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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

#61

Post by DanBC »

coldtea wrote: post #28
seanhandley wrote: post #23

Don't think HN is the place for this.

For the last time, it's a community bookmark site! Whatever the HN community votes up, HN is "the place for it".

HN has always said that there are two types of interesting

i) intense but shallow

ii) deep

and that intensely shallow topics should be avoided where possible.

I'm really bad at this. I comment on too many topics that are intensely interesting when I should just ignore them. (I do however try to upvote all the interesting and technical stuff).

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

#62

Post by fatman »

cyphax wrote: post #18
aikah wrote: post #9

I dont understand how this is even legal in Europe.No matter what the contract says.How can this be a legal clause? I dont get it.

I'm not a lawyer and I'm going to appear to play the devil's advocate here, but bear with me and let's say it's not illegal for an agreement to contain such a clause. If it breaks no laws, then why is it illegal? Assuming you have signed an agreement for this knowingly (or at least they presented this agreement to you and it's fair to presume that you've read it before signing it). So what you would have to do is ref…

IAL, and I could imagine this fee getting upheld in at least a few US jurisdictions (with the right judge), leaving consumers to rely solely on the Streisand effect to get satisfaction.

The classic notion of a contract as an expression of the compromises forged in a battle between two sophisticated, represented parties has been replaced by overlawyering, boilerplate, and clickwrap.

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/do-lawyers-actaully-read-boil... (Judge Posner is perhaps the most acclaimed US jurist not on the Supreme Court - a "Law and Economics" pioneer who can roughly be described as libertarian)

What's the solution? Hold consumers responsible for every detail of wordy documents they didn't have the time to read, much less negotiate? Make companies bear the costs of every complaint - real, imagined, or fraudlent - a consumer can dream up? Companies can be cheap and sneaky, and consumers can be petty, stubborn, and stupid.

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

#63

Post by iqonik »

mimog wrote: post #20

Why is this on hackernews?

From the guidelines:

Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

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

#64

Post by rmc »

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…

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/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID...

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

#65

Post by acabrahams »

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…

"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 job to go and get the money bank from the merchant. This latter feature in particular is important, and should be implemented for credit card pre-authorisations as well.

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

#66

Post by rmc »

ascorbic wrote: post #59
reduce wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's probably thinking of some similar situations in the US where certain types of clauses are automatically void. No court appearance needed, no waiting, no nothing. It's as if the clause never existed in the contract, no matter what people sign. For an example of this, see non-compete clauses, for most types of employees in California.

The UK has similar rules. In this case it would be the Unfair Terms In Consumer Contracts Regulations that would apply, and which these clearly breach. http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/consumer_e/consumer_pr...

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

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

#67

Post by netcan »

binarymax wrote: post #57
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…

We live in a culture of liability and a culture of blame. This is a symptom of legal liability running the governments and corporate world. Change the culture and this problem will go away. Not an easy task.

That's definitely a problem too, but I don't think that's the whole reason. I think this is an extrapolation of contracts which are a good thing where appropriate. An agreement between parties, ideally with input from both that everyone understands and agrees to.

Now, we make dozens of 10k word (or 100k word) agreements every week that no one understands. It would cost thousands or tens of thousands to understand them. You can't read them all and even if you did, you would find that being the odd one out in this regard left you unable to get a hotel room, phone or read a newspaper. So, we lean on standards, norms, consumer protection laws and to keep us safe from these damned contracts.

Common law (or my lay understanding of it) suggests that there is grounds for completely invalidating a "contract" which no one expects any one to read. If either party don't know what they're agreeing to, it's not a contract.

I'f you hand me a one page, large font bullet pointed list of things to agree to, that is something you expect me to read. If you hand me a 40 page small print book while I'm standing at a counter with people behind me, it's obvious what is going on.

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

#69

Post by rmc »

mpweiher wrote: post #25
cyphax wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer and I'm going to appear to play the devil's advocate here, but bear with me and let's say it's not illegal for an agreement to contain such a clause. If it breaks no laws, then why is it illegal? Assuming you have signed an agreement for this knowingly (or at least they presented this agreement to you and it's fair to presume that you've read it before signing it). So what you would have to do is ref…

Dunno about the UK, but in Germany "surprising" clauses in everyday contracts such as this with consumers are generally illegal. End of story. If this got as far as a court, case would be over in seconds. Read opening statements, have laugh, verdict, good day. Also don't know which way the EU swings on this, my guess would be towards the German position.

> Also don't know which way the EU swings on this, my guess would be towards the German position.

The EU law from 1993 "Unfair Contract Terms Directive" is probably where it comes from. So all over EU.

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

#70

Post by rmc »

cyphax wrote: post #18
aikah wrote: post #9

I dont understand how this is even legal in Europe.No matter what the contract says.How can this be a legal clause? I dont get it.

I'm not a lawyer and I'm going to appear to play the devil's advocate here, but bear with me and let's say it's not illegal for an agreement to contain such a clause. If it breaks no laws, then why is it illegal? Assuming you have signed an agreement for this knowingly (or at least they presented this agreement to you and it's fair to presume that you've read it before signing it). So what you would have to do is ref…

> Assuming you have signed an agreement for this knowingly (or at least they presented this agreement to you and it's fair to presume that you've read it before signing it)

In the EU, not all contracts that you read and sign are legal, e.g. if it's a contact you can't influence, and it significantly alters the balance of rights to your deteriment.

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