Comment by hbrav | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hbrav | Hacker News Reader

It's kinda disappointing that handling someone being unable to call hadn't occurred to these companies previously. But what's pretty terrible is the attitude of customer service being "you just have to call, sorry".

This all reminds me of the advice is Patrick McKenzie's blog post "Identity, Credit Reports and You." Specifically: you never want to deal with customer service, they are the Department of Fobbing People Off. You want to be communicating in writing with a lawyer, since lawyers have the power to tell other people in the business "you're creating liability, make this problem go away".

In this case I think you don't have the same structure as in the credit report case (an act that says they must investigate and respond within X days), so for credibility you probably do need a lawyer writing a letter for you. But I strongly suspect that something like the following will generate a response: "Dear Sir/Madam,

I represent [user]. My client is a customer of your business but is unable to access your services due to [disability]. He has communicated with your customer services (see attached screenshots) and requested they provide a means for him to access these services. Unfortunately they have declined to do so. [Relevant legislation] requires reasonable adjustments to be made in serving disabled customers, and my client and I believe that [adjustment] could easily be made by your business to allow customers with [disability] to access these services. Please advise us within [x days] what adjustments you plan to make to allow my client to access these services.

Yours,

[Lawyer]"

In my experience finding lawyers to represent you for these injustices is very hard. Disabled people also tend to be poorer and lawyers just aren't interested. Medical abuse of the chronically ill is a big area which lawyers refuse to deal with and it's rife with potential lawsuits. It's not this easy, everyone and I mean everyone treats you like your disposable.

I believe Prenda Law had a side business in these types of lawsuits when their copyright troll work hit a snag.

Please don't taint essential, but missing, legal support of marginalised people with the tarry brush of patent trolls. Doubly-so when you only "believe" the story to be true.

https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/prenda_law_attorney_...

ADA sham lawsuits have been a staple of corrupt lawyers since it’s inception. The civil enforcement mechanism is the biggest failure of the ADA. The taint has long been there.

Very true. This is one of those situations where having a friend who is a lawyer, and willing to write such a letter, is very helpful. It would not be legal to mis-represent yourself as a lawyer. But it's fine to have a lawyer write such a letter, which make the recipient think that you might sue, while having no intention of doing so. This is, of course, completely unfair because the poor, who are more likely to be disabled, are also less likely to have a friend who is a lawyer.

I agree with all of this, the only part I want to push back on is: "But what's pretty terrible is the attitude of customer service being "you just have to call, sorry"."

I'm pretty confident in saying it's not the CSR who's deciding this - they probably have either limited access or an explicit directive from above that they cannot do x, y, z in email/chat/whatever. In all likelihood they're an underpaid employee of some outsourced subcontractor to the actual company that decides that.

I think we need regulations on this, the same way we need "if you can sign up from a website, you can cancel from a website" laws. If you offer x via a phone call, you can offer x via text chat too.

I agree.

In Australia, and the UK, you would go to the Ombudsman. At no charge. And your problem would be sorted.

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