Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30100973

by davepm • 12 years ago

147 153 12 years ago

m.bbc.co.uk

=\ charging for a bad review is not going to increase your good reviews. It's like companies don't think before they pull this type of shit.

mistakoala3• 12 years ago

Many of these small hotel and B&B owners run their businesses as a hobby or retirement plan, which often doesn't quite pan out as the passive income scheme they were anticipating. They don't cope with the responsibilities that entail and can't compete with professional hoteliers who understand visitors slightly better, so they end up chasing the bottom end of the market (it's not unusual to see rooms offered for £10/pppn. The lowest I've seen is £7/pppn).

raverbashing• 12 years ago

Unfortunately this is the truth

Most people underestimate the difficulties of a business/customer care, etc

pjc503• 12 years ago

Basil Fawlty was based on a real hotelier.

nske• 12 years ago

I guess when someone has a small business and also happens to be an idiot, chances are slimer that a smarter business partner will point out an idiotic idea, so his idiocity has the chance to shine in all it's glory at every instance.

tonylemesmer• 12 years ago

How did the proprietors ever think this was going to end well? The "victims" have been given airtime on the national breakfast TV show. Even if it is legal it wont take long for internet justice to ensue.

edit: actually, no need for internet justice, already there are 147 x 1 star reviews - the most recent stating "don't go there" and "lacking basic cleanliness"

spacemanmatt• 12 years ago

Please, won't you tell your friends and loved ones about the Streisand Effect, before it's too late?

DanBC4• 12 years ago

The trip advisor page. http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186332-d554701-Re...

There were 147 bad reviews before the story broke and these bad reviews are the majority.

I'm curious about the dupe detector not spotting duplicates.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629113

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629117

Edit: this link is to the mobile site; one links to .com and the third links to .co.uk

barking2• 12 years ago

Clearly the experience has belatedly led to their discovery of trip advisor.

Blackpool is a classic example of a seaside resort that's been badly hit by cheap package holidays to the sun.

As such you can expect it to be full of hotels hanging on by their fingernails.

Also it's known to have lots of social welfare bed and breakfast establishments.

You'd need to be living under a rock in England not to know that.

If you're just going from A to B and want a stopover you're better off going with one of the chains. I actually like premier Inns.

One of the travelodges I stayed in though was as depressing a dump as I've experienced.

mistakoala3• 12 years ago

Blackpool is a classic example of a seaside resort that's been badly hit by cheap package holidays to the sun.

Partly. Other resorts have managed to reinvent themselves, but the perception I have is that our local tourism trade took things for granted, didn't innovate and assumed there'd still be millions of overnight visitors to cash in on.

It's a very parochial place and despite all our problems and examples like this popping up periodically, as a town we still seem to maintain a collective belief that it's a great place to live/visit and "everywhere has its problems", with Blackpool just being hard done to.

andrechile• 12 years ago

wow, indeed, very nasty reviews. The Hotel is up for sale:

http://www.propertysales.com/Listing/Burlington-Road-West-Bl...

barking2• 12 years ago

In that advert it says the annual turnover is about £160K.

For a 40 bed hotel!!

A chip van turns over more than that.

mychaelangelo• 12 years ago

This happened with a New York hotel. They were trying to charge $500 for bad reviews http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/travel/bad-hotel-review-fi...

Thank you internet (Yelp, Tripadvisor) for putting them to shame!

gear54rus• 12 years ago

Thought of that case too.

Seriously, making a mistake for the first time is one thing, but seeing the shitstorm that ensued after that and repeating it is another.

adrow• 12 years ago

It actually seems to me that they may have copied the idea from that other hotel, the wording is very similar:

From the CNN article:

"Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our Inn, your friends and families may not,"

Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/19/tripadvisor-c...

“Despite the fact that repeat customers and couples love our hotel, your friends and family may not.”

insipid• 12 years ago

I'm glad someone found this; I was really confused because I recognised the phrasing, and thought "I've read this story... but it was about wedding guests...?"

treerock• 12 years ago

The couple have sought a refund via their credit card company.

