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by jerf 3212 days ago
It sounds like copy/pasted boilerplate that may happen to be overreaching, rather than a conspiracy. Upon what do I base this? Not a legal argument, but a pragmatic one that it simply won't work to discharge them of liability in this case, because they'll be lucky if 5% of the affected people use this form to see if they were affected. (For instance, even before I heard about this legal stuff, I didn't even bother, because I'm just going to assume "yes".) I want to say they'll be lucky if 1% do, but the news story is pretty big.

But there's no way that anything like 100% of the affected people will, which is what it would take to even theoretically get them out of the class action lawsuit(s).

Arguing about the legal details seems pointless, this isn't going to get them out of this scrape even if it was 100% iron-clad and court tested, and I seriously doubt anyone at Equifax ever thought for a second this clause would be used that way.
2 comments
asksol 3212 days ago
You don't think Equifax have lawyers? Of course they do, and they know that the clause exists. Just having the clause in the first place is a conspiracy to abuse consumers.
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jerf 3212 days ago
What I mean is that I don't think anybody specifically was thinking "Aha! We can put this clause in there today, and we've got a free out! Hooray!", precisely because even if it did work as putatively designed, it wouldn't work, and they'd completely know it. It isn't even useful as a "throw the spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks" maneuver.

To believe that this clause is related to this matter is to require not merely mendacity (believable), not merely stupidity (believable), but an unbelievably precise combination of mendacity and stupidity that can only be read as constructing a rationalization for a pre-supposed conclusion.

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anigbrowl 3212 days ago
It sounds like copy/pasted boilerplate that may happen to be overreaching, rather than a conspiracy.

Probably, but people and companies should stop doing that. Equifax has the resources to pay lawyers to do things fairly if they want, they're just choosing not to.

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