A Legal Scare
I recently
found a piece of paper on the kitchen table that looked very important. It was in very small print so I grabbed my
magnifying reading glasses.
What I found
scared me.
Apparently
if a recent purchase was found defective, we have only 14 days in which to take
direct legal action in court. After 14
days we automatically agree to everything on this piece of paper, which states
any complaint would go to an independent arbitrator.
Crap, just
the word “arbitration” is scary.
If we take
the manufacturer of the product to arbitration then we will assume 50% of any
costs of the proceeding unless the claim is over “$10,000 then Blah blah, gobbilty gook, blah.”
This was
followed by lots more legal stuff which to me was like reading something with
those funny looking Russian alphabet characters. The reference to $10,000 did get my
attention, and that along with the legalese language was very scary.
I had no
idea what purchase this was in reference to, but suspected it was our recent
very expensive HVAC purchase.
Damn, I
think that was over 14 days ago, and if something goes wrong, I don’t want to
go to arbitration, especially if
“over $10,000 then
“Blah blah, gobbilty gook, blah.”
Why had this
important legal paper gone unnoticed for so long. It looks very important and very scary. I should probably have my lawyer interpret it
for me. The manufacturer must have spent
a pretty penny putting it together, surely it is meant to screw the buyer if he
just ignores it.
“Karen!”
“What.”
“We have a problem, how many times do
I have to tell you to save and read the fine print on all our purchases?”
The wife
tromps downstairs.
“What are you talking about?”
“This!” I hand her the paper.
“It looks serious, see the over
$10,000 then ‘Blah blah, gobbilty gook, blah part’. It has been over 14 days
since they installed the new HVAC.”
“HVAC…what are you talking
about? This came with the grabber thing
we bought the other day, you know, the ‘As seen on TV’ thing.”
“The pincher thing with the long handle
and the light on the end, plus the magnet for picking up anything even in the
dark?”
“Yes.”
“But that only cost $19.95, why would
I go to arbitration over it if it won’t pick something up?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh…so I can just throw this legal
crap away?”
“YES!!...JERK!”
 |
| It does work, the other day I picked up a penny without bending over. |
Someone somewhere has a great job printing all these stupid warnings presumably in the hope of robbing you. Unrelated to this blog but the claim for cash reminded me of the message I got - on my phone - that my phone had been found a good many miles away. The cost of retrieval was astronomic. I just deleted the message, easy to do that on a phone!
ReplyDeleteIs it wrong to have been very amused by this story?
ReplyDeleteAttorneys, killing more trees per second than any other profession.
ReplyDeleteThere are simply too many lawyers running loose in our society.
ReplyDeleteWhat messymimi said. I was thinking the very same thing.
ReplyDeleteHave a fabulous day, Joe. ☺
Phew...dodged that bullet. Now you'd better find the paper work for HVAC and have a good read.
ReplyDeleteWhat? You didn't want to involve your attorney in a $19.95 purchase? You could probably get about two minutes of their time for that.
ReplyDeleteOh, we are supposed to read those things?? I tend to glaze over at the first hint of legalese.
ReplyDeleteI was sweating reading this after you said something about your new HVAC system since we're getting one soon...then I laughed, wiped my brow and decided we would read everything very carefully when we purchase the furnace thingie. At least you had a nice long handle and grabber to stuff that paper in the trash!
ReplyDeleteThey might have well just said, "We win, you lose....our pockets are deeper than yours."
ReplyDeleteahhh, Joe, all that panic when all you had to do was check first to see what item it was in reference to. Of course if it had been about the HVAC, you'd be justified, but again, those things usually come with a much longer guarantee and aren't likely to fail within 14 days. I've got a similar grabby thing, $2.50 from a cheap-as-chips shop, but it doesn't have a light and probably can't pick up anything a small as a penny, handy for reaching the high shelf though.
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Mrs. C is the best.
ReplyDeleteJoe that sounds almost as scary as pulling that tag off of your mattress...
ReplyDeleteHeh, heh! YOU HAVE A GRABBER THING!
ReplyDeleteOh, wait. This is about the class action suit. We were in one with that Christopher Reeve disability insurance that Hick and I got for him way back when we were first married and built our house. I don't know what they did wrong, but I filed online to be part of the suit, and we received several hundred dollars in the settlement. It would have been much more for each claimant, but the LEGAL FEES took most of it! However, since the insurance itself was less than $100 a year, I think we came out okay. Besides, we stopped the insurance.
You might have gotten $3.11 if you entered that class action suit and it garnered you the same percentage we got. Of course, it would take over two years to go through the courts...
Well, that settles it. I won't buy that grabber thingy. I'll just have my son drive 50 miles and go up on the tall ladder.
ReplyDelete