I'm curious how that will play out. It's surprising how well the credit card system seems to work, when it relies so heavily on trust.

aikah• 12 years ago

I dont understand how this is even legal in Europe.No matter what the contract says.How can this be a legal clause? I dont get it.

adwf2• 12 years ago

It probably isn't, but it's in that annoyingly small fee zone where it costs more to take them to court than it does to just accept the fine. I think in this case, they'll probably get the money back from their CC company though.

mortov4• 12 years ago

The hotel made a strategic error so no need for court.

Under the UK Consumer Credit Act, when a credit card charge of £100 (or more) is made, the credit card company becomes 'jointly and severally liable'. A charge for a bad review also falls foul of UK Fair Trading legislation which means the couple can pursue the credit card company for the unfair trade breach and reclaim their money that way. Credit card companies don't argue in these cases and refund pretty damn fast (from experience) and just charge-back the business (so they lose the £100 and have additional charge-back fees of around 25% added on top).

If the hotel charged £99.99 instead, it would be a very different story and would need the Trading Standards people at the local municipal council to take action. (They already stated they will be regardless of the refund since these are unfair trade practices.) A refund would happen but would take longer and may well need a local county court action.

DanBC4• 12 years ago

In England they could go through small claims. An online claim for £100 would cost £25 initially and costs can be recovered.

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/overview

They could get free legal advice from Citizen's Advice. http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/wales/law_w/law_legal_system_e...

But just reclaiming the money via credit card companies is probably easier.

I'm curious about why the people leaving one and two star reviews are not also sending reports to trading standards / environmental health. If the public areas are dirty I dread to think what the kitchens are like.

cyphax• 12 years ago

I'm not a lawyer and I'm going to appear to play the devil's advocate here, but bear with me and let's say it's not illegal for an agreement to contain such a clause. If it breaks no laws, then why is it illegal? Assuming you have signed an agreement for this knowingly (or at least they presented this agreement to you and it's fair to presume that you've read it before signing it). So what you would have to do is refuse to sign that. Maybe you'll have to find another hotel but you can leave a negative review pointing out this outrageous demand from this hotel. They can't charge anybody a hundred pounds and they get really bad reviews for it.

So basically I don't know what got into their heads when they thought this is a good idea, either. At the same time, though, I wouldn't be surprised if this is not an illegal clause per se. If they charge a hundred pounds for structural damage to their hotel, or theft of towels or so, it would make more sense, and if they consider a bad review to be damaging, it isn't even that far fetched. I think they should know better than to do something stupid like this at the end of the day, however.

mpweiher4• 12 years ago

Dunno about the UK, but in Germany "surprising" clauses in everyday contracts such as this with consumers are generally illegal. End of story. If this got as far as a court, case would be over in seconds. Read opening statements, have laugh, verdict, good day.

Also don't know which way the EU swings on this, my guess would be towards the German position.

SEMW• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Terms_in_Consumer_Contra...

coldtea7• 12 years ago

Maybe you'll have to find another hotel

That's refusing you service and extortion.

The "another hotel" might be 100 miles away, in which case it also costs you money.

pjc503• 12 years ago

"Unreasonable" terms may be illegal at common law. And the unfair contract terms act limits the ability to insert unusual contract terms without drawing people's attention to them, especially in contracts where they haven't recieved independent legal advice.

fatman• 12 years ago

IAL, and I could imagine this fee getting upheld in at least a few US jurisdictions (with the right judge), leaving consumers to rely solely on the Streisand effect to get satisfaction.

The classic notion of a contract as an expression of the compromises forged in a battle between two sophisticated, represented parties has been replaced by overlawyering, boilerplate, and clickwrap.

