> LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY AND REMEDIES. IF YOU ARE IN ANY WAY DISSATISFIED WITH THE INSTANT INK SERVICE OR ANY PART THEREOF INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, AN INSTANT INK PROGRAM OR THE SITE, YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY IS TO DISCONTINUE USING THE INSTANT INK SERVICE AND/OR THE APPLICABLE INSTANT INK PROGRAM.
I had no idea you could have a contract that says, "if you don't like how we fulfilled the contract all you are allowed to do is go away, even if we burn your house down."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/att-loses-key-ru...
You can't.
Obviously, companies don't like to be sued. What a lot of the tech industry and Silicon Valley has been doing lately is trying to write up their Terms of Service to make it so difficult to initiate any sort of proceedings, or at least appear to be so difficult to initiate any sort of proceedings, that nobody actually will.
The risk of this, though, is that if they act so egregiously that somebody actually does get angry enough to break through the activation energy necessary to start something, that it will be both larger and worse than if they had a more conventional approach. Larger in that larger groups of people may break through at once, especially once someone blazes a trail. It's like raising a dam without fixing underlying issues with water management; it may put off the day you have problems, but when the catastrophe hits it'll be even larger.
A perfect approach for a short-term-focused modern company, no?
That clause is meant to convince you there's nothing you can do. But if someone does file a class-action suit, there's a very good chance the judge will not look favorably upon such a clause at all, and that'll get factored into any damage awards.
Personally I think the expected value of this particular shenanigan is quite negative and I think a lot of companies are going to bitten by it in the next decade... but I have a long term perspective, personally.
Even if they win in court it will cost them a ton of money.
There is a direct correlation to wealth and rights in this country. Language really has no meaning anymore.
There is a useful counter correlation in that it's a lot more costly for a wealthy entity to fight thousands on tiny lawsuits for a few hundred dollars each, all over the country, than it is for these suits to be filed, especially when almost every court proceeding is virtual.
As always raise awareness with your friends and family not to buy HP's garbage, Epson pulls the same shady practices as far as I know.
When possible, buy a laser printer and just don't give any of them more money.
This is a change to the functionality of the printer post sale, and that tends to be viewed as an unreasonable action and one where one sided user agreements can be read by the courts as unfair to the consumer.
The important point is the the printer no longer works as advertised and as a starting point this is guaranteed in European law for six years after purchase. (https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...).
In UK can you also get your money back for filing fees etc. if you win?
I know people who managed to get around $5000 when Equifax leaked their data. They just added up the monthly cost of the most expensive credit monitoring that they could find for the next decade and sued for that amount (then kept the money and didn't bother with the monitoring).
It's honestly not very difficult to file and right now the meeting is virtual so you barely have to put in any effort (with the downside that in the past you had a large chance the other party wouldn't bother showing up and you'd win by default).
I remember a few years ago Amazon Prime went from having $3.99 next-day shipping to suddenly charging up to $11.99 for it on one package I ordered. I knew when I signed up, the $3.99 price tag was advertised so I went digging: sure enough, it was not longer advertised, and no longer in their ToS. So I went digging further on how they could do this without any sort of notice to customers. Here's what I found using the internet archive to trace ToS changes wherein Amazon incrementally removed rights & privileges:
--When I signed up for Prime, the $3.99 price was in the ToS. So was a provision that said Amazon would notify me of any changes to the ToS 30 days in advance.
--A year or so later, the ToS no longer had the 30 day notice provision, but the $3.99 was still there. However, now they no longer had to notify me of a change.
--Fast forward a little more, and Amazon was able to change its ToS unilaterally without any advance notice or notification, allowing me to be surprised when I was suddenly asked to pay 2-3x as much for the same service.