true dumbass

[vacation_rentals_suck]

Me: Thanks for calling our company, how may I help you?

Guest: Yea, my credit card was charged for the rest of my balance and I never authorized you to do that

Me: well it is 30 days prior to arrival and you signed the guest license agreement which authorizes us to charge your card at that time.

Guest: well nobody told me that

Me: you signed the agreement

Guest: yea because you wouldnt rent the place to me if I didnt but I still didnt agree to have my card charged

Me: By signing your name to the contract, you agree to the terms of it

Guest: I had no choice. You made me sign it

Me: We didnt make you sign anything

Guest: sir you arent listening to me.....I had to sign the contact to get the rental but I dont agree with the part about my card being charged at 30 days.

Me: ma'am you dont get to pick and choose


Guest: I am not picking and choosing, you little bastard

Me: Ma'am if you continue to use that kind of language, I will have to end this call.

I ended up hanging up on her after a few more minutes....what a stupid waste of oxygen

[COMINATCHA]

Ugh, how frustrating for you!

I had a similar thing happen with a customer from my last job. He had bought a spa/hot tub & we had been storing it in our warehouse for several months. I hadn't charged him storage fees at this point, but I decided to get tough on him as we really needed the space. I called him up & said that he needs to pay storage fees or make arrangements to take the spa. He agreed to take the spa, & we both agreed that he pay the balance on the spa via a bank cheque on delivery (which other customers had done with no problem.) The spa is delivered but the delivery guy comes back with no bank cheque! I call the customer & say "Why didn't you pay for the spa??" He said he doesn't have the money yet, but if he didn't take the spa I was going to charge him storage. I was like "Well yes but you had agreed to pay for it - you can't take something you haven't paid for!" He kept trying to argue that I was forcing him to pay storage & he shouldn't have to. I pointed out on the contract that he signed that he would need to pay storage fees. His argument was that I hadn't charged him up to this point so why start now? I told him I was being lenient & understanding but he didn't appreciate that - he kept arguing. So anyway, I arranged to have to spa brought back& I sent him an invoice for storage charges - haha. Moron.

[Bramblerose]

What ever happened to The Only Real Resservation is a Paid Reservation?

[Gruesome]

Just to play a little devil's advocate.....

It really is annoying as hell that to get damn near anything you have to sign 6 pages of legalese, giving away all your legal rights and agreeing to Lord knows what. My father taught me to always read before I sign, but if I had done that the last time I bought a house I'd still be there. Hell, the last time I installed a computer game on my PC I had to click OK to a long list of fine print. I can understand Joe Public feeling a bit screwed over by such things.

Still, I'm sure the basics of that situation were well covered and that was indeed an SC.

[smileyeagle1021]

What ever happened to The Only Real Resservation is a Paid Reservation?

competition happened... because once Hotel A started offering reservations where you didn't have to pay until the time of your stay, so Hotels B, C, and D also had to start doing reservations that you didn't have to pay until your stay to compete, then E decided as a marketing gimmick they also would allow you to pay at the time of your stay or get a discount for paying in advance... and now due to that competition no one knows how anything works anymore... half the people expect to pay when they don't have to and half the people don't understand that they half to pay.
I work in the industry and it still seems complicated to me just how much the industry has screwed up something as simple as how do you pay for a room.

[air914]

Just to play a little devil's advocate.....

It really is annoying as hell that to get damn near anything you have to sign 6 pages of legalese, giving away all your legal rights and agreeing to Lord knows what. My father taught me to always read before I sign, but if I had done that the last time I bought a house I'd still be there. Hell, the last time I installed a computer game on my PC I had to click OK to a long list of fine print. I can understand Joe Public feeling a bit screwed over by such things.

Still, I'm sure the basics of that situation were well covered and that was indeed an SC.

Joe Public should realize that companies put all that legalese in there to cover their own butts - if Joe wants his butt covered, he should read the contract before signing like an idiot. OR, he needs to realize he has no case if his only argument is "but I didn't read it". It's annoying as crap to businesses too when they put all that together and then have no one read it. Then "Joe Public" sends a letter to the BBB and the company has to spend a long time proving that YES, the customer signed this, and YES it says that these are the terms, and YES, a copy was given to the customer and was also available IN FULL online for their reference........

It's also to protect the customer too - if the company doesn't agree to its own terms, then the customer has a potential case against the company.

[walking with scissors]

Just to play a little devil's advocate.....

It really is annoying as hell that to get damn near anything you have to sign 6 pages of legalese, giving away all your legal rights and agreeing to Lord knows what. My father taught me to always read before I sign, but if I had done that the last time I bought a house I'd still be there. Hell, the last time I installed a computer game on my PC I had to click OK to a long list of fine print. I can understand Joe Public feeling a bit screwed over by such things.