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/do-lawyers-actaully-read-boil... (Judge Posner is perhaps the most acclaimed US jurist not on the Supreme Court - a "Law and Economics" pioneer who can roughly be described as libertarian)

What's the solution? Hold consumers responsible for every detail of wordy documents they didn't have the time to read, much less negotiate? Make companies bear the costs of every complaint - real, imagined, or fraudlent - a consumer can dream up? Companies can be cheap and sneaky, and consumers can be petty, stubborn, and stupid.

rmc7• 12 years ago

Assuming you have signed an agreement for this knowingly (or at least they presented this agreement to you and it's fair to presume that you've read it before signing it)

In the EU, not all contracts that you read and sign are legal, e.g. if it's a contact you can't influence, and it significantly alters the balance of rights to your deteriment.

toyg3• 12 years ago

It's not. This is unfair trading; the couple will eventually get their money back, and the hotel will be forced to strike down that clause.

The fact that you write a contract (the policy) doesn't mean that contract is actually legal.

reduce3• 12 years ago

He's probably thinking of some similar situations in the US where certain types of clauses are automatically void. No court appearance needed, no waiting, no nothing. It's as if the clause never existed in the contract, no matter what people sign.

For an example of this, see non-compete clauses, for most types of employees in California.

spacecowboy_lon2• 12 years ago

Justicable I belive is the term you can put whtever you like in a contract say only two weeks holiday in the UK.

Even if you sign it that part of the contract will be considdred null and void - and you can efectivly ignore it as teh UK's stutory rights take precedence.

Lord_Zero• 12 years ago

Their credit card company is going to refund that amount the second they review the claim. It will be a no-contest thing. Credit card companies fight for their customers and its generally the fastest way to reverse fraudulent charges like this one.

reduce3• 12 years ago

In many parts of Europe (among the countries I've worked) the written word of contracts is worshiped as the ultimate authority. What's "the right thing to do" means nothing by comparison. You sign, you're bound by it, unless you put up a massive legal fight. Not only that, but signed contracts are expected to be used vastly more than in the US.

It's a bit of a culture shock when you see the sharp difference in this respect from how the US treats contracts, at least it was for me.

On both sides you have people saying that the business world will collapse if you treat contracts the way that the other side is treating them. I'll refrain from saying which side I think is right, but I guarantee you that these differences are strong and real.

Swizec• 12 years ago

Sidepoint: ALL contracts I've ever signed, both in Europe and in US, and across oceans, have a clause that says "If anything in this contract was missed or is in violation of the law, the law prevails. The contract is ruled by laws of X country"

And really, both here and there, contracts are treated more like guidelines than actual rules. What you agree on with a handshake matters far more. Especially with contracts under 5 figures because enforcing them would be way too much hassle and in case anything goes wrong it's easier to just write them off as cost-of-doing-business and move on.

scott_w• 12 years ago

I'm not sure what countries you've been in, but British culture is definitely not like that.

B2B transactions do have more emphasis on following the rules of the contract, as two businesses are seen as being on a more "even playing field".

B2C transactions, however, rely heavily on consumer protection legislations (Sale of Goods Act, Supply of Goods and Services Act, Unfair Contract Terms Act), which recognise that most consumers do not read contract terms at all. In addition, there are a number of regulators and public bodies whose sole purpose is to provide free legal advice, and to fight cases on behalf of the consumer. Hell, there's a ton of morning television dedicated to hunting down dodgy builders and shaming them publicly.

My point is that contracts aren't as integral to everyday life as you assume, and most people will freely sign them in the knowledge that any bad terms are mostly unenforceable.

kitbrennan• 12 years ago

It is true for business contracts that the written word is considered the ultimate authority. The principle is called 'caveat emptor' which can be translated to 'buyer beware'; essentially a business that enters into a contract is expected to read that contract and consult legal advice.

