment (because I'm not able to downvote, yet), but I certainly flagged this comment.

What, exactly, do you think you're adding to the discussion at hand by vomiting out such tripe?

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

#133

Post by jackmaney »

reduce wrote: post #130
justincormack wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend you leave HN until you grow up.

Joining in name calling and hostility under your real name? Not a smart move, guy.

Not-so-subtly threatening others is definitely not a smart move.

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

#134

Post by ajuc »

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…

UK is in EU, so there are illegal clauses in contracts and I think that should be covered by these (but IANAL).

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

#135

Post by tristor »

askinakhan wrote: post #95
netcan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One test could be proportionality. If the contract is in regards to a loan, major purchase or similar spending time and money understanding the implications of the policy is reasonable. With Siri, I don't propose anything. I am simply stating the obvious. As an owner of an ipad, I have not really agreed to anything with Apple. They are pretending like we have an agreement, but we don't. If people really needed to rea…

Don't you think that the reason your click doesn't denote agreement is because of how we have evolved and adjusted over time? The process of agreeing to terms and conditions has become subconscious. Although I agree that the contract between Apple and the buyer is essentially worthless, it has only become worthless because of how consumer habits have evolved therefore essentially making our clicks non-consensual. I c…

I think you've got a point there, but also it's important to not discount that for a contract to truly be valid that there are 5 key points that have to be in place. (Note, IANAL)

1) Intention to create legal relations 2) An offer 3) An acceptance 4) Consideration 5) Capacity to agree

The issue with "click-through" TCs and other forms of agreements is that they do not have consideration, they cannot ensure capacity to agree, and they're presented to someone who doesn't have the intent to form legal relations.

Unfortunately, in some cases "clickwrap" and "shrinkwrap" EULAs and TCs have been upheld by the court system (for reasons unbeknownst to me), in others they've been put down. Recently, regarding the Zappos user agreement the courts determined that their "browsewrap" TCs were not valid. http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2012/10/how_zappos_user...

The biggest problem with these types of agreements isn't that the law needs to change, it's that the courts are upholding things and establishing a positive precedent for things which are clearly not legal even to a layman. This is similar to the situation with software patents, where patent law clearly does not cover software, copyright does, but companies are having them issued anyway and the courts are treating them as valid.

So, yeah, we're lazy and we've developed habits of just clicking "Okay" or "Agree" to get that message out of our way so we can move on with our life, but that's because any reasonable person would not even remotely consider needing a contract to utilize their phone beyond potentially signing an agreement with the carrier. Most of the TCs on software are trying to use contract to remove rights you actually have under copyright law or to subtly get you to agree to giving up information or other rights you may have as a consumer. In many ways, it's arguable that in common case circumstances such as installing an app or using a phone or computer, it shouldn't be legal for you to even give these rights up. A bigger piece is that simply many of the people utilizing phones are underage, so cannot legally consent to a contract.

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

#136

Post by rmc »

reduce wrote: post #123
rmc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an EU law. God bless the EU's consumer rights campaign.

EU doesn't exactly make law. They make more of suggestions. Some of the countries do the drastic opposite of the EU "laws", even if on paper they're saying they don't. For example, many types of racial discrimination are technically illegal in many EU countries. But look at what actually gets enforced, it's unfortunately made to look like a huge joke.

> "EU doesn't exactly make law. They make more of suggestions."

(a) The EU can make "Regulations" which come into force as laws in each member state. But those are rare.

(b) ... The more common form is "Directive", and member states are legally obligated to implement into national laws. This is effectivly "EU law".

(c) ... membership of the EU, also requires membership of the Council of Europe, and European Convention of Human Rights, and European Court of Human Rights, who can make judgements against a member state to force them to do things.

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

#137

Post by mnw21cam »

icebraining wrote: post #75
acabrahams wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better." Credit card charges that are pull-based are generally a bad thing, but not all pull-based payments are bad for consumers. For example, the Direct Debit scheme in the UK requires the consumer to be notified 5 working days before payment is taken, and the consumer has the right to get a refund from the bank without dispute; it is then the bank's jo…

I don't see how is that direct debit system better for consumers than what we have here in Portugal, where the consumer is the one initiating the debit authorization (using a code provided by the merchant).

Because it would be unfortunate if one were to accidentally forget to authorise one's mortgage payment to be paid for a few months, only to find oneself repossessed. Direct debit allows a regular bill payment to be forgotten about, but with the protection that you are informed well in advance of any changes (for instance if the mortgage interest rate goes up).

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

#138

Post by reduce »

jackmaney wrote: post #133
reduce wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joining in name calling and hostility under your real name? Not a smart move, guy.

Not-so-subtly threatening others is definitely not a smart move.

Then you're saying maybe all three of us aren't so smart? No argument here :)

I'm not claiming to be smart, but I'm not going to hesitate for a second to call out people who start putting others down, no matter what.

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

#139

Post by [deleted] »

jackmaney wrote: post #132
reduce wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just put this here, since I can't edit my previous comment: Thanks for all the downvotes for sharing a differing life experience, you who downvoted. You shouldn't downvote just because you disagree. Hacker news is so hostile. By the way, I wasn't talking about Briton, Germany, France or any of Western Europe.

I didn't downvote your earlier comment (because I'm not able to downvote, yet), but I certainly flagged this comment. What, exactly, do you think you're adding to the discussion at hand by vomiting out such tripe?

[deleted]

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

#140

Post by icebraining »

mnw21cam wrote: post #137
icebraining wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how is that direct debit system better for consumers than what we have here in Portugal, where the consumer is the one initiating the debit authorization (using a code provided by the merchant).

Because it would be unfortunate if one were to accidentally forget to authorise one's mortgage payment to be paid for a few months, only to find oneself repossessed. Direct debit allows a regular bill payment to be forgotten about, but with the protection that you are informed well in advance of any changes (for instance if the mortgage interest rate goes up).

If your house gets repossessed after missing a payment, you have something very wrong with your legal system. Not even my $5 VPS gets repossessed after missing a payment.
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