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 it, is a clear sign this institution is broken.
We need new laws. Not the vague hodgepodge we have now. Policies designed to not be read need to be considered completely invalid. This credit card charge should be treated like any merchant taking a card and then charging £100 more than expected. Fraud, theft, some mild form of racketeering, whatever that falls under.
I think the most common abuse of this sort is "out of contract" telecom charges where using 2X the contract number of minutes or data could result in over 10X (often over 100x) the cost of the original contract.
I'm not sure how exactly the laws need to work, but there is obvious stretching of the systems well past the point of ridiculous. An iphone privacy policy or a hotel "sign this" agreement is not free actors contracting freely.
Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better. If hotels need some sort of escrow, then it should be an escrow.
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.
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 edge cases and explain exactly what the terms are?
Some products - like the iPhone - are very complex. It's not easy to describe what information is gathered, with whom it is shared and how you can withdraw your consent, for each feature (Location, Siri, messaging, calls, etc) without a very long document. What do you propose they should do?
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.
"Policies designed to not be read need to be considered completely invalid."
I think this is key. The law assumes that contracts are a big deal for both parties, that they are relatively rare, and that they're given attention on both sides.
But it's hard to get through daily life anymore without signing a ton of contracts. Software update for your phone? Contract. Sign in to some random online service? New T&C I have to agree to i.e. contract. Pay for something with a credit card? That's a mini contract you're signing.
Now, in some cases there's no real excuse for not reading a contract. To take a random example, if you sign up for a two-year contract with a cell phone provider and you're given a stack of paperwork and you sign without reading through it first, I'm comfortable saying that's on you. This isn't something you do often and you have ample opportunity to read the thing first.
On the other side of things, Apple keeps tossing these gigantic contracts my way whenever I do much more than breathe. I'll literally get fifty or sixty pages of contract when trying to download a software update or just sign into the store after they made some random change to their T&Cs. Nobody reads these things. I know it, you know it, Apple knows it, and because of that they should be strongly limited in what they can do.
I think an important test for a contract should be asking the hypothetical question, "what if everyone who signed it read through it in detail first?" For something like buying a house, this would obviously change nothing. For a cell phone contract, it would change little. For random gigantic software EULAs and web site T&Cs and similar things, it would drive all the customers away. If having everyone read through it before signing it would break the process the contract was made for in the first place, the contract shouldn't be valid.
Statements like "we need new laws" are problematic, because they boil down to "we need completely new people". Laws are written by people--specific, finite, real people. If you tossed out every law book today, you would end up with the same laws tomorrow.
And that isn't an endictment of congress critters and judges. They are of us, selected by us. To say, "we need a new legislature" is to say "we need completely new people." They are the way they are because we have made and allowed them to be that way.
Now, I agree that the laws we have and the legislature we have are objectively bad. But I have come to admit it is because we have a bad culture. We live in a world trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma over pillaging our neighbors.
I think contracts signed without some sort of comprehension test having been performed should be considered suspect. This would have the effect of preventing things from being hidden in the small print, and making for much shorter (and probably more standardized) contracts.
"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.
How did the proprietors ever think this was going to end well? The "victims" have been given airtime on the national breakfast TV show. Even if it is legal it wont take long for internet justice to ensue.
edit: actually, no need for internet justice, already there are 147 x 1 star reviews - the most recent stating "don't go there" and "lacking basic cleanliness"
It probably isn't, but it's in that annoyingly small fee zone where it costs more to take them to court than it does to just accept the fine. I think in this case, they'll probably get the money back from their CC company though.
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 refuse to sign that. Maybe you'll have to find another hotel but you can leave a negative review pointing out this outrageous demand from this hotel. They can't charge anybody a hundred pounds and they get really bad reviews for it.
So basically I don't know what got into their heads when they thought this is a good idea, either. At the same time, though, I wouldn't be surprised if this is not an illegal clause per se. If they charge a hundred pounds for structural damage to their hotel, or theft of towels or so, it would make more sense, and if they consider a bad review to be damaging, it isn't even that far fetched. I think they should know better than to do something stupid like this at the end of the day, however.
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 respect from how the US treats contracts, at least it was for me.
On both sides you have people saying that the business world will collapse if you treat contracts the way that the other side is treating them. I'll refrain from saying which side I think is right, but I guarantee you that these differences are strong and real.