That said, there is protection for consumer contracts. In the UK you have the Unfair Contract Terms Act that protects consumers against businesses attempting to discharge liability to negligence. Europe wide you have the Unfair Terms In Consumer Contract Regulations which prevents businesses from inserting onerous terms into contracts with consumers that are not 'individually negotiated' (eg. almost every contract that a consumer signs without using a lawyer).

solaris152000• 12 years ago

I think this is the place I stayed when I went to see Bob Dylan play in Blackpool 2013. It wasn't too bad, Blackpool is a sh*tehole anyway what do you expect. Dylan was great though, best night of my life.

kornakiewicz• 12 years ago

Dylan'play there is no reason for hotel to steal money from your card.

spacecowboy_lon2• 12 years ago

It's sad that they did not get that mega Casino - I stayed there a coupel of years ago and 15+ years ago Blockpools decline is shocking.

No wonder the political parities no longer hold their conferences (conventions) at the winter gardens.

instakill• 12 years ago

Some companies go out of their way to beg for negative publicity.

shaurz• 12 years ago

This just confirms what a terrible, anti-customer attitude they have.

tortos123• 12 years ago

just absurd... the government should take action on this and the consumer rights. Just close down the hotel and get the managers to the court for scam.

mimog12• 12 years ago

Why is this on hackernews?

jbrooksuk• 12 years ago

Hacker News does contain a lot of general news too, you know?

Recently the same thing occurred with a New York Hotel, where they were fining $500 per bad review.

mimog12• 12 years ago

According to the HackerNews guidelines this story would IMHO be in the 'Off-topic' category for submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

coldtea7• 12 years ago

Because it was posted and the HN community voted it up.

Which is pretty much "community bookmarking site 101".

mimog12• 12 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

paublyrne• 12 years ago

Trip Advisor is a tech startup. The situation couldn't have occurred without a service like them. The ways businesses try to deal with the ramifications of online reviewing is probably interesting to anyone thinking about innovating in that space.

mimog12• 12 years ago

> Trip Advisor is a tech startup

So a nearly 15 year old company with a billion dollar revenue still qualifies as a startup?

> The situation couldn't have occurred without a service like them

Freedom of speech infractions have occurred for way longer than online services have existed.

So if someone tweets something stupid/political it should be posted on hackernews as well, simply because tweeting wasn't possible prior to twitter? Or what if someone reacts badly to something on tumblr, is that relevant for hn'ers as well in case they are trying to innovate in the micro-blogging space?

johnwards• 12 years ago

We're hiring btw ;)

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/careers/

DanBC4• 12 years ago

I like to think it's "These small business owners got bad reviews. Here's their stupid way of dealing with it. Don't make the same mistake. What tips do you have for handling negative customer feedback or reviews?" -- which would be on topic. Unfortunately it ends up as being "wow, look at these idiots", so you are probanly right.

iqonik5• 12 years ago

From the guidelines:

Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

mimog12• 12 years ago

How does that make the submission appropriate?

ivanche• 12 years ago

How the hotel even knew who left bad review on some site? What stops someone from leaving bad reviews using fake names?

seanhandley• 12 years ago

Don't think HN is the place for this.

coldtea7• 12 years ago

For the last time, it's a community bookmark site!

Whatever the HN community votes up, HN is "the place for it".

DanBC4• 12 years ago

HN has always said that there are two types of interesting

i) intense but shallow

ii) deep

and that intensely shallow topics should be avoided where possible.

I'm really bad at this. I comment on too many topics that are intensely interesting when I should just ignore them. (I do however try to upvote all the interesting and technical stuff).

mimog12• 12 years ago

You are thinking of reddit. HN has submission guidelines.

yourad_io• 12 years ago

Don't think HN is the place for this.

Our sentiment analysis algorithm indicated this is a negative comment. You have been charged $100. Thank you for staying at HN.

All kidding aside, I'd say that yes, HN should be a place for exposing reprehensible business behaviours such as these.

It is even of general "hackerly" interest - like a bad growth hacking technique.

jwm1• 12 years ago

The BBC is reporting that the hotel has now reversed its policy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525

netcan8• 12 years ago

I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or policy so long that it's impractical to read it, is a clear sign this institution is broken.

We need new laws. Not the vague hodgepodge we have now. Policies designed to not be read need to be considered completely invalid. This credit card charge should be treated like any merchant taking a card and then charging £100 more than expected. Fraud, theft, some mild form of racketeering, whatever that falls under.

