Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajxs | Hacker News Reader

Under Australian consumer law most of what's discussed in this Twitter thread is actually illegal. Just because it's part of a company's business process doesn't mean it's legal. I ran into the same problem when trying to cancel my service, and found myself presented with some utterly onerous cancellation fee. I told them I'd make a complaint with Australia's consumer affairs regulator, the ACCC[0]. They waived the fee pretty much the moment I mentioned their name. I'd advise anyone in the same position to check your country's consumer laws, and contact your local regulatory bodies.

https://www.accc.gov.au/

View on HN

What staggers me is that everyone knows (in Australia) that the ACCC can be quite the toothless tiger in many aspects, yet the mere mention of those 4 letters can make Adobe fold over instantly.

It's so telling that Adobe reacts in this way, when they present their terms of conditions in such a dark-pattern manner. It's like they know what they're doing is super dodgy, but want to toss whatever reputation they have left out of the window, for the sum of just a few bucks a month. It's revolting.

I wouldn't call an organization that makes companies 'fold over instantly' toothless. Companies fold if they are in the wrong or even if things are in doubt, because losing at arbitration is an indelible black mark.

I know those 4 letters got me a full refund the next day when brought to the attention of the parent company after failing to deal with a local franchise owner. Before hand having followed the ACCC guidelines trying to get the order back on track (and creating the paper trail to ensure there was no doubt I was in the right).

ACCC may be a toothless tiger, but suing the business in your local Tribunal is absolutely effective. The filing costs are $80 or so, and generally, if you make a good faith effort to resolve the issue before hand with the business and they don't resolve it, the magistrate will give you costs.

I've only had to do this once and it was a fairly simple process. Lawyers are not allowed. Just point to the specific consumer guarantee being breached, provide documentary evidence, and show up.

Same for Europe. You should receive what you could reasonably expect to receive, even without reading the fine print.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com