Comment by mseebach | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mseebach | Hacker News Reader

In Denmark, and to a slightly lesser extend Europe, consumer protection is so strong that pretty much any language in the T&C is pointless, and thus there's no point in reading it.

To a certain extend this is a good thing, and it's been instrumental in persuading people that online shopping is safe. But I think it's a bad idea to completely remove the right of consumers and businesses to enter into specific agreements.

There was recently an EU ruling deciding that if you buy something online, regret the purchase and return the goods (this is already the right of the customer), you're entitled to a refund of the shipping charges also. Before this ruling, the vendors only loss on a customer regretting his purchase was handling (time) - this is comparable to the risks of running a physical store. But now the vendor stand to loose actual money from shipping - and this is a bad thing.

First, this loss has to be covered on the margins - the consumers end up paying anyway, it's just less transparent.

Second, it pulls away the competitive advantage for vendors already offering this service, and hands it to the ones that don't. I.e. benefiting those who don't go the extra mile to service the customer on the dime of those who do.

Third, it could hamper e-business in areas where shipping is expensive.

But the most troubling thing about this is consumers getting used to vendors having zero rights. I witnessed an exchange on the forum of a club recently, where somebody was organizing a party with dinner. The cost was roughly €20 and should be transferred to the hosts bank account in advance. One participant voiced concern that something might come up, and another (not the host) casually stated that he should just pay, he could always reclaim the money.

Even if this in a narrow legal sense might be so (and I'm not sure that's the case, but IANAL) this is simply no way to treat volunteer hosts of a party, that, at the time you've decided to not show up, already spend your money on food for you.

Entering into an agreement is a two-way commitment, and even though we should make it hard for shady vendors to defraud customers (including taking their souls), teaching the customer that he has no commitments or obligations is a bad idea in the long run.

>First, this loss has to be covered on the margins - the consumers end up paying anyway, it's just less transparent.

Apart from consumer protection there's an other reason for the government to do this: It's an implicit subsidy of retail stores. By making online shopping more expensive, states are supporting local businesses.

I love strong consumer protection and the benefits that come along with it. But I have never send anything back and have to pay higher prices for some guys who are abusing the system by ordering 10 different products just to send 9 back after they've tried them without even paying for shipping...

But I think it's a bad idea to completely remove the right of consumers and businesses to enter into specific agreements.

You're making a fallacy of the excluded middle. Very few would argue that we should completely remove the right to enter into a contract.

However, that's not what a purchase is. When you pay for an object, that is a sale. When your business is oriented to selling a service to many individuals, that is also, properly, a sale, and is quite distinct from entering into a contractual arrangement with another corporate entity.

When you pay for a service, the terms of that service should be easy to understand and not require pages of legal boilerplate. A service oriented to consumers should have no expectation that the customer has a lawyer reading the terms of that service. As such, the terms should be clear, explicit, and most of all, short.

The solution to the horrendous way it's done in the US is not to point at Europe and say "look, it's also horrendous there!" That is a silly, thoughtless, contentless argument that far too many are using just reflexively.

Edit: Removed "In other words" at the beginning of last paragraph.

I'm Danish, so I'm not "there", I'm "here". I'm criticizing my own system from within. The article I'm reacting to is from an Australian website referencing a UK firm. What people do and don't do in the US doesn't seem to apply, and certainly not for for calling me silly and thoughtless, thank you very much.

A purchase is the entering of a contract to exchange goods for money. The terms of the contract are for most developed nations fixed and encoded in culture and the law, so we don't think about it in our day-to-day lives. But that doesn't change the fact that it is a contract. You appear to be American, skim the TOC of Article 2 (Sales) of the Uniform Commercial Code if you don't believe me. (http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/)

The fallacy doesn't change based on your perspective. It's still an excluded middle. It is silly and thoughtless to pretend that if one is against terms of service on every service sale, that one is advocating no rights for businesses to enter into contracts. If you don't wish to be silly and thoughtless, then don't be.

The commercial code you point to is part of the framework of laws which form the social contract in the U.S., not something one explicitly signs off on every time they buy a good or service. Few people ever read such laws in anything other than summarized form. (If your rejoinder is "well, you should", which others have also pointlessly argued, don't bother, I refuse to entertain such thoughtless trash.) In that case, it's a background framework for every transaction, and shouldn't require supplementary pages of legalese on every service purchase.

You've merely redefined contract away from its accepted common usage into a legal nightmare that would drag commerce to a screeching halt. Yes, every transaction between two entities is trivially a contract, do you have anything more substantive to add?

I stated explicitly, twice, that I think consumer protection is a good thing. I don't know how many more precautions you want me to take.

> not something one explicitly signs off on every time they buy a good or service.

Yes they do. Really, ask a lawyer.

> Few people ever read such laws in anything other than summarized form.

They don't need to, because they generally match consumers expectations in a given culture. Merchants and those engaging in B2B trade should however read them.

> In that case, it's a background framework for every transaction, and shouldn't require supplementary pages of legalese on every service purchase.

Exactly. You seem to have this image of contracts as being reams of paper wheeled around by paralegals. They are not just that. There are such things as oral and implied contracts and they are just as binding as written ones (but might be harder to enforce).

> You've merely redefined contract away from its accepted common usage into a legal nightmare that would drag commerce to a screeching halt

I don't know anyone for whom the accepted common usage of the word contract isn't also the legal one. And in the legal definition of the word contract, even buying a soda in a vending machine is entering into a contract. Never the less, commerce seems to be doing OK.

The distance selling act - which gives you the right to say no and return it within 7 days - was lobbied for by the online retailers.

They felt people wouldn't order online if there were too many scams. Now that people are comfortable ordering online they are presumably lobbying for it to be revoked.

One reason for the shipping refund is that importers use it as a way around VAT. They typically sell some item for 1e with 25e shipping and so it comes in under the VAT limit.

A concrete suggestion to solve this: Make a standard T&C that's quite tight on it's protection of the consumer, but allow (some) exceptions to be made, on the condition that the exceptions are clearly stated (and not hidden in the bulk of a long T&C) and each exception must be individually and specifically accepted on checkout.

in the UK, we have the Sale of Goods Act which will imply terms into consumer contracts, and a number of other statutory protections that apply default terms (and strike down others), e.g. UCTA (unfair contract terms act) and UTCCR (unfair terms consumer contracts regulations). their teaching should be mandatory at school

The reason for the change was many shady operators offering very low prices for goods but overcharging for shipping.

I wasn't aware of that, but it's a good point, and definitely something that should be addressed.

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