I think the most common abuse of this sort is "out of contract" telecom charges where using 2X the contract number of minutes or data could result in over 10X (often over 100x) the cost of the original contract.

I'm not sure how exactly the laws need to work, but there is obvious stretching of the systems well past the point of ridiculous. An iphone privacy policy or a hotel "sign this" agreement is not free actors contracting freely.

Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better. If hotels need some sort of escrow, then it should be an escrow.

binarymax• 12 years ago

We live in a culture of liability and a culture of blame.

This is a symptom of legal liability running the governments and corporate world.

Change the culture and this problem will go away. Not an easy task.

netcan8• 12 years ago

That's definitely a problem too, but I don't think that's the whole reason. I think this is an extrapolation of contracts which are a good thing where appropriate. An agreement between parties, ideally with input from both that everyone understands and agrees to.

Now, we make dozens of 10k word (or 100k word) agreements every week that no one understands. It would cost thousands or tens of thousands to understand them. You can't read them all and even if you did, you would find that being the odd one out in this regard left you unable to get a hotel room, phone or read a newspaper. So, we lean on standards, norms, consumer protection laws and to keep us safe from these damned contracts.

Common law (or my lay understanding of it) suggests that there is grounds for completely invalidating a "contract" which no one expects any one to read. If either party don't know what they're agreeing to, it's not a contract.

I'f you hand me a one page, large font bullet pointed list of things to agree to, that is something you expect me to read. If you hand me a 40 page small print book while I'm standing at a counter with people behind me, it's obvious what is going on.

rayiner• 12 years ago

Complaining about a "culture of liability" makes no sense in this context. The legal system doesn't create liability for posting a bad review--it just enforces the voluntary contract you made with someone agreeing to that restriction.

What you're actually asking for is the legal system to intervene and invalidate certain types involuntary agreements. Which I would agree with. What we live in is in fact a culture of excessive insulation from legal liability! 99% of all those "contracts designed not to be read" that the parent poster complains of, those TOS you have to agree to just to use hardware you paid for, those are designed to make you to sign away rights you have under tort law.

rmc7• 12 years ago

The EU has the "Unfair Contract Terms Directive", which means contracts which are just presented to you as a consumer are not always valid. It lists things are "unfair" and hence not binding. e.g. enablying the seller to alter the terms. When deciding if a contract term is fair, it must be decided on the side of the consumer.

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contra... http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID...

netcan8• 12 years ago

falling on the side of consumers (as we mostly do here in the EU) isn't the right solution either. I don't think this is about a contract being fair. Some laws about legal agreements are ok, but they aren't the tool for this job. At least not in my opinion.

I think before you can determine if a contract is fair, you need to determine if a contract is even a contract. If a standard contract is "agreed" between some company (Apple, this hotel, etc) and all of their consumers and some unacceptably high number of those customers don't now the content of this contract, I think it should be considered what it is: nonsense on a piece of paper.

These contracts are so blatant that it doesn't even matter what the thresholds are or how they are determined. The way these "contracts" are set up to be agreed to by people who haven't read them is so flagrant, it's unmistakably contemptuous of the whole idea of an agreement.

justincormack• 12 years ago

Businesses on the other hand have few protections, and bullshit contract terms seem fairly common, eg I saw a contract that required 6 months notice in writing or it would auto renew.

acabrahams• 12 years ago

"Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better."

Credit card charges that are pull-based are generally a bad thing, but not all pull-based payments are bad for consumers. For example, the Direct Debit scheme in the UK requires the consumer to be notified 5 working days before payment is taken, and the consumer has the right to get a refund from the bank without dispute; it is then the bank's job to go and get the money bank from the merchant. This latter feature in particular is important, and should be implemented for credit card pre-authorisations as well.

icebraining3• 12 years ago

I don't see how is that direct debit system better for consumers than what we have here in Portugal, where the consumer is the one initiating the debit authorization (using a code provided by the merchant).

icebraining3• 12 years ago

As others said, clauses like these are already considered null & void and the charge fraudulent, so I don't see this as a particularly good example of why laws must be changed.

