Saturday, September 29, 2018

Fine Print Scam

Who reads the terms and conditions on all the apps and games we download? I sure don't, I usually skip to the end and hit accept.

First of all, the terms and conditions is written in lawyer jargon, you would have to have a degree in university and pass the bar exam to understand what it means. It's also so long and boring that you would fall asleep before you got to the end.

Normally the terms and conditions are to protect the owner of the product, just in case someone decides to sue them for any injustices they might be feeling. 

There are products such as miracle weight loss or products that are too good to be true. We read the contract as much as we can but there is always some part in there, where the writing is so small that you can barely read it and it contains the most dangerous part of the contract.  How is this legal in any way shape or form?  It can also be hidden or worded in a way that almost nobody would understand.

I just read a scam that involves Amazon. In the article it says that you find the most amazing deal online, and since it's on Amazon it must be legit, but the scammer is going to send you a counterfeit product or nothing at all.  The way they get away with this is that they will claim that the product will take 3 to 4 week delivery. 

Amazon pays its sellers every 2 weeks so the scammer will receive their money from you long before your product is supposed to arrive or you realize that it's a scam.  Trying to go through amazon litigation is a pain in the butt and you may never see your refund, due to the fact that the scammer closes shop and opens up another one in a different name, Amazon can't collect the refund from them.

The free trial is one of the biggest frauds out there, where it claims that after the trial period is over, you will have to pay a certain sum of money with no end date. Meaning you will be locked into that contract for the rest of your life with no way out.  That company can sue you for not paying because you agreed to the contract without reading it.

I've heard of an A.I. lawyer, basically it's an app that reads contracts and finds the sketchy parts for you, then it warns you that accepting the terms is non advisable.  Maybe better apps in the future will help us but for right now, if you think something is too good to be true or you have a suspicion that something isn't right there is someone online that has already been scammed and has it documented for you to google search it.

Scott Goerz