Still, I'm sure the basics of that situation were well covered and that was indeed an SC.

Yes, but, if you don't read something and sign it anyway, don't you agree that you still have to abide by the terms?

[Naaman]

Yes, but, if you don't read something and sign it anyway, don't you agree that you still have to abide by the terms?

With a few exceptions (minors and people people who are medically unable to form a contract) - yes, ignorance isn't a defence.

[Gruesome]

Yes, but, if you don't read something and sign it anyway, don't you agree that you still have to abide by the terms?

Oh yes - absolutely. You sign it, you are on the hook for it, no doubt about it. Just a little devil's advocate - don't kill me! And bitching about not knowing is not acceptable behavior.

[walking with scissors]

Oh yes - absolutely. You sign it, you are on the hook for it, no doubt about it. Just a little devil's advocate - don't kill me! And bitching about not knowing is not acceptable behavior.

No, i know. I was just bringing up that point. I can understand how people can become upset. One of my son's hobbies (seriously) is studying phone and credit card contracts to find loopholes and interesting tidbits. I think companies are counting on the fact that a lot of people will not bother to read or be able to understand all the terms of the contract.

[vacation_rentals_suck]

We dont have lengthy contracts with a lot of legalese. It's one page and there is no fine print. Some things are even bolded. They dont bother to read it. I have checked them in and I see them sign without reading it or maybe they do read it and think we wont enforce it.

[Balgram]

Just to play a little devil's advocate.....

It really is annoying as hell that to get damn near anything you have to sign 6 pages of legalese, giving away all your legal rights and agreeing to Lord knows what. My father taught me to always read before I sign, but if I had done that the last time I bought a house I'd still be there. Hell, the last time I installed a computer game on my PC I had to click OK to a long list of fine print. I can understand Joe Public feeling a bit screwed over by such things.

Still, I'm sure the basics of that situation were well covered and that was indeed an SC.

I actually do read all that nasty fine print, we must have similar parents.

Actually, true story. My parents had recently moved to this country and were about to move from small apartment to their current house. They asked the...uh, the-company-that-you-work-with-to-get-a-house-and-sign-a-contract...the bank, maybe? I've never bought a house before. Anyway, they contact that company and ask them to send a copy of the forms my parents would need to sign in advance, so they can look it over.

No forms.

They ask again. No forms.

Finally the day of the signing comes, and the people sit them down and hand them the forms, and my parents reply, "Thank you," and start reading. When the company got mad about all the time wasted, my parents pointedly and bluntly stated that they tried to save time by getting the forms in advance, so they could look them over. Repeatedly the company tried to just tell them what the forms basically said and sign, but my parents stubbornly spend hours reading the dang thing before signing---they also made the company change a few paragraphs before they were willing to do so.

My mom used to do this, and I do it still, but when we would go to gyms and such and they make you sign a release, we make them alter the contract and print up one that removes the statement "we are not responsible for your injury even if we push you off a high building." (<company> is not responsible for injury caused by willful lack of assistance or intentional harm on part of <company> employees, or something) This is another thread all by itself, especially since we were a lil' SC but the employee was frankly ignorant.

I HATE online games because I have to read that contract every time, although it's usually pretty formulaic, so read-once read 'em all, and I skim them mostly now.

The BEST contracts I've ever seen are the ones that have a summary of what you are signing, and promise that you are signing to what the summary says. Those are grand.

You sign it, you agree to it, YOU are the one to blame.

[Naaman]

My mom used to do this, and I do it still, but when we would go to gyms and such and they make you sign a release, we make them alter the contract and print up one that removes the statement "we are not responsible for your injury even if we push you off a high building." (<company> is not responsible for injury caused by willful lack of assistance or intentional harm on part of <company> employees, or something) This is another thread all by itself, especially since we were a lil' SC but the employee was frankly ignorant.

In the UK there are certain rights you can't sign away - pushing you is still illegal whereas you crippling yourself after trying to look macho, once you've had the requisite introduction, is your own bloody fault.

As for the online games; most of the clauses are vague and some wouldn't stand up in a court of law. I don't remember the official name for it but the contract has to be 'fair enough' to both sides and since it's normally "Be nice, don't be rude or offensive in any shape or form, don't break copyright since it's us that takes the shit, your character concept belongs to us and don't give out your logon details" it's all fairly understandable.

There are variants but they're doing it to cover their asses (City of Heroes got sued by Marvel a while ago because it was possible to build a Wolverine clone), I've found that generally they've put clauses in because some SC has tried something, got spanked and retorted with "You didn't say I couldn't!!1eleventy!". I've always found that if you play nice and follow the basic rules you won;'t get touched.

[Samaliel]

Since when do SC follow even the most basic rules ?

[walking with scissors]

Since when do SC follow even the most basic rules ?

This says it all, really.