With regards to very long contracts, and without meaning to defending all instances of them (since some are clearly just meant to obfuscate), how do you separate a contract "designed to not be read" from one that honestly tries to cover all edge cases and explain exactly what the terms are?

Some products - like the iPhone - are very complex. It's not easy to describe what information is gathered, with whom it is shared and how you can withdraw your consent, for each feature (Location, Siri, messaging, calls, etc) without a very long document. What do you propose they should do?

netcan8• 12 years ago

One test could be proportionality. If the contract is in regards to a loan, major purchase or similar spending time and money understanding the implications of the policy is reasonable.

With Siri, I don't propose anything. I am simply stating the obvious. As an owner of an ipad, I have not really agreed to anything with Apple. They are pretending like we have an agreement, but we don't. If people really needed to read and understand the terms and conditions, 99% of people would not have updated the OS and Apple would have to change the way they do things.

Maybe they just need to make the information available and not get my consent. Maybe some feature require consent and so can't be pushed to my phone without an action on my part. I don't know what the alternative is.

I do know that this agreement between me and Apple is much more like an agreement between Apple and a 6 year old then the one between me an my employer. In the real world, it is not a contact. My click does not really denote agreement.

iolsantr• 12 years ago

I think contracts signed without some sort of comprehension test having been performed should be considered suspect. This would have the effect of preventing things from being hidden in the small print, and making for much shorter (and probably more standardized) contracts.

seanmcdirmid• 12 years ago

You can totally rent a hotel room without a credit card if you pay up front, they might require a deposit.

moron4hire2• 12 years ago

Statements like "we need new laws" are problematic, because they boil down to "we need completely new people". Laws are written by people--specific, finite, real people. If you tossed out every law book today, you would end up with the same laws tomorrow.

And that isn't an endictment of congress critters and judges. They are of us, selected by us. To say, "we need a new legislature" is to say "we need completely new people." They are the way they are because we have made and allowed them to be that way.

Now, I agree that the laws we have and the legislature we have are objectively bad. But I have come to admit it is because we have a bad culture. We live in a world trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma over pillaging our neighbors.

netcan8• 12 years ago

I disagree, if you tossed out the law books you would get a very different set of laws. Laws have a long tradition inherited over thousands of years. Contracts is one of those traditions. It's a good tradition. It's just taken a bad turn, being applied badly to the wrong kinds of things.

madaxe_again2• 12 years ago

On the note of bullshit contracts...

We are about to shell out ~£15k to a recruiter who sent us the CV of someone (completely cold, without the person's consent, or us having any relationship with them) we hired via another recruiter, but a year down the line are pressing a claim, as in their contract, receiving an email from them is deemed acceptance.

This is apparently perfectly legal in the UK, and I'm considering starting a business which simply sends spam, with T's and C's in each email which state that by receiving the email you have agreed to become a paying customer, and to pay any fees we demand for "the service", which is receiving the email, which allows you to know that your email is working. The intent of course not being to be another scammer, but to get the law changed.

sjehay• 12 years ago

I am not a lawyer, but have had a similar argument with a recruiter in the past (their claim sounds like it was rather more concrete than this one). We sent them a firm letter from a lawyer, and never heard from them again. It might be worth taking advice before paying the £15k.

JonnieCache• 12 years ago

Really? A judge is actually ordering you to cough up? Can you share any more details?

mortov4• 12 years ago

You need a better lawyer.

If the situation is as you describe, sending unsolicited email and then charging you for receiving it (that's essentially what you're describing) when you have clear evidence you hired via the prior contact with another agency (they have that documented, right ?) is something which can be easily fought - albeit in court with some initial costs if they're going to be ass-ish.

You would win both your case and the legal costs if things are as cut and dried as you suggest.

