[HN Gopher] Georgia teacher read the fine print and won $13K (2019)
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Georgia teacher read the fine print and won $13K (2019)
Author : ColinWright
Score : 95 points
Date : 2021-12-24 20:14 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca)
| bell-cot wrote:
| _Never_ assume that a company pushing a contract at you has
| bothered to read it. Let alone checked any facts.
|
| - Last time I renewed a lease with $Huge_Property_Management_Co,
| I noticed that our security deposit was being held by a bank
| which had gone out of business. Several years early. Said bank's
| address, as listed in the lease, was an office building which
| $Huge_Property_Management_Co had purchased when the bank folded.
| Media coverage from that purchase featured a Senior V.P. of
| $Huge_Property_Management_Co, who was talking up all the great
| things which they would do with the former bank HQ building. (The
| leasing agent I was dealing with reacted as if such screw-ups
| were dull routine.)
|
| - Some years back, we signed up for web hosting with
| $Major_Hosting_Provider. (~9-digit annual revenue and 4-digit
| headcount back then.) Part way through their T&C, their lawyer
| forgot that each bullet point in the list of unforgivable
| offenses was supposed to begin with "Not...". So their T&C's
| _required_ their customers to host content advocating violence,
| and to host content infringing copyrights, and to host child
| pornography... (I called their bottom-tier Customer Service, and
| pointed that out. Pause...within seconds I was transferred direct
| to the head of their Legal Dept.)
| astura wrote:
| For insurance policies I always read the entire policy because I
| want to know exactly what is covered and what isn't. They are
| written in fairly easy to understand language, so it's not a huge
| bother.
|
| Travel insurance policies especially have a ton of exclusions.
| 63 wrote:
| Doesn't the fact that someone claimed the prize within 23 hours
| of the contest just prove that people do actually read their
| contracts?
| ColinWright wrote:
| It proves that at least one person read that contract. It does
| not prove that people in general read all, or even most, of
| their contracts.
|
| Anecdotal evidence suggests that the vast majority of people
| read effectively nothing in their contract ... otherwise this
| wouldn't be news.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Especially travel insurance.. the people purchasing that are
| naturally more careful people otherwise they wouldn't be buying
| it
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I do wonder if they made it too obvious by bolding the text.
| alex_young wrote:
| $10k USD, and if you look at all of the views they received just
| from HN today it's about the best use of marketing spend I can
| think of.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I literally just read the article and I can't tell you the name
| of the insurance company involved
| divbzero wrote:
| SquareMouth Travel Insurance: https://www.squaremouth.com/
| anyfactor wrote:
| Skimming through the article what I remember after 3 minutes
| -
|
| - USD 10k == CAD 13k
|
| - 4,000 Words
|
| - A big old cheque
|
| And that's about it.
| maltalex wrote:
| (2019)
| jshprentz wrote:
| Compare with college students' failure to notice their
| professor's hint in a class syllabus: "Thus (free to the first
| who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen,
| twenty-five, thirty-five), students may be ineligible to make up
| classes and ..."
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/18/us/tennessee-professor-syllab...
| jrm4 wrote:
| Which has received appropriate backlash from real teachers who
| actually give a damn, myself included. As a teacher, your job
| is to communicate, not obscure. I suppose it's sort of a cute
| thing to do, but he was such a smug jerk about it.
| stefan_ wrote:
| See this is where you have gone wrong - professors are not
| teachers. At a certain age, it's sink or swim.
| simplestats wrote:
| Are you saying the syllabus was deliberately obfuscated as
| part of the game?
|
| How much of your class typically emails you to ask things
| listed on the syllabus, however clear it is, such as the
| final exam date?
| betwixthewires wrote:
| It's easy to forget that generalizations are just that, and we
| tend to start taking them literally. "Nobody reads this stuff" is
| false; _somebody_ reads this stuff. But saying "nobody reads
| this stuff" with that caveat implied is also true.
|
| It's analogous to attack surface; you have to think of
| everything, an attacker only needs one vector.
| jrm4 wrote:
| So, as a lawyer, much like the teacher who did something like
| this:
|
| F** everything about this. This collective idea that it is fair
| to have a miles long contract that your average person is not
| likely to read is one of the most harmful ideas that continues to
| linger.
