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Comment by jeffwass | Hacker News Reader

Dish is evil.

Years ago when signed up with them I opted to pay the extra service for local tv channels, which required an andditional antenna to install.

For some reason the installer couldn’t fit it securely on our house, and said to call Dish to remove the service since we cannot receive it.

Dish refused to remove the local service! They said since we signed a contract we were stuck paying for it even though they couldn’t fit the antenna.

I pointed out in a hundred different ways that the contract also required them to provide a service which they are not providing so we shouldn’t have to pay.

All of my attempts to reason with them were ignored, and their call staff refused to escalate to their manager.

Long story short we had to pay for twelve months for something they couldn’t provide to us.

Literally the minute the contract was up we cancelled (it was easier to cancel back then).

I would never ever go near this company again.

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Isn't this what small claims court is for?

So now likely hundreds (or more) of individuals have to not only wait on hold forever, but have to learn the process of and actually go through with filing a small claim? That there is recourse is beside the point when it is mired in bureaucracy (not to mention taking days off to show up to court, etc).

Class action suits may be easier, if only arbitration was opt-in-by-default or easier to opt out of.

Class action is an utter joke that has done nothing more than FURTHER commodify harming consumers for a price.

If a company sends you a $2 check ten years after they recognize a profit from defrauding you or lying to you or harming you, that's not a punishment, and is certainly not an incentive to not do those things.

I think they punish companies to a considerable degree. It's just that since legal costs on both sides are non-trivial, not much makes it to the harmed consumers.

In practice they serve to enrich lawyers and that’s about it.

That's not true. They also enrich the lawyers' preferred nonprofit organizations.

it only takes a few hits from lawsuits for the companies to fix the process.

I'm surprised I haven't yet heard of companies who would handle this for you, like there are e.g. for handling the process of getting compensation when an airline screws up scheduling or loses baggage, etc. I'm guessing there isn't enough money to be won there for them to be able to survive off a percentage of it.

A hypothetical company that can do this, would also be capable of handling much more lucrative class action suits.

But they also have competition in the class action suit space but less so in the small claims case.

In some jurisdictions you have to show up to small claims yourself though which prevents some third party from just handling it. Makes sense since the idea behind small claims is to keep the legal costs low enough that you actually have a chance of recovering smaller sums without paying more then what you will get.

That's actually a great idea! Something like the companies that take care of getting refunds for flight tickets when the flight is delayed too long (in Germany you are legally entitled to a refund, but the process is long, so there are companies that do it for you and take a piece). They might have some common claims that they can add to a catalog. You could cut costs by re-using paperwork on these. As long as they could claim legal fees, which I'm not sure of.

I used such a company for airline compensation once. Took them 2 years to drag the process around and at the end I got nothing.

Only a few would actually have to do it. But if everyone lets them get away with it, then I have no sympathy.

This isn't schoolchildren all being bystanders or victims to a peer bully. There is a much larger asymmetry in time, money, and credibilty here.

That’s the whole reason that small claims court exists.

Wish I got a manual on small claims courts when I became an adult. Or sooner. And, like, the resources to exercise it without taking up more of my time or anything. It's a strange imbalance for something that is entirely the company's fault. Of course there are bound to be legitimate issues on either side, but for something blatant like this, I would that the burden wouldn't be on me.

Do you expect others to do every little thing for you? You don't need a manual. The filing forms are right there on your county court website. Learning how to deal with this stuff on your own is part of becoming an adult in the real world. Sometimes you have to expend a little time and effort.

Yeah take days off work to get $300. Totally worth it! I can't understand why everybody doesn't do it.

Small claims court never takes days. The whole point of small claims court is that time and money and credibility are not an advantage, since the whole trial takes no more than a few minutes and consists of little more than both sides presenting and briefly explaining the paperwork that they brought with them. And $300 is a lot more than minimum wage. It’s actually higher than the _average_ hourly wage in the US (I would have preferred to compare it with a median, but that might take more searching), if you assume that it takes you a whole day.

You could win that case with very little evidence. Merely the written contract, a photo of the loose antenna (or the antenna itself, if the installer left it behind instead of installing it), the statement from the installer stating that he couldn’t complete the job, and the bills for the service that you couldn’t use but that you have had to pay up to that point. That’s all paperwork that you should have held on to anyway, at least for a few years.