However, if you replied to the unsolicited email (establishing you saw it) and there is no evidence of the prior agency being before that, you have a more difficult case. My personal experience of two agencies being involved was that the agencies sorted it out amongst themselves how to split the single fee which was paid to one of them - this was in the UK as you seem to be.

Only an experienced lawyer familiar with the details of your situation can properly advise you. I'm curious that you've been advised to settle if you've consulted a lawyer and appraised them of the situation you describe. Normally lawyers like slam-dunks like this.

My experience is recruiters don't send unprompted candidates because, without a prior agreement/contract, they will have difficulties in establishing they made an initial introduction and hence qualify to get paid. Otherwise they can just mailbomb you with millions of name variations and claim they introduced you to everyone on the planet and you owe them $$$$$s. [I think you realize this with your 'proposed' new business venture. ;-) ]

andrewfong• 12 years ago

Ooh, that gives me an idea: What if I put a clause in my T&C stating that if you run a business and use my service, you agree to not be an ass about your own T&Cs (with an appropriate definition of ass-ish behavior)? And what if a whole slew of other start-ups did as well?

Probably not enforceable -- but it'd be hilarious if having a no-bad-review clause in your T&C made you liable to, for example, the Flappy Bird developer.

netcan8• 12 years ago

Wow. Infuriating (and expensive).

I think this is a good example of how the current approach is broken. The "consumer protection" approach which basically deems clauses as valid or not is much weaker for businesses.

ajuc2• 12 years ago

UK is in EU, so there are illegal clauses in contracts and I think that should be covered by these (but IANAL).

jammycakes• 12 years ago

My first reaction on reading this was, "What about the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act and similar legislation?" However, a few minutes of Googling and reading up on contract law on Wikipedia suggests to me that there's a very real problem here. It turns out that unsolicited goods and services legislation only applies to consumers: for B2B it's somewhat more complicated.

For a contract to be valid, four things are necessary: an offer, an acceptance, a consideration, and an intention to create a legally binding relationship.

You can't accept a contract just by reading it: you have to take some action indicating your acceptance. Normally this would be by communicating it, but in the case of unilateral contracts (e.g. software licence agreements), it can be by some other action such as clicking an "I agree" button.

I'd guess that what is going on here is that the recruiter is trying to argue that you've indicated acceptance of their contract by hiring the guy. I'd guess that a paper trail to another agency would give your case some weight, but I'd guess that YMMV on that one.

This is why non-trivial companies have HR departments. The way they get round this one is by having clear disclaimers on their jobs/contact pages repudiating any liability for unsolicited CVs. Here are a couple of examples that I've come across - KPMG: http://www.kpmgcareers.co.uk/experienced-professionals/agenc... Cargill: http://www.cargill.com/careers/notice-staffing-agencies-plac...

mikeash• 12 years ago

"Policies designed to not be read need to be considered completely invalid."

I think this is key. The law assumes that contracts are a big deal for both parties, that they are relatively rare, and that they're given attention on both sides.

But it's hard to get through daily life anymore without signing a ton of contracts. Software update for your phone? Contract. Sign in to some random online service? New T&C I have to agree to i.e. contract. Pay for something with a credit card? That's a mini contract you're signing.

Now, in some cases there's no real excuse for not reading a contract. To take a random example, if you sign up for a two-year contract with a cell phone provider and you're given a stack of paperwork and you sign without reading through it first, I'm comfortable saying that's on you. This isn't something you do often and you have ample opportunity to read the thing first.

On the other side of things, Apple keeps tossing these gigantic contracts my way whenever I do much more than breathe. I'll literally get fifty or sixty pages of contract when trying to download a software update or just sign into the store after they made some random change to their T&Cs. Nobody reads these things. I know it, you know it, Apple knows it, and because of that they should be strongly limited in what they can do.

