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Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

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Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#231

Post by tzs »

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #186

It isn't meta's fault the system is set up to incentivize this behavior, and it isn't wrong of them to do what is in their best interest. Now that we've discovered the loophole just legislate it closed. 1. make the loser pay court fees or arbitration fines 2a. the court fees grow by some percentage with each loss over the last year. lose 1, pay 1x; lose 100 pay 10x etc 2b. the court fees are proportional to the loser…

> make the loser pay court fees or arbitration fines

The big problem with that in the US is that many complaints that much of the rest of the world handles by having some government agency deal with them are handled in the US by the complainant having to sue in civil court.

This would discourage many people with legitimate complaints from suing unless they have an open and shut case.

Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#232

Post by jjav »

BonoboIO wrote: post #217
jjav wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Small claims court does get a company's attention. Different topic, but I find not enough people are aware of the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) complaint process. If some financial-related company wrongs you and you can't get through to support, file a complaint. Suddenly they listen and contact you back. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/

Why do the companies care? Huge fines?

In the case of CFPB, while individual complaints aren't necessarily resolved (not sure what percentage might get solved, I guess it is low), they keep stats on the quantity and kind of complaints they're getting for a given company. If there's a consistent pattern of misleading or mishandling customer transactions (I don't know what the thresholds might be) the CFPB can eventually show up at the company HQ, make themselves at home and start asking a lot of questions.

That's why it is important to report all unfair financial practices by these companies that have no support and make unilateral decisions that you can't appeal. While your case might not be resolved directly, it contributes to these stats that eventually lead to regulations that stop the abusive behavior.

Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#233

Post by jjav »

rendaw wrote: post #225
matthewgrossman wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to CFPB My account at Venmo was banned with zero explanation and no support would talk to me on the phone. I submitted a complaint to the CFPB, got a phone response within 2 weeks, and was promptly unbanned.

Is that a violation of something? I thought the TOS gave them the ability to freely ban anyone at will.

The typical response from companies is indeed to hide behind their TOS. You can read the public complaint data:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-compl...

But if they show a pattern of misleading consumers, stealing money and blocking complaints by hiding behind an abusive TOS, eventually if enough people complain that can lead to rulings that they can't get away with that anymore. So it is important to file every complaint.

In an ocean of government dysfunction, the CFPB is quite a beacon of hope. An agency that takes citizen input, listens to it and gathers statistics on abusive trends and eventually, if there is enough evidence, acts on it.

Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#234

Post by Dylan16807 »

thegrimmest wrote: post #123
int_19h wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, ensuring fair trading practices is precisely the area where government needs to be most actively involved in economic matters. What is the downside of clamping down on borderline fraud, exactly?

What do you mean "fair"? To me the idea of free/consensual exchange (backed by court-mediated disputes and bankruptcy protection) most resembles "fair". If you like a service, use it. If you don't, don't. The (quite small) risk of falling through the cracks and ending up hard stuck is just something one risk-accepts when signing up to a service and maintaining important data there. Your risk management is entirely yo…

Their main point was about software purchases, where consensual exchange needs the ability to refund when it doesn't work. It's good to impose refunds.

> The (quite small) risk of falling through the cracks and ending up hard stuck is just something one risk-accepts when signing up to a service and maintaining important data there.

Why should it be? Fuck that!

> I would never want a paternalistic government dictating when and how I interact with the market. Why do you want to impose it on me?

The government wouldn't dictate your actions at all here.

Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#235

Post by robertlagrant »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #215
bmitc wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly it. These corporations are leeches on society.

The economy will continue to improve the more this leeching can be minimised and ultimately eliminated. Interest rates have effectively forced Silicon Valley VC to stop funding more leeches, but society is still left with some truly gigantic ones to deal with; they have embedded themselves into the system. Their removal will take time, and patience. Lots of work to do.

How are they leeching?

Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#236

Post by robertlagrant »

throwawaycities wrote: post #208
dfadsadsf wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says that small claim court has $100 filing fees - considering that every case is heard for 10 minutes, it sounds like small claim court should be able to mostly if not completely self-fund.

At the scale of these tech companies and the number of customer service issues the courts would be overrun and this hurts the other cases. Courts can’t scale, even at $100 per small claims case filing fee they are losing money, Courts aren’t meant to be profitable businesses nor even self sustaining, they provide a public function and service paid for by tax dollars.

I doubt many people would pay $100 to have their customer service question heard. No one's doing that for "how do I reset my password?"

Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#237

Post by noelwelsh »

thegrimmest wrote: post #128
c-linkage wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this appears as a way to outsource customer service to an external entity funded by a cash flow to which Meta does not need to contribute. The courts are always going to exist, Meta is always paying its lawyers, so why bother hiring extra people to staff a support line? And by making support have to go through the legal system you've already cut out 90% of the support calls you would normally take. Financially,…

No company has (nor should have) any mandate to "customer service" beyond what the market demands. Dispute resolution is what courts are for . Meta already pays taxes that fund courts. If courts are unable to keep up with demand generated by the modern digital economy, let's fix that . Making losers pay court fees would go a very long way towards solving the problem. Re: Walmart, the other option is to just cut the a…

I'm really annoyed everytime I go to buy groceries and I can't find any bread cut with alum and plaster of Paris, or sweets coloured with lead.

Actually, I'm not. To think that everything should be mediated by markets is just typical libertarian capitalism nonsense.

Reputation doesn't scale. Fixing problems with the court with much more expensive that preventing them from happening in the first place. Information and power asymmetries are real.

Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#238

Post by throwaway2037 »

OptionOfT wrote: post #171
jjmarr wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I half-agree with the above, which is that loser-pays is a good system and it's necessary to stop enabling companies. The problem with your theory is that market forces incentivize firms to take action that reduce everyone's profits/benefits so long as the action is individually profitable for the company. Which is why there are "lemon laws" on selling used cars or food regulations. The used car industry as a whole b…

Sidenote: car sales in general are not ethical. When you go to the dealer & talk to a salesperson, and subsequently talk to the $ guy, you will be required to sign a piece of paper stating that you cannot derive ANY claims on what the salesperson told you, except those written down on that form. And that form is empty. Also, I wish there was a nationwide requirement for warranty. Not that I have a problem with sellin…

Most US states have the concept of "Lemon Laws" that provide consumer protection when buy used cars.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_law

That said, this economic paper is pretty legendary at this point: >

Summary: >

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#239

Post by noelwelsh »

thegrimmest wrote: post #140
doctor_eval wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People won't work if they are not able to sustain themselves (calorically) on the pay. A better alternative is simply to require companies to pay a living wage. The outcome is better, because you don’t lose the safety net for those who still need it.

[flagged]

> "Ultra-capitalism" is just the state of nature without the violence.

It's really not. That's the line pushed by Enlightenment thinkers (e.g. Rousseau, Hume) who didn't actually know what they're talking about. A few centuries of anthropology later and we know that a lot of other societies are characterized by mutual aid. One randomly chosen example: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2801707

Re: Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline

#240

Post by blkhawk »

james_marks wrote: post #129
jiggawatts wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They stopped paying their outsourced SIM Card burning and shipping vendor. This isn’t a state in their support database, which dutifully queued up requests as-if everything is fine. Eventually they paid their vendor and the requests got popped off the queue.

Or they were out of stock of a component, but same idea.

for sim cards? thats like running out of dirt.
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