Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Forced Arbitration On SOCKS! Purposely Difficult Opt Out Scam Explained" video.

@samtinkle9076 I'd argue that the fact that it's "just" socks makes it even more egregious. I once had a pair of socks where a loose thread started to cut the circulation to one of my toes. Thankfully, I'm not diabetic and could feel the circulation being cut and addressed it before I needed medical treatment, but somebody with poor circulation or neuropathy might have lost a toe.
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Or purchase through a reseller as when I bought my socks a few weeks ago they didn't come with ToS or any of that BS. I simply paid my money and got my socks. And whatever happens if you buy socks and then donate them to a homeless shelter? Are you on the hook for their unauthorized uses?
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Yes, simply requiring the same components for any changes, additions or deletions from a contract to apply to updates and statutory damages would stop this rather quickly. This whole thing is a bit of a backdoor to being able to arbitrarily change the terms after the contract has been agreed to when the original contract was probably not even properly agreed to in the first place.
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@PureMagma IANAL, but in that case, the contract likely wouldn't be enforceable. Being given a take it or leave it contract can be enforceable, for example if it's a very good independent contractor and you have some option to not employ them. However, if it's a contract update on something you already own and literally cannot use in any capacity without agreeing to an updated contract, it's unlikely that that will actually be enforced. Especially, if there's nothing in it for the owner for agreeing to it other than being able to use the device they paid for and can no longer return.
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@patrickday4206 That's how it should be, however, case law doesn't agree. I don't personally understand how they decide what constitutional rights you can and cannot sign away. For example, no matter what is offered, you can't sign yourself into slavery, but you can sign away your right to a jury trial and you can sign away your right to engage in otherwise protected speech.
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Really, the thing is to avoid buying any of the products that are listed until the companies do better. That being said, sometimes going to a store you despise and only buying loss leaders can be even better. Personally, I'm not sure that I'll buy another Roku as a result of their heavy handed ToS update, I don't really need to as there are a bunch of SBCs out there that can do more or less the same thing these days.
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I've been fighting with Noom recently because of the way that their auto-renewal works. When reputable companies, as in ones that aren't scammers, have an auto-renewal they provide advanced notice of what the amount will be and when exactly it will be charged before the auto-renew is used. There are issues inherent to auto-renewal, but reputable companies like Masterclass will send a proper renewal notification ahead of time to let you know to log in and cancel if you want to. Pairing that then with a no refund policy is deeply problematic and expressly illegal in some parts of the US, as well as something that the FTC says isn't legal. As long as the cost of taking things like this to court is so difficult, companies like Noom are going to get away with what is for all practical purposes is a scam. They do not disclose that there will be no notification ahead of the charge and as a result, it's up to the subscriber to just know that they're going to have to keep track of it because that's part of how the company makes their money. I was able to get half of the money they took back, but it should have been all of the money as the were well aware of the fact that I had stopped logging in and that they didn't have my consent for the charge. I can't help but wonder if they would be so bold if suing them over it didn't require me to have them served out of state and then deal with the hassle of showing up to small claims court out of state to get my money back.
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I'm not an attorney, but if I remember correctly from my business law class, that isn't legally enforceable. It requires offer and acceptance, mutual assent and consideration. It's unclear to me how any of those are actually being met with this change. There surely isn't acceptance or assent if it requires spending money to opt out of something that you didn't agree to in the first place.
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