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Comment by Leace | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of that extreme example of altering the contract: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowin...

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I routinely alter almost every contract I receive. It drives a lot of doctor offices/emergency rooms nuts. But they have so far always calculated that their liability will be higher if they refuse service than if they allow me to cross out the part that says I won't sue them if they kill me.

It is a point of amusement to me to see that the receptionist is extremely uncomfortable agreeing to the terms I have come up with in the last five minutes. They don't think it is reasonable for me to expect them to execute the altered contract without consulting attorneys. I point out that five minutes ago they asked me to sign a contract without consulting a legal expert. Their multi-page contract had been painstakingly drafted by a team of expensive lawyers and meticulously tweaked over years. Yet they gave me mere seconds to read it, understand it, and sign it under duress of not receiving medical attention. If they balk at the contract I hand back to them, how can they expect me not to balk at the original contract?

On the other hand, if they refuse to provide medical care because I wouldn't sign away my rights to any photographs that might be submitted to medical journals, they had better be very confident in their lawyers.

Banks, rental agencies, repair shops, etc., on the other hand, can safely refuse my revised contract. Most don't glance at them when I hand them back.

There is a very good reason (pressure) these kind of contracts are unenforceable in most of the world. That would work both ways.

If they choose to have a judge nullify the contract, I'm good with that. I didn't add any verbage to the contract anyway, so that would just mean that the entire contract is void and not just the parts I crossed out. We can re-negotiate the whole thing. Oh, but this time, seeing as we're in front of a judge and all, I have a lawyer with me. And we can examine the reasonableness of every single line item on the bill without any medical time constraints.

The new contract can be something we collaborate on. Them, their lawyers, me, my lawyers, the whole happy family. We can take four or five years to do that. I'll pay them when we sort it all out.

Or... they can accept my thanks for sewing my toe back on and bill my insurance.

Either way, we are on much more equal ground after the fact.

Very interesting read. However, he changed it before the bank added their signarture. I imagine that if you change the contract after a signature is added by one party, and then add your own signarture, that would surely be fraud... right?

If you presented the post-hoc changed contract as binding, I believe so. If you presented the post-hoc changed contract back to IBM and went "Hey, do you agree to an updated contract?" then you'd probably be laughed out of their office, but that's not a crime to ask them to update a contract.

You could make an intentionally vague reply saying; "Thanks! Here is the updated contract with my signature back.". Making the other party think you just updated the contract by adding your signature.

I remember the story. The bank's CEO (the guy is a billionaire of considerable notoriety in Russia) threatened to put the story's protagonist in jail for fraud for 4 years.

The protagonist took the threat very seriously (as he should have) and in a later interview to banki.ru (i.e. banks.ru) said that he was fleeing the country to a destination he preferred to keep secret. Reason being the precise "4 years" that was used. Not 2, not 3, not 5. Meaning that the CEO had already made "arrangements".

Then 2 days later there was an article that both him and the bank have reached a peaceful resolution and were recalling all mutual lawsuits.

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