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Comment by remram | Hacker News Reader

How does that hold up? If I return the car, the attendant inspects it, and I go home... then later I receive a bill about a scratch that the attendant didn't point out and that I cannot possibly inspect on the car... why would I possibly pay up? How could anyone litigate if I disagree and the car has been rented again?

It would make a lot more sense to scan the car immediately when I return it, point out the damage, and bill me right there. I don't think that is what they do though? Is the scanner in another location?

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IMO this is exactly how it works without the Ai already. I have had a pleasure of renting a plentitude of cars all over the world, and would say that in 10-15% cases there will be reason to withhold or try to withdraw money for “various car damages”, “traffic violations”, “empty gas tank”, .. It doesn’t matter if this is pre-war Ukraine, spain, turkey, small company, large corp,.. Now they just have a tool for that.

Psa: in most places they would try to scam you by removing a small piece of trim (under the rearview mirror, below bumper,..) and on your return claim it as a damage. That’s why you need to take a video and pics while taking the car. This trick saved me probably tens of thousands of dollars by now.

Don't worry, they'll probably make signing up for binding arbitration part of the rental agreement, conveniently having the arbitration decided by someone who sides with the company 99% of the time. It's all good though. They're certainly not scamming you.

What's weird is not that companies would want to try to be greedy, but how society has socially normalized not even reading important, binding legal contracts with real consequences, and just signing them without much, if any, serious consideration of the ramifications of what we're agreeing to.

What's actually weird is how society normalized binding contracts that are far too long to be reasonably read by the people they are supposed to be binding to.

A well functioning legal system would throw out everything in those contracts on that basis alone.

Because it doesn't actually matter. A single click EULA won't hold up in court if they've actually done wrong. And even without a single click EULA you still weren't gonna win a coin toss lawsuit against a megacorp. So for most people it's a wash.

If you buy a latte at a coffee chain and you use their app to pay, you've probably agreed to a hundred page agreement that they reserve the right to change at any time, and which subjects you to binding arbitration, perhaps even if you decide to hand the barista a $10 note.

Disney recently tried to use the terms and conditions of a Disney+ subscription to get out of a claim arising from their theme parks.

Automation has made it so easy to bury society in legally binding click-through contracts. It's very unclear what innovation or business model the general public would be deprived of if we severely limited click-through agreements, or even wet signature contracts below certain thresholds.

I don't have Apple's app store or the Google Play Store on my phone. When it comes to Dr's offices and the like asking me to download an app, I just tell them I don't have a smartphone and don't want one.

Lately it feels like the most reputable and large companies are even running scams. The US feels filled to the brim with incredibly convoluted scams. We're innovating new ways to scam people out of their money every other day.

Man, just sell a product or service and be normal.

People voted for that. Somehow they hate regulation and love to give companies all that freedom to scam them.

It's pretty funny to contrast these practices against things IRBs can require. IRBs require informed consent and often require the entire "contract" be read aloud verbatim (no summarization) to people. This incentivizes making things as short and easy to comprehend has possible. Furthermore the IRB will decide whether the agreement is compressible to the intended audience.

Whereas in tech the opposite is true. The goal is to get people to agree to something they do not understand. This incentivizes long confusing walls of text and convoluted language so that people just click without reading.

Ultimately the difference is that when push comes to shove tech has not been required to prove people even read (much less understand) what they are signing.

> How could anyone litigate if I disagree and the car has been rented again?

The scans are evidence. Whether the are sufficient evidence to overcome whatever counterevidence you can provide (the civil standard of proof for liability being a preponderance of the evidence, not the beyond a reasonable doubt standard for criminal liability) is a matter that would be decided at trial (or, more likely, arbitration.)

Why not do it via cellphone ?

You drive thru scanner on pickup and return. The scummy pay the bill today message comes after you get on the airplane and return home.

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