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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

#91

Post by tokenadult »

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 to contracts can dicker until they reach a mutually agreeable deal, or each party can avoid making the deal at all by doing business with someone else.

Contracts have effect in influencing human behavior partly because once in a while a court will enforce a contract against a party trying to weasel out of the contract. But when courts get involved, general constitutional, statutory, and administrative law is brought to bear on the terms of the contract. A court may be very reluctant to enforce a term of a contract that doesn't allow a customer to complain about a company's service. That could be regarded as "against public policy," and public policy can be a judicial ground for NOT enforcing a contract. Moreover, a contract binds its parties, but doesn't bind outsiders who didn't enter into a contract, so a news organization like the BBC can report, "Slimy company attempts to sue its customer for letting consumers know that the company gives bad service," and the contract will not stop that. Parties to form contracts often ask the moon, but the party that drafted the contract language will usually have the terms construed in favor of the OTHER party if the contract is litigated. So I don't worry about this. I look over form contracts as I sign them (as, for example, when I buy an airline ticket or check into a hotel or rent a car) but I also stay aware of actual business practice as experienced by consumers as I buy products and services as a consumer. My most powerful recourse, always, is not to give a slimy company any repeat business, and to tell all my friends through every channel I have that I did (or did not) like a particular company's product or service. Anyone can do the same.

AFTER EDIT: By the way, this is an international news story that I heard on the radio while I was just on a morning drive here in Minnesota, and the latest update is that the hotel has agreed to refund the "fine." I'm trying to find a news story on the Web that verifies that.

http://www.itv.com/news/border/story/2014-11-19/hotel-fines-...

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

#92

Post by adrow »

mychaelangelo wrote: post #6

This happened with a New York hotel. They were trying to charge $500 for bad reviews http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/travel/bad-hotel-review-fi... Thank you internet (Yelp, Tripadvisor) for putting them to shame!

It actually seems to me that they may have copied the idea from that other hotel, the wording is very similar:

From the CNN article:

"Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our Inn, your friends and families may not,"

Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/19/tripadvisor-c...

“Despite the fact that repeat customers and couples love our hotel, your friends and family may not.”

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

#94

Post by tehwalrus »

scott_w wrote: post #45
reduce wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many parts of Europe (among the countries I've worked) the written word of contracts is worshiped as the ultimate authority. What's "the right thing to do" means nothing by comparison. You sign, you're bound by it, unless you put up a massive legal fight. Not only that, but signed contracts are expected to be used vastly more than in the US. It's a bit of a culture shock when you see the sharp difference in this r…

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…

Indeed. Also, under British law, a contract is not enforcible if the person who accepted a signature knows that the contract's preconditions weren't met - for example, if you sign a safety waiver which says "I declare I have not been drinking" and you clearly have, the waiver is void and the fairground are up for damages if you hurt yourself on their ride.

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

#95

Post by askinakhan »

netcan wrote: post #83
icebraining wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others said, clauses like these are already considered null & void and the charge fraudulent, so I don't see this as a particularly good example of why laws must be changed. With regards to very long contracts, and without meaning to defending all instances of them (since some are clearly just meant to obfuscate), how do you separate a contract "designed to not be read" from one that honestly tries to cover all ed…

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 can only state the problem as it's not my place or area or expertise to state the solution but here's my opinion; buyer/seller contracts aren't standardised and therefore when people sign a contract they are not reading through it either because of:

1. Laziness 2. Evolution/Habit

Therefore we need to somehow make it so there isn't asymmetric information between the buyer/seller. This has to accomodate for the habits that have evolved through our evolution and somehow be more explicit to our newly formed habits. A shit suggestion would be: Standardise contracts for certain procedures e.g. getting a hotel room should have a standardised contract but then should have very short appendices that indicate any customisations that the hotel has made. As I said, it's a bad suggestion but i'm sure someone else can and should solve the problem.

Although one question we should ask ourselves... should we re-invent the wheel for outlying situations like this one? Doubt it.

Sorry for typing so much, got bored.

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

#96

Post by andrechile »

DanBC wrote: post #4

The trip advisor page. http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186332-d554701-Re... There were 147 bad reviews before the story broke and these bad reviews are the majority. I'm curious about the dupe detector not spotting duplicates. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629117 Edit: this link is to the mobile site; one links to .com and the third links to .co.uk

wow, indeed, very nasty reviews. The Hotel is up for sale:

http://www.propertysales.com/Listing/Burlington-Road-West-Bl...

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

#97

Post by askinakhan »

mimog wrote: post #46
paublyrne wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trip Advisor is a tech startup. The situation couldn't have occurred without a service like them. The ways businesses try to deal with the ramifications of online reviewing is probably interesting to anyone thinking about innovating in that space.

>> Trip Advisor is a tech startup So a nearly 15 year old company with a billion dollar revenue still qualifies as a startup? >> The situation couldn't have occurred without a service like them Freedom of speech infractions have occurred for way longer than online services have existed. So if someone tweets something stupid/political it should be posted on hackernews as well, simply because tweeting wasn't possible p…

Unless i'm understanding you wrong... Trip Advisor has democratised hotels and yeh people had freedom of speech but not widely accessible freedom of speech. Without Trip Advisor it would be much harder to find someone's opinion on a specific hotel.

Maybe consumers should be democratised too? Shall we assess the quality of a consumer? Do they piss up the hotel walls or do they tidy up before they leave?

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

#98

Post by madaxe_again »

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 starting a business which simply sends spam, with T's and C's in each email which state that by receiving the email you have agreed to become a paying customer, and to pay any fees we demand for "the service", which is receiving the email, which allows you to know that your email is working. The intent of course not being to be another scammer, but to get the law changed.

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

#99

Post by tomcorrigan »

mpweiher wrote: post #48
Swizec wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidepoint: ALL contracts I've ever signed, both in Europe and in US, and across oceans, 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" And really, both here and there, contracts are treated more like guidelines than actual rules. What you agree on with a handshake matters far more. Especially with contracts…

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.

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

scott_w wrote: post #45
reduce wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many parts of Europe (among the countries I've worked) the written word of contracts is worshiped as the ultimate authority. What's "the right thing to do" means nothing by comparison. You sign, you're bound by it, unless you put up a massive legal fight. Not only that, but signed contracts are expected to be used vastly more than in the US. It's a bit of a culture shock when you see the sharp difference in this r…

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…

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