|
| It's especially pertinent to us in IT; people keep parroting this
| notion of "well, you used the service and didn't read the fine
| print and therefore now you are bound to every little thing they
| say," and its a major contributor to why privacy and social media
| are so bad right now.
| dqv wrote:
| Is there really a point to the long contracts other than
| billable hours? Upthread, I speculated on that being the reason
| why "contract ergonomics" is not widespread. A while ago on the
| Verizon website, I recall seeing a "plain English" annotation
| of their legalese and thinking _why not just have the plain
| English part without the legalese?_ And why the hell is it so
| long?
|
| That's the only purpose I can think of. Including every edge
| case in a contract just doesn't seem useful... there is going
| to be a dispute no matter what.
| rocqua wrote:
| Contracts can get longer if either party is very distrustful
| of the other. If you expect the contract to be contested it
| makes sense to lock things down.
|
| An other reason is avoiding precedent and certain judgements
| from applying to this contract. I think this is quite common
| with financial documents, to the point where there is a lot
| of boilerplate that everyone understands without reading
| (just checking it is actually there).
|
| Sadly, contracts with the public hit both cases. Lots of
| precedent, and so many people you can expect a few of them to
| try and misuse the agreement.
| [deleted]
| jessaustin wrote:
| You might not long contracts, but there exist lawyers who do.
| Contracts will get shorter as soon as there is a consequence
| for writing contracts of excessive length. I.e., never.
| divbzero wrote:
| The UK government's writing guidelines includes this section
| that describes how legal content should still be
| straightforward: "Legal content can still be written in plain
| English. It's important that users understand content and that
| we present complicated information simply."
|
| https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design/writing-for-gov-u...
| enterexit wrote:
| Fine print in insurance contracts is probably the only fine print
| I ever read.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| As should everyone. Last summer I learned at least some renters
| insurance generally doesn't cover riots. So yes, even though
| you may not care if your landlord's building goes up in flames,
| you should care that your personal property won't be covered.
| Just calmly & peacefully (no need to brandish weapons) standing
| outside your apartment like you're a homeowner can make a
| material difference.
| [deleted]
| BoorishBears wrote:
| That definitely doesn't sound right...
|
| Are you sure you're not referring to some sort of clause
| excluding a "riot" in the context of war? I've switched
| renter's insurance providers a lot and never seen something
| like "civil commotion" not being a covered peril
| jdavis703 wrote:
| This was renters insurance pushed by the landlord. Perhaps
| it's the barebones the landlord was OK with (e.g. if I burn
| down the house cooking or create a flood changing the
| plumbing they get paid out and don't give a crap about what
| happens outside of normal tenant-caused disasters).
| dpark wrote:
| What? Renter's insurance should cover your losses, not
| the landlord's.
| simplestats wrote:
| It pays the landlord if they sue you and win. That's why
| they require it commonly.
|
| Some landlords even require tenants to cover them with
| your insurance as additional insured (I think this is
| stupid). Though it is common for business leases I
| believe.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Renter's insurance should cover your losses, not the
| landlord's
|
| Renter's, like homeowner's, insurance, usually includes
| some liability coverage. The landlord is a particularly
| likely person for a renter to have liabilities to.
| cmurf wrote:
| It covers renter's liability too. Whether by accident or
| negligence, you can be held liable for damages to other
| people's property.
| gruez wrote:
| >Are you sure you're not referring to some sort of clause
| excluding a "riot" in the context of war?
|
| Searching around it looks like "war" includes
| "insurrection, rebellion, revolution". Some people seem to
| think that jan 6th counts as such.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Did Jan 6 affect apartment buildings?
|
| Pretty sure this comment was talking about protests that
| were coopted into riots around the country. In the
| political realm people might try and stretch the meaning
| of revolution, but it's pretty clear that would be
| covered under "civil commotion" or riots
| albedoa wrote:
| Every one of the first like nine google results says that
| riot coverage is standard.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Ok, I was using the renters insurance my landlord pushes.
| Perhaps that's just a crummy package. Anyways, it pays to
| read the fine print... And even situations that seem
| unlikely like a riot or a pandemic, well they actually are
| worth getting insurance for.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Using insurance your landlord pushes sounds like a bad
| idea.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| I've always avoided those and source my own for this
| reason. I doubt they have the best coverage for the
| renter as opposed to best for landlord outcomes.
| Landlords have enough money and power, this is one thing
| we can do within that balance to maintain some control.
