Putting a term in a contract does not make it enforceable. I am not a lawyer but I have paid enough to tell me about this stuff…
This looks like a contract of adhesion to me which means unenforceable. The vendor did not make the contract terms clear to the buyer. Further it looks very much like they actively attempted to conceal them from the buyer. The terms are in no way usual for the type of transaction.
Next issue is that the courts rarely permit liquidated damages clauses in civil contracts and virtually never in a consumer situation. Attempting to fine customers is not going to be considered enforceable.
The threat to make a report to a credit rating agency might cross the line to extortion which would be a criminal matter. Is there a threat? Yes. Is there a demand for an item of value ? yes.
In general you can’t use a threat of reporting to a credit rating agency to force someone to pay a disputed debt.
In Europe this type of scammer gets thrown in the slammer. The US tends to be very sloppy and lax on fraud.
Accessory Outlet will probably fold like a cheap umbrella
Sadly, that would probably be irrelevant to them. The guy has this event written on his “business plan” and will just open another shop. I guess there is a probability that whatever you “open” on the web will result on some customers finding your site and buying a couple of things. Just keep moving your cart to another corner.
Precisely. This negative publicity will see the shop close within a few weeks, but there is probably already another online store stocking virtually all the same junk that will remain open until it gets similar publicity.
My understanding is the contracts of adhesion are not a priori unenforceable. Frankly most contracts these days are “sign our terms or go away” contracts of adhesion. Only unconscionable contract terms are unenforceable, and these may well qualify.
Ms. Cox should contact her local DA’s office after she puts a hold on her credit card with this vendor. Not a lawyer either, but this doesn’t sound kinda like extortion, it sounds exactly like extortion.
Right now, I wish I was a programmer; what a great idea for an app and/or browser plug-in:
I know that I’m gonna forget this article in a few days; but when I’m browsing for something in a month or two and the words ‘Accessory Outlet’ pop up as a supplier for that item, the app should display those words with a big-red-line right thru the middle of it, flagging it as a bad item. Yeah you can call it ‘Flagger’, and you don’t even have to pay me for it.
There was an article here earlier about a browser extension that was highlighting names of US politicos and shown on mouseover the list of the donations by industry that made them elected. I looked into its code, looks simple and should be easy-ish to adapt. (Don’t look at me! (Yet.)) This would be ideal to pair with some updated server-side list of known-bad companies, plus why they are bad.
