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United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

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Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#91

Post by sitkack »

394549 wrote: post #36
Someone1234 wrote: post #7

I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts. Plus they're outright wrong that it constitutes "fraud," if for no other reason than the person skipping additional legs didn't profit from it, instead they simply limited UA's ability to further profit off of their travel. If this was "fraud" then any other airline discount or saving would be too. Shop around for the cheapest pric…

> I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts. I wonder if they've snuck in a mandatory binding arbitration clause into their contract, and if that would cover disputes about false debts. Even if the false debts were totally illegal, arbitration could make it impractical to challenge them.

Do you are saying one can force arbitration for an _illegal_ act? That sounds wrong on every level.

Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#92

Post by Someone1234 »

otterley wrote: post #90
Someone1234 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intent need not be verbally communicated; any conduct that is recognized as a representation is sufficient. Indeed. You're arguing that the mere act of buying is and of itself a representation, which is erroneous. The whole rest of your arguments fall apart because that one core detail is wrong. > It absolutely holds up, in the same way that clicking an "I agree" button in an online transaction is a representation…

> Indeed. You're arguing that the mere act of buying is and of itself a representation, which is erroneous. It's not the purchase that is the representation. It is the communication that you want to fly to a particular city by placing it in the destination field or by telling it to the ticket agent. I'm tired of arguing this to amateurs; take it to a judge and try it yourself. I'll bring the popcorn.

> It is the communication that you want to fly to a particular city by placing it in the destination field or by telling it to the ticket agent.

By that logic even searching for tickets without purchasing them could be argued as "fraud." Since even putting something in the destination field is, according to your argument, a material representation of intent. None of this holds up.

> I'm tired of arguing this to amateurs

Please review the Hacker News Guidelines:

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Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#93

Post by otterley »

Someone1234 wrote: post #89
otterley wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Purchasing a good or service with multiple components is not, in and of itself, a representation to the seller of intent to use all the components. Do you have a legal citation for this? I'm unaware of any law that supports this assertion. In any event, the representation in question is "I want to fly from city A to city B." It's pretty reasonable for an airline to conclude that when a passenger makes this request,…

> Do you have a legal citation for this? I'm unaware of any law that supports this assertion. One could argue the same about every post you've made on this topic thus far. You're arguing that simply the act of buying something is a representation, which can then result in misrespections ala fraud, but you've provided no legal citations and the one citation you have provided was about contractual agreements which aren…

The reason I'm not citing anything is because there's nothing to cite. The (mis)representation in this case is crystal clear: "I want to fly to city B."

Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#94

Post by otterley »

Someone1234 wrote: post #92
otterley wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Indeed. You're arguing that the mere act of buying is and of itself a representation, which is erroneous. It's not the purchase that is the representation. It is the communication that you want to fly to a particular city by placing it in the destination field or by telling it to the ticket agent. I'm tired of arguing this to amateurs; take it to a judge and try it yourself. I'll bring the popcorn.

> It is the communication that you want to fly to a particular city by placing it in the destination field or by telling it to the ticket agent. By that logic even searching for tickets without purchasing them could be argued as "fraud." Since even putting something in the destination field is, according to your argument, a material representation of intent. None of this holds up. > I'm tired of arguing this to amate…

> By that logic even searching for tickets without purchasing them could be argued as "fraud." Since even putting something in the destination field is, according to your argument, a material representation of intent.

If you search for tickets with no intent to purchase, it's plausibly an element of fraud, but it's not fraud. The additional elements (reliance and detriment) aren't met yet. Once the purchase is complete and the rest of the events occur (i.e. intentionally abandoning travel), then all the remaining elements are fulfilled and a plausible fraud claim can commence.

Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#95

Post by dragonwriter »

otterley wrote: post #83
dragonwriter wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Putting an origin and a destination in a form and asking for the price is a clear representation of intent, not to mention buying said ticket. It's a clear representation of intent to purchase the ticket. Whether it is a representation of intent to use every leg of travel included as part of that ticket is...at best, a point on which you have provided no supporting evidence, reasoning, or case law. I think its pret…

> Whether it is a representation of intent to use every leg of travel included as part of that ticket is...at best, a point on which you have provided no supporting evidence, reasoning, or case law. You're trying to find a loophole that, as a former Federal court intern, I find extremely unlikely to persuade any reasonable judge. When you declare your destination to be ILM in the search field, one can reasonably infe…

> You're trying to find a loophole

No, I'm not.

I'm trying to find an actual false representation, and seeing only a false inference of intent to use every leg of travel from a representation of intent to purchase a ticket; testing this as fraud is something which you seem to admit would see every purchase of an aggregate good or service (the example you specifically addressed elsewhere in the thread being fast food value meals) priced below the price of some proper subset of their components as actionably fraudulent (if not always worth the effort) if the intent was not to use every purchased component but only to save money compared to individually purchasing the components.

Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#96

Post by otterley »

cft wrote: post #85
otterley wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point of this debate? Only the fictional McDonald's in your fictional scenario knows. It's an unlikely situation to begin with, so let's stick to the facts at hand.

We bought a Juniper router on sale for $120,000 and did not use some of its functionality. A base model without this functionality was offered at $150,000 by the same salesperson. I can get the quotes and the invoice. Can Juniper force us to pay the difference and report to D&B?

No, what's your point?

Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#97

Post by cft »

cft wrote: post #85
otterley wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point of this debate? Only the fictional McDonald's in your fictional scenario knows. It's an unlikely situation to begin with, so let's stick to the facts at hand.

We bought a Juniper router on sale for $120,000 and did not use some of its functionality. A base model without this functionality was offered at $150,000 by the same salesperson. I can get the quotes and the invoice. Can Juniper force us to pay the difference and report to D&B?

Can't respond due to nesting depth. But I fail to see the difference between my company buying a more expensive model for less and not using the advanced functionality, and them ditching the last leg.

Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#98

Post by otterley »

dragonwriter wrote: post #95
otterley wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether it is a representation of intent to use every leg of travel included as part of that ticket is...at best, a point on which you have provided no supporting evidence, reasoning, or case law. You're trying to find a loophole that, as a former Federal court intern, I find extremely unlikely to persuade any reasonable judge. When you declare your destination to be ILM in the search field, one can reasonably infe…

> You're trying to find a loophole No, I'm not. I'm trying to find an actual false representation, and seeing only a false inference of intent to use every leg of travel from a representation of intent to purchase a ticket; testing this as fraud is something which you seem to admit would see every purchase of an aggregate good or service (the example you specifically addressed elsewhere in the thread being fast food…

I'm going to say this one last time.

The false representation is "I intend to fly to city B." That's it. Nothing else. It's not "I intend to use all components of a series of segments that would get me to city B" as you suggest.

You're making the analysis more complicated than it is, and that's why you would fail to persuade a court.

Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#99

Post by otterley »

cft wrote: post #97
cft wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We bought a Juniper router on sale for $120,000 and did not use some of its functionality. A base model without this functionality was offered at $150,000 by the same salesperson. I can get the quotes and the invoice. Can Juniper force us to pay the difference and report to D&B?

Can't respond due to nesting depth. But I fail to see the difference between my company buying a more expensive model for less and not using the advanced functionality, and them ditching the last leg.

We're talking about whether the actions here constitute fraud. Take your example and test your actions against the elements I posted above, and see whether a plausible case can be made. I don't think they fit, so that's why I said no.

Re: United Airlines Threatens to Engage Collections for Passengers Who Skip Segments

#100

Post by mchannon »

Someone1234 wrote: post #69
mchannon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If United Airlines decided to assess what they later define as the fair market price of the tickets thrown away, none of these bullet points would apply. If you rent a car or motel room and you smoke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee. Keep your rental truck an extra day, they can charge you a fee. If you rent a Uber or Lyft and puke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee. The FCRA is completely irr…

> The FCRA is completely irrelevant to the topic here, because it's inapplicable to the above examples and United would argue they are similarly not violating it. Nobody said they were violating it. The topic was that they would be violating it if they submitted their fictional debts to a credit rating agency or to a collections agent. Therefore they're never going to make good on their threats, because UA knows this…

Those "debts" uncollected are just as much real to a credit agency or a bill collector as a late truck rental or motel overstay. I'm pretty sure there's some forced arbitration language in their contract of carriage, so the recourse you're counting on in practice just isn't there.

If you keep a rental truck an extra day, it may or may not disadvantage the rental company. You might be saving them storage costs because their small lot is already full, or you may be scaring off a customer because they are out of stock of the truck size wanted on the extra day. Or it may make no difference at all.

United's point (which I disagree with in its entirety) is that reserving the seat then abandoning it deprives United of the ability to get a good price for it from a customer who instead books with say, Delta, because Delta has room enough to sell at a lower price point. Yes, that's less profit than they would've liked, but McDonald's can say the same ("less profit than we would've liked) after an armed robbery cleans out their cash registers; doesn't mean it's legal.

A slightly less inane argument is that United, finding its thrown-away flight prematurely full, will now fly a more expensive 737 instead of a CRJ to accommodate more passengers. Then, finding the plane full of no-shows, United suffers damages in the form of higher leasing, fuel, insurance, and labor costs, because of a false representation on the person(s) booking the extra ticket.

This argument only exists because airlines make private resale of tickets impossible. Fix that and both sides will have less reason to kvetch about this.

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