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by techsupporter 3394 days ago
/opens Terms of Service.

/CTRL-F, "Arbitration" .. Match found. No opt-out clause.

/closes tab without signing up for yet another service because mandatory, binding arbitration clauses in business-to-customer services are a cancer that deserve to die and it's a shame that "bootstrapy," "customer-focused," "friendly" start-ups have fallen for this trap.
1 comments
dontmitch 3394 days ago
Heh, don't blame you. We did fight for and win approval to write a forward to our privacy policy to make it more accessible. Outside of that, we didn't want to innovate in an area we know very little about and instead deferred to what our law firm told us we should be doing.
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techsupporter 3394 days ago
I understand your situation but I also reject the premise. Small businesses are supposed to be at the forefront of things like this. There's a reason why outlets like the New York Times have been writing easily-accessible articles on this topic since AT&T screwed us all in 2011.

I get that you're dealing with financial things and financial outlets are inherently risk-averse but if my credit union can manage to not get sued into oblivion while lacking a mandatory, binding arbitration clause, you could, too. SoFi pulled off having an opt-out clause in their agreement; that's the least I expect these days.

This is one reason why I've started doing business more and more with European-based companies. Their local laws don't permit such customer-unfriendliness.

(Edited to add: if I'm trusting you with read/write credentials--since no other kind exist--to my financial accounts, yes, I expect to retain the right to sue if you screw up gloriously. That your lawyers pushed for you to make your users sign away that right is telling.

I'm genuinely sorry if I'm coming across as hostile; this isn't personal at you, specifically. I'm just sick and tired of being told "you get to tell us everything about you in order to use our shiny new service and if we drop the ball or miss a semi-colon and every penny you own is funneled to Moon Base Alpha Seven, well, sorry, hope the arbitrator chosen by us, paid by us, and with a financial incentive to be used by us in the future is willing to award you a few ducats for your trouble." I keep hoping for better from HN-funded startups and so rarely get it.)

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