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Comment by ggchappell | Hacker News Reader

> I hate to break it to you, but that contract is enforceable.

Please explain. How can they enforce a contract he never signed?

Perhaps because he carefully read the contract, provided payment knowing the contract terms, specifically conspired to violate said terms, and then posted the whole story to the internet might qualify? There's a concept of "good faith" in the law. This is just vile, sorry. If you don't like the terms you have an obligation not to buy the service.

Uh...no. He agreed to pay $X a month to storage goods at the facility. He never agreed to the rest of the terms, which he would have indicated by signing the contract. The business indicated assent by not requiring him to sign the contract to receive his storage unit. Thus, under the basic principles of U.S. contract law...a very basic contract exists, and none of the extra stuff in the written document is part of it.

I wasn't aware of the 90-day policy until after I had already bought the service, FWIW.

Wouldn't the right thing to do be this: Go back the next day and say that you don't accept these terms and demand a refund of any payment made?

I would assume that the continued use of said storage unit makes acceptance of contract implicit.

If you'd taken the contract home and _not_ read it, you would probably be more in the clear. Since you read it and knew about the 90 day rule and continued to pay, it could be argued that you had an agreement. This is why we sign contracts instead of other forms of agreements; there is less ambiguity.

Good luck to you, sir.

Buying the service doesn't legally enter him into the additional contract.

Signing the contract does that, and that's why he was asked (half-assedly) to do that. If anyone is liable for damages due to failing to properly conduct the company's business, it's our Facebook surfing friend at the counter.

That's entirely backwards, sorry. A "contract" is just an agreement. The signature is just a piece of paper that can prove the agreement was reached. Courts enforce "implied" and "verbal" contracts all the time, and in fact signed contracts are routinely voided for technical reasons too.

The poster above read and understood the contract, and continued to pay the vendor with that understanding in mind. That is absolutely a legally enforceable contract. And in fact the post above is blindingly obvious proof of a bad faith intent to violate the contract. Sorry, there's no leg to stand on here. That's just not the way the law works.

Contracts don't require signatures. Verbal contracts are enforceable outside of certain odd cases (for instance buying a house). They mainly get signatures to exactly qualify what was agreed and to make sure you don't claim you didn't agree.

I am not sure if this would fall under rental law, which I would assume requires a signature.

But he/she never specified they verbally agreed. In fact it seems that he/she made it pretty clear to the lesser that they didn't know if they agreed.

Payment in this case constitutes agreement.

Agreement to hire, yes. But agreement to anything which might be in the contract not necessarily. This is beyond my legal knowledge.

If he had not read the agreement it would be difficult to hold him to it, however once he had read it continued payments are him affirming the contents of the contract.

Now whether it is worth the effort to fight his logic is another matter entirely.

I wouldn't be surprised that Facebook guy behind the counter was stupid enough to forge the signature.

For his sake I hope not. If he did he could end up in prison if this was brought to trial (if a first tim eoffender he would probably just get a fine). Forging signatures is really bad, never do it.

Debt collectors in the UK do this as a matter of course. If you ever get one on your case, your solicitor will suggest that you print your name or write an X rather than use your signature or it'll come up on another document agreeing to piles of additional charges later on.

Unless you're one of the asshats at Prenda Law:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/identity-theft-la...

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