I think an important test for a contract should be asking the hypothetical question, "what if everyone who signed it read through it in detail first?" For something like buying a house, this would obviously change nothing. For a cell phone contract, it would change little. For random gigantic software EULAs and web site T&Cs and similar things, it would drive all the customers away. If having everyone read through it before signing it would break the process the contract was made for in the first place, the contract shouldn't be valid.

pearjuice• 12 years ago

Can a moderator edit the article? The "reveiw" typo is really tickling my OCD when browsing the front page.

dang2• 12 years ago

Ouch, I don't know how we missed that. Fixed now.

lmorris84• 12 years ago

I imagine they could dispute the charge with their credit card provider and put the onus on them to sort it out.

Being in a contract doesn't make something legally binding - what if they put "if you leave a bad review we reserve the right to shoot you?"

prof_hobart• 12 years ago

John Greenbank, north trading standards area manager, said it was a "novel" way to prevent bad reviews.

Or a novel way to get a bad review splashed all over national media. Did the hotel really think this was going to end well?

lordnacho• 12 years ago

I concur that something needs to be done about these consumer Terms-of-Service type contracts.

There's a contract system in place, and it may work fine for people who have the incentive and the resources to look over them (mergers and acquisition deals, house purchases), but a lot of the time the document is very long and written in legalese.

How many people are really going to hire a lawyer to read their Apple Store or World of Warcraft terms? Writing a hugely lengthy contract is simply a way to discourage you from reading it, and then pretending that you've agreed to whatever the terms are. I guess there's some help from the legal system - ridiculous clauses are thrown out - but that doesn't address the fact that you are discouraged from reading about relevant information.

I think someone must have written a post about how long it would take to just read the everyday ToS type docs that we're presented with. And South Park did an excellent episode about this (The Human CentiPad).

jvc26• 12 years ago

As an FYI, the fine was scrapped (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525) following an intervention by Trading Standards.

alexbecker• 12 years ago

This practice is not new, at least not in the US, although it is probably illegal. Ken White at Popehat has written about a number of such cases, for example http://www.popehat.com/2014/11/11/roca-labs-lacking-a-hornet...

tokenadult• 12 years ago

On the whole, freedom of contract (a characteristic feature of Anglo-American law since that body of law was located only in England) is a feature rather than a bug. Most of what we do each day in Britain, in the United States, and these days around much of the developed world is regulated by private agreements--that is, contracts--rather than by legislation or administrative regulations. That's a good thing. Parties to contracts can dicker until they reach a mutually agreeable deal, or each party can avoid making the deal at all by doing business with someone else.

Contracts have effect in influencing human behavior partly because once in a while a court will enforce a contract against a party trying to weasel out of the contract. But when courts get involved, general constitutional, statutory, and administrative law is brought to bear on the terms of the contract. A court may be very reluctant to enforce a term of a contract that doesn't allow a customer to complain about a company's service. That could be regarded as "against public policy," and public policy can be a judicial ground for NOT enforcing a contract. Moreover, a contract binds its parties, but doesn't bind outsiders who didn't enter into a contract, so a news organization like the BBC can report, "Slimy company attempts to sue its customer for letting consumers know that the company gives bad service," and the contract will not stop that. Parties to form contracts often ask the moon, but the party that drafted the contract language will usually have the terms construed in favor of the OTHER party if the contract is litigated. So I don't worry about this. I look over form contracts as I sign them (as, for example, when I buy an airline ticket or check into a hotel or rent a car) but I also stay aware of actual business practice as experienced by consumers as I buy products and services as a consumer. My most powerful recourse, always, is not to give a slimy company any repeat business, and to tell all my friends through every channel I have that I did (or did not) like a particular company's product or service. Anyone can do the same.

AFTER EDIT: By the way, this is an international news story that I heard on the radio while I was just on a morning drive here in Minnesota, and the latest update is that the hotel has agreed to refund the "fine." I'm trying to find a news story on the Web that verifies that.

http://www.itv.com/news/border/story/2014-11-19/hotel-fines-...

gadders• 12 years ago

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525 verifies it.

jbb555• 12 years ago

By reading this comment, you agree to pay me £100 if you downvote it. :P (worth a try)

Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review

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