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.
Many of these small hotel and B&B owners run their businesses as a hobby or retirement plan, which often doesn't quite pan out as the passive income scheme they were anticipating. They don't cope with the responsibilities that entail and can't compete with professional hoteliers who understand visitors slightly better, so they end up chasing the bottom end of the market (it's not unusual to see rooms offered for £10/pppn. The lowest I've seen is £7/pppn).
I guess when someone has a small business and also happens to be an idiot, chances are slimer that a smarter business partner will point out an idiotic idea, so his idiocity has the chance to shine in all it's glory at every instance.
I concur that something needs to be done about these consumer Terms-of-Service type contracts.
There's a contract system in place, and it may work fine for people who have the incentive and the resources to look over them (mergers and acquisition deals, house purchases), but a lot of the time the document is very long and written in legalese.
How many people are really going to hire a lawyer to read their Apple Store or World of Warcraft terms? Writing a hugely lengthy contract is simply a way to discourage you from reading it, and then pretending that you've agreed to whatever the terms are. I guess there's some help from the legal system - ridiculous clauses are thrown out - but that doesn't address the fact that you are discouraged from reading about relevant information.
I think someone must have written a post about how long it would take to just read the everyday ToS type docs that we're presented with. And South Park did an excellent episode about this (The Human CentiPad).
I think this is the place I stayed when I went to see Bob Dylan play in Blackpool 2013. It wasn't too bad, Blackpool is a sh*tehole anyway what do you expect. Dylan was great though, best night of my life.
[+] [-] netcan|11 years ago|reply
We need new laws. Not the vague hodgepodge we have now. Policies designed to not be read need to be considered completely invalid. This credit card charge should be treated like any merchant taking a card and then charging £100 more than expected. Fraud, theft, some mild form of racketeering, whatever that falls under.
I think the most common abuse of this sort is "out of contract" telecom charges where using 2X the contract number of minutes or data could result in over 10X (often over 100x) the cost of the original contract.
I'm not sure how exactly the laws need to work, but there is obvious stretching of the systems well past the point of ridiculous. An iphone privacy policy or a hotel "sign this" agreement is not free actors contracting freely.
Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better. If hotels need some sort of escrow, then it should be an escrow.
[+] [-] madaxe_again|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] icebraining|11 years ago|reply
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 edge cases and explain exactly what the terms are?
Some products - like the iPhone - are very complex. It's not easy to describe what information is gathered, with whom it is shared and how you can withdraw your consent, for each feature (Location, Siri, messaging, calls, etc) without a very long document. What do you propose they should do?
[+] [-] rmc|11 years ago|reply
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contra... http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID...
[+] [-] mikeash|11 years ago|reply
I think this is key. The law assumes that contracts are a big deal for both parties, that they are relatively rare, and that they're given attention on both sides.
But it's hard to get through daily life anymore without signing a ton of contracts. Software update for your phone? Contract. Sign in to some random online service? New T&C I have to agree to i.e. contract. Pay for something with a credit card? That's a mini contract you're signing.
Now, in some cases there's no real excuse for not reading a contract. To take a random example, if you sign up for a two-year contract with a cell phone provider and you're given a stack of paperwork and you sign without reading through it first, I'm comfortable saying that's on you. This isn't something you do often and you have ample opportunity to read the thing first.
On the other side of things, Apple keeps tossing these gigantic contracts my way whenever I do much more than breathe. I'll literally get fifty or sixty pages of contract when trying to download a software update or just sign into the store after they made some random change to their T&Cs. Nobody reads these things. I know it, you know it, Apple knows it, and because of that they should be strongly limited in what they can do.
I think an important test for a contract should be asking the hypothetical question, "what if everyone who signed it read through it in detail first?" For something like buying a house, this would obviously change nothing. For a cell phone contract, it would change little. For random gigantic software EULAs and web site T&Cs and similar things, it would drive all the customers away. If having everyone read through it before signing it would break the process the contract was made for in the first place, the contract shouldn't be valid.
[+] [-] moron4hire|11 years ago|reply
And that isn't an endictment of congress critters and judges. They are of us, selected by us. To say, "we need a new legislature" is to say "we need completely new people." They are the way they are because we have made and allowed them to be that way.
