Comment by ryandrake
Comment by ryandrake 2 days ago
Why would you want to continue using a service that is ripping you off? If you're at the point where your only recourse is to charge back, that's kind of a bridge burning moment.
Comment by ryandrake 2 days ago
Why would you want to continue using a service that is ripping you off? If you're at the point where your only recourse is to charge back, that's kind of a bridge burning moment.
I have many times walked home when I didn’t trust the bus timetable or the taxi equivalent. Always expected to get mugged but it hasn’t happened yet. I guess people often think someone walking is someone to not be messed with. Very place dependent obviously
Right, I didn't mean to imply an across the board policy of always taking Uber, never walking, wherever you go. But there are a ton of situations in the United States where walking + public transportation can't take you where you need to go at all, even putting aside safety.
We are talking about Lyft in this example ("I took Lyft instead") so your point is somewhat moot but a good reason to never charge back Google!
I took Google to a tribunal (think Australian equivalent of small claims) a few years ago, over a defective Pixel they refused to repair 2 years and 1 month after purchase.
Under Australian Consumer Law, I wanted to make the case that a premium phone should last more than 2 years.
Google’s representatives initially sent letters arguing that the license agreement forces me to arbitrate, to which I responded by adding another claim that binding arbitration is an unfair contract provision under the same ACL and should be declared void.
A couple days before the case, I received an offer to settle for a brand new phone and my filing fees, to which I accepted.
No chargebacks, no ban, just the legal system working as it should while being accessible to everyday folks.
That's a fantastic outcome, and honestly, a bit of a unicorn from my perspective here in the US. Your story about the Australian Consumer Law having actual teeth is a breath of fresh air. Here in the US, it feels like we're playing a whole different ball game, and the house (of Google) always wins.
A buddy of mine, let's call him "Dave," had a strikingly similar issue with a Pixel phone a couple of years back. His device started bootlooping out of the blue about 18 months after he bought it. Not exactly what you'd call a "premium" experience. He went through the standard support rigmarole, which I'm sure you're familiar with – the endless chat bots, the canned email responses, the escalations to senior support agents who just read from the same script. The final word from on high was, "Sorry, you're out of the one-year warranty. We can't help you."
Dave, being the stubborn engineer type, decided he wasn't going to take that lying down. He'd read about people having success in small claims court and thought, "How hard can it be?" He did his homework, found the correct legal entity for Google in his state, and filed the paperwork. The filing fee wasn't outrageous, something like $75. He wasn't asking for the moon, just the cost of a replacement phone and the filing fee.
This is where the story takes a decidedly American turn. A few weeks after filing, he didn't get a settlement offer. Instead, he got a thick envelope from a fancy law firm. It was a motion to compel arbitration. Buried deep in the terms of service that we all click "agree" to without reading, there was, of course, a binding arbitration clause. And not just any arbitration, but one that would be conducted by an arbitrator of Google's choosing, in a location convenient for them (Northern California, naturally), and he'd have to split the cost of the arbitrator, which can run into thousands of dollars.
So, his $75 gamble to get a new phone suddenly had the potential to turn into a multi-thousand-dollar boondoggle. The letter from the lawyers was polite, but the message was clear: "drop this, or we'll bury you in legal fees." They weren't just trying to avoid paying for a faulty phone; they were making an example of him.
Dave folded. He couldn't afford to take the risk. So, not only did he not get his phone replaced, but he was also out the filing fee and a good chunk of his time and energy. He ended up just buying an iPhone out of spite.
This is why arbitration on consumers should be illegal - aka, arbitration should only be legal when both entities are approximately similar in power/capability.
The whole reason for existence of courts is to ensure that parties with unequal power can be fairly treated. Arbitration seems to remove that via a loop hole.
IMO it's attitudes like this that allow companies to continue ripping us all off for small amounts here and small amounts there. They know it's a small amount and most people won't push back, so they keep getting away with it. I suppose the only thing that stops me from hitting the nuclear button every time this happens is that there are a limited number of companies offering many categories of services, and I'd eventually have to charge back each of them and lose access to an entire industry composed entirely of shitty companies.
It would be much better if companies were inclined to amicably settle small dollar disputes rather than the default which seems to be to stonewall, and then ban when the customer uses the only tool they have to push back.
> IMO it's attitudes like this that allow companies to continue ripping us all off for small amounts here and small amounts there
I'm not asking for inaction, but for a response proportionate to the injury. If you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a service and they make what may be a $3 mistake, is it worth it to you to burn the service immediately?
Are you going to provide me a useful service on a regular basis? You're really missing the point here if not.
The point is a bad one that should be missed. $3 isn't negligible. It isn't usually [0] worth spending $4 to recover, but it is nonetheless money. People can't just arbitrarily charge each other $3 for nothing.
[0] Game theory says sometimes it makes sense to be unreasonable.
At $3 your credit card company is just going to comp it to you and move on.
Many, Many millions have been made on pennies pulled from consumers daily.
$3 in a personal vacuum is one thing (and still adds up if you consider each service that could do this) $3 across 20% of users, lets say, globally, daily. Adds up.
Consumers have the ability to also contribute to and define how engagements with businesses look. If the government won't help us, we have to continue on our own.
Here are some examples:
Cramming schemes
TMobile - 2014 The FTC sued Tmobile alleging it knowingly kept 30–40% of fraudulent charges Tmobile settled for $90 million: at least $67.5M refunded to consumers, $18M to states/AGs, and $4.5M to the FCC
AT&T: $105 million for unauthorized premium SMS billing
Dodd‑Frank’s Durbin Amendment (2010): Congress required the Federal Reserve to cap debit‑card swipe (interchange) fees—typically a few cents—forcing banks to drop excessive micropayments to retailers. Because previously they were. And it was resulting in millions
State Attorneys General vs. Marriott (2021–2022) Hidden “resort fees” tacked onto hotel bills—$10–$35 per night. The Pennsylvania AG and coalition sued; Marriott settled and began disclosing mandatory fees upfront
Walmart: $45 million settlement no admission of guilt, but Walmart agreed to compensate shoppers who bought specified items from October 19, 2018, to January 19, 2024 for a max of $500 even though they knew they were overcharging customers
WholeFoods had a similar case, purposefully misweighing items
The list goes on and on.
The question on the table is: why pursue $3 for not getting the thing you ordered. Is it fair? Does it matter?
Based on continuous corporate fraud, I would say not calling it out will make it worse.
> Why would you want to continue using a service that is ripping you off?
For the same reason that I'm going to continue using Uber despite them ripping other people off, as described in this very thread. People systematically overweight their own negative experiences and underweight those of others; I believe that every single negative story about Lyft and Uber I've read in this thread is likely to be true. In other words, they do sometimes rip people off. On the other hand, am I likely enough to be ripped off the next time I use Uber that it doesn't make sense to use it? (And do what instead, walk?) No. It's unfortunate, and I support social solutions to the problem like better regulation of businesses, but if I personally dropped every company I think sometimes rips people off, I would do business with no one ever.