No sympathy, are you implying that the victim here is somehow to blame, or is instigating this behavior? If so, this is analogous to victim blaming. If you decide not to waste your resources to combat someone who has wronged you, you are not ‘to blame’ for that wrong doing. It is shitty that the company can take advantage of a person like this in the first place, don’t make the situation worse by taking this sociopathic stance.

There is the case of ignorance, where a person might not know about small claims court, let alone how it works and what it does. Then there is the case of an increasing number of forced arbitration clauses. Then there is the fact that companies wishing to not get swept up in a wave of small claims will reach out and try to fix the problem if they do actually have a case they think they might lose, further preventing more people from talking about it. And small claims court may ‘only take minutes to resolve,’ but that small length of time would only happen once you are actually seen in court. Before that, you’d need to - file with a clerk (meaning, spend time learning what you need to file, where you need to file it, etc.), - serve the defendant (which costs money and time), - arrive at the court in the morning for roll call, - wait a few hours until you and the defendant are actually called (if they showed up…, which if not expect to come back after serving them again).

This is not a ‘trivial’ task, and all the while the company that scammed you already had your money. As a large company, you can arbitrage the profit of this shady behavior against the risk of someone actually going through all of the steps.

It is perfectly legitimate to be exasperated at victims who complain about being taken advantage of, but never even try to do anything about it.

Besides, it’s easier than you pretend. The form you have to fill out is literally two pages long. The costs and filing fees are minimal, and they’ll even waive them if you ask. You can email your local sheriff and have them take care of service, or do it by mail. Yes, you will likely spend more time waiting in the lobby (more likely the hallway in the basement, but whatever) on the day of your hearing than you will spend in front of the judge, but what more could you possibly want? The process has been made literally as simple as is currently feasible.

Terms and Conditions usually spell out the dispute process. You may find out that disputes need to go to arbitration court in a different state.

Alternatively, you can take them to small claims court and see if the judge there is hyper-interested in upholding their insanely restrictive contracts. They can appeal a judgment, of course, but that's likely to be far more expensive for them than just honoring the decision.

You don't even need small claims court. You just don't pay, and point them to (small claims?) court if they want to get paid for the service they don't provide.

None of these shit companies will ever take you up on the offer though, because expecting to get paid for a service you don't provide (and can't provide in this case) won't fly in court.

You just don't pay, and point them to (small claims?) court if they want to get paid for the service they don't provide.

Have you actually tried this? Because having not tried it myself, I'd bet a paycheck that you get sent to collections, get a ding on your credit report, and you're still on the hook for taking it to court if you want it resolve to your favor. (Assuming U. S.) And as a cherry on top of that shit sundae, it's probably in the contract that you have to go through arbitration anyway.

I have done so multiple times, albeit in the UK.

When collections calls, you explain them the situation (service not provided or whatever, and evidence of trying to resolve it with them in good faith) and they go away.

Have yet to see a court summons or anything, although I'd love to see them try their lies in court.

I did not care about the credit report impact - it's probably the only valid reason not to do this if this is something you care about.

I have done so multiple times, albeit in the UK.

Thanks for the follow-up. I suspect UK does make a difference, but IANAL in either country. I do, however, have a bit of personal experience in the U. S. :-)

The first thing that would happen is they would cut off all your service.

If you are relying on them for something other than the thing you don’t want to pay for, this becomes a problem.

For example, I disputed a charge with my CC from the Apple App Store when I was charged for an app that I shouldn’t have been years ago. They immediately cut off my access to the Store. Other apps couldn’t update, OS couldn’t update, couldn’t get new apps, etc.

And this is one of the reasons why I can't buy into the Apple ecosystem. With Android, I would be cut off from all Google stuff but there are more/less work-arounds for those.

But the fact that I have a billing dispute with a company and they are able to hold everything else that bit of technology touches hostage is just wrong. Imagine if you had a billing dispute with the city water company and they cut your city power because of it.

That's why you never deal with walled gardens.

But don't you see? The walled garden makes them feel safe from all the bad people out there. It's like locking yourself in with Rorschach. Yeah, the others aren't gonna get you, but he will.

I got charged for the modem even though I returned it to Xfinity (another champion of customer service) when I canceled. It wasn't worth my time to fight, and I wasn’t going to pay for something I didn’t owe. I could take the hit to my credit rating so I did, and after a few years of collections letters, it went away.

Let them send you to collections. So what. You can just dispute the debt with the credit bureaus and it won't appear on your reports.

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