Now, I agree that the laws we have and the legislature we have are objectively bad. But I have come to admit it is because we have a bad culture. We live in a world trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma over pillaging our neighbors.
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iolsantr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acabrahams|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] binarymax|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] DanBC|11 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] barking|11 years ago|reply
Blackpool is a classic example of a seaside resort that's been badly hit by cheap package holidays to the sun.
As such you can expect it to be full of hotels hanging on by their fingernails.
Also it's known to have lots of social welfare bed and breakfast establishments.
You'd need to be living under a rock in England not to know that.
If you're just going from A to B and want a stopover you're better off going with one of the chains. I actually like premier Inns.
One of the travelodges I stayed in though was as depressing a dump as I've experienced.
[+] [-] andrechile|11 years ago|reply
http://www.propertysales.com/Listing/Burlington-Road-West-Bl...
[+] [-] tonylemesmer|11 years ago|reply
edit: actually, no need for internet justice, already there are 147 x 1 star reviews - the most recent stating "don't go there" and "lacking basic cleanliness"
[+] [-] spacemanmatt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mychaelangelo|11 years ago|reply
Thank you internet (Yelp, Tripadvisor) for putting them to shame!
[+] [-] adrow|11 years ago|reply
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.”
[+] [-] gear54rus|11 years ago|reply
Seriously, making a mistake for the first time is one thing, but seeing the shitstorm that ensued after that and repeating it is another.
[+] [-] prof_hobart|11 years ago|reply
Or a novel way to get a bad review splashed all over national media. Did the hotel really think this was going to end well?
[+] [-] alexbecker|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pearjuice|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aikah|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|11 years ago|reply
The fact that you write a contract (the policy) doesn't mean that contract is actually legal.
[+] [-] adwf|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cyphax|11 years ago|reply
So basically I don't know what got into their heads when they thought this is a good idea, either. At the same time, though, I wouldn't be surprised if this is not an illegal clause per se. If they charge a hundred pounds for structural damage to their hotel, or theft of towels or so, it would make more sense, and if they consider a bad review to be damaging, it isn't even that far fetched. I think they should know better than to do something stupid like this at the end of the day, however.
[+] [-] reduce|11 years ago|reply
It's a bit of a culture shock when you see the sharp difference in this respect from how the US treats contracts, at least it was for me.
On both sides you have people saying that the business world will collapse if you treat contracts the way that the other side is treating them. I'll refrain from saying which side I think is right, but I guarantee you that these differences are strong and real.
[+] [-] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
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-...
[+] [-] gadders|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gerry_mander|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistakoala|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nske|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordnacho|11 years ago|reply
There's a contract system in place, and it may work fine for people who have the incentive and the resources to look over them (mergers and acquisition deals, house purchases), but a lot of the time the document is very long and written in legalese.
How many people are really going to hire a lawyer to read their Apple Store or World of Warcraft terms? Writing a hugely lengthy contract is simply a way to discourage you from reading it, and then pretending that you've agreed to whatever the terms are. I guess there's some help from the legal system - ridiculous clauses are thrown out - but that doesn't address the fact that you are discouraged from reading about relevant information.
I think someone must have written a post about how long it would take to just read the everyday ToS type docs that we're presented with. And South Park did an excellent episode about this (The Human CentiPad).
[+] [-] lmorris84|11 years ago|reply
Being in a contract doesn't make something legally binding - what if they put "if you leave a bad review we reserve the right to shoot you?"
[+] [-] jvc26|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solaris152000|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spacecowboy_lon|11 years ago|reply
No wonder the political parities no longer hold their conferences (conventions) at the winter gardens.
[+] [-] kornakiewicz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivanche|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwm1|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] treerock|11 years ago|reply
I'm curious how that will play out. It's surprising how well the credit card system seems to work, when it relies so heavily on trust.
[+] [-] shaurz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] instakill|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanhandley|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yourad_io|11 years ago|reply
Our sentiment analysis algorithm indicated this is a negative comment. You have been charged $100. Thank you for staying at HN.
All kidding aside, I'd say that yes, HN should be a place for exposing reprehensible business behaviours such as these.
It is even of general "hackerly" interest - like a bad growth hacking technique.
[+] [-] coldtea|11 years ago|reply
Whatever the HN community votes up, HN is "the place for it".