| jessaustin wrote:
| It's probably more straightforward than that: the
| landlords just get a bonus for referrals.
| Groxx wrote:
| Yeah, 23 hours is about what I'd expect for this. Insurance is
| reasonably important, and 4,000 words is quite short (~8
| pages). I've read much longer insurance agreements.
|
| If you _really_ want one of these clauses to go unclaimed, bury
| it in the middle of a software EULA from a large company, like
| EA. Ain 't nobody reading those.
| mwcremer wrote:
| Reminds me of the apocryphal story of the visibly nervous PhD
| student who walks into their thesis oral defense and sets down an
| expensive bottle of aged single malt whisky. The chair asks,
| "Before we begin, I am curious why you brought a bottle of whisky
| to your defense?" The student suddenly relaxes and says, "Oh, um,
| I'll explain after we finish." The student confidently answers
| all the committee's questions and the defense goes smoothly. When
| they conclude, the chair prompts, "Say, what about the whisky?"
| The student replies, "Oh that. In my dissertation on page four it
| says I will give the whisky to the first committee member who
| asks for it."
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| It reminds me of a story that a PhD student stuck a $10 (the
| value varies) bill into the copy of their thesis that got filed
| in the library. Some <large # of> years later, they came back
| to see that no one had taken it.
| owlninja wrote:
| This sort of just happened and made news. A professor left
| clues to money in his syllabus and no one got it.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2021/12/20/1065723014/tennessee-
| professo...
| smcl wrote:
| Yeah this was a little viral hit that went down well with
| boomers, but it was pretty sneaky. Everyone seems to be
| suggesting that if the _kids these days_ just did what they
| were supposed to then they could have scored a crisp $50
| and had all the avocado toast they ever wanted.
|
| But where _exactly_ was the text and how did the students
| miss it? These articles say it was "in the syllabus" but
| don't really go much further. I don't have access to the
| _full_ syllabus but a snippet showing its immediate
| surroundings is available: ...
| objectives. As a result, skill-based courses in
| music may be exempt from Covid-related
| accomodations as a progression in skills must be
| obtained across the semester to be successfull in
| these course. Thus (free to the first who claims;
| locker one hundred forty-seven;
| combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five),
| students may be ineligible to make up classes and
| coursework beyond the specified number of days as
| determined by the instructor. Requests will be
| decided on a case-by-case basis with specific
| emphasis on the ability to achieve learning
| outcomes. Technology Support: If you have
| problems with your UTC email ...
|
| So it was squirrelled away inside some boilerplate that
| every course has and nobody reads because they want to
| actually do their work and don't expect some professor to
| try to score internet points by pranking them this way. NPR
| could've done exactly the same thing on that article by
| adding a clause to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy docs
| that are linked, but which we all probably ignored and just
| clicked "Agree and Continue" to view the article
| smallpipe wrote:
| And the actual "clue" looked like a borked copy paste in
| the part of the syllabus telling you about university wide
| policies that the student would have read elsewhere
| already.
|
| But sure lazy students don't read the syllabus
| albertshin wrote:
| when I was younger and I had all the time in the world, I used to
| enter all these sweepstakes and contests that said you could buy
| X and then be entered into a prize pool/raffle/etc. the pro tip
| was to read the fine print, Ctrl+F no purchase necessary, and
| enter using the "alternative method"
|
| my guess is that there must have been some gambling law requiring
| that there be a method to enter for free.
|
| never got the top prizes but our mailbox was full of random
| things that confused my parents.
| treis wrote:
| I wonder about this from a legal perspective. Everyone knows that
| no one reads the T&C but companies will argue that they do. But
| here they're tacitly admitting that they know their customers
| aren't reading the T&Cs. So where's the meeting of the minds to
| enforce any of it?
