[otterley]

Attorney here! (Not providing legal advice, though.)

The elements of common law civil fraud are as follows:

1. Somebody intentionally misrepresents a material fact in order to obtain action or forbearance by another person ("I am traveling to ILM from SFO" but in fact is going to IAD);

2. The other person relies upon the misrepresentation (United prices the fare as though the passenger were going to ILM instead of IAD); and

3. The other person suffers injury as a result of the act or forbearance taken in reliance upon the misrepresentation (United gets less fare).

Note that profit is not an element of fraud, although here, one could argue that the potential fraudster did profit in terms of the difference in fare.

So United has a fair argument that, given the facts at hand, intentionally misrepresenting one's travel plans in order to obtain a better fare probably constitutes fraud.

[dragonwriter]

Purchasing a good or service with multiple components is not, in and of itself, a representation to the seller of intent to use all the components.

Now, there could be something United has inserted in the purchase flow of all multileg tickets which assures that the purchaser makes a representation of intent to use every leg, though I've never seen anything like that when purchasing tickets (and a contract of adhesion that United writes that most purchasers will not read, while it may succeed as a contract, probably won't be seen as such a representation for fraud purposes, AFAICT.)

[otterley]

> Purchasing a good or service with multiple components is not, in and of itself, a representation to the seller of intent to use all the components.

Do you have a legal citation for this? I'm unaware of any law that supports this assertion.

In any event, the representation in question is "I want to fly from city A to city B." It's pretty reasonable for an airline to