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| By signing without having read all of the contract, you are
| voluntarily forfeiting your right and agree to be bound by
| whatever is in there.
|
| Basically you are signing a blank cheque.
|
| Therefore, to protect consumers, modern legal systems put
| limits to what T&Cs may contain (everything past the red lines
| is nonbinding)
| walrus01 wrote:
| interestingly I have seen the UI design choice to prevent you
| from agreeing to the T&C unless you at least scroll all the
| way to the bottom of it (not a guarantee you've read it,
| however). noticed this recently with the official apple app
| to find nearby airtags on android.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/13/22832731/apple-
| android-a...
| jessaustin wrote:
| This event seems to prove that people do read the contract:
| they had planned to run the contest for a year but it was over
| in less than a day. The insurer might have viewed this as
| research to do before slipping in something really egregious,
| but since that hypothesis failed they (or any other firm,
| really) can use this research to argue that at least one
| customer per day reads the fine print.
| Closi wrote:
| Well I guess it showed that they thought it was read by
| nobody, but in reality it is just viewed by a fraction of 1%
| of customers.
|
| (Assuming this is a large enough company to have a few
| hundred insurance sales each day).
| stefan_ wrote:
| In most sane countries there are strong limits on contracts for
| ordinary things such as renting, employment or purchases and
| most creative clauses you would come up with would simply be
| invalid if ever challenged.
| dqv wrote:
| I think the meeting of the minds happens at the point where it
| reaches what the customer _should_ know. That is, the customer
| is not only agreeing to the T &C, they're agreeing that they
| should know what is contained in the T&C (even if they don't
| really know).
|
| But the point you're trying to make touches on contract
| ergonomics (is that even a thing?) and why I try to make
| contracts that are as short and to the point as possible. Maybe
| some lawyer will tell me I'm making a mistake, but of course
| it's a mistake not to rack up billable hours ;)
|
| Most people are making an agreement in good faith. Bad actors
| will exploit a three page contract or a one thousand page
| contract.
| kentonv wrote:
| I did this with code once: https://github.com/sandstorm-
| io/sandstorm/pull/2899/files
| vmception wrote:
| I skim contracts, I'm mostly running a diff in my head as most
| contracts use copy and pasted clauses so its easy to notice
| divergences very quickly and only read those parts
|
| But as someone that does this I have one small request: _shut the
| fuck up while I'm reading your contract_
|
| I'm not looking for dealbreakers, I'm looking for rights and
| privileges. I will ignore onerous clauses if I know the state
| doesn't support that clause or that I'll challenge it either way,
| 99% of the time there's no reason to bring it up or walk away
| even if I notice an assignment of my soul.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The number of times I've had weird looks for wanting to read
| what I'm signing... Definitely something that I would recommend
| to anybody signing anything at all: read it first.
|
| And it this silly little habit has fairly frequently resulted
| in line item changes, less frequently in major changes and a
| few time in abandoning a contract. So this is not just a
| theoretical thing.
| ecpottinger wrote:
| Yet I saved my mom and later my landlady by insisting on
| reading the contract they were about to sign.
|
| In my mom's cause she bought a condo, and cable/phone
| contract was to bill her for services the previous owner had
| but she did not have or need.
|
| In the case of my landlady, she thought she had a money back
| offer on a new furnace if she did not like it. But the fine
| print showed she would own them for removal of the old
| furnace and the installation/removal of the new old if she
| did not like it. I knew something was fishy since they kept
| trying to get her to sign the paperwork despite the fact they
| could not come for a couple of days to do the work. Their way
| would cost her $4000 even if she decided she did not want to
| kept their furnace, turns out she just needed a new motor
| that cost her $150.
| [deleted]
| tedmcory77 wrote:
| This place is ~200 feet from right where I'm sitting. They have
| an interesting take on several things.
| rtourn wrote:
| These insurance underwriters seem like fun folks. While reading
| the fine print of my credit card insurance I noticed my purchases
| were covered from damages from "aircraft, spacecraft, or other
| vehicles".
| RyJones wrote:
| Have you taken time to give a close reading to the ICD-10[0]?
|
| 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642489
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Probably every single word is there due to a particular legal
| precedent or carefully calculated risk.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Probably every single word is there due to a particular
| legal precedent or carefully calculated risk.
|
| Or, possibly, just a recognized incalculable risk. The
| frequency of natural impacts is known and not expected to be
| subject to rapid change; the frequency of impacts by manmade
| objects doesn't really have a long history of constant
| conditions or conditions that are not subject to change over
| the life of the contract.
| anotheraccount9 wrote:
| My house is insured if a natural object (e.g. meteorite) falls
| on it, but not artificial objects (this includes satellites).
| judge2020 wrote:
| I wonder how this would play out if an artificial object hit
| a natural object into the earth and it damaged your house,
| ie. [0].
|
| 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/science/nasa-dart-
| mission...
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(page generated 2021-12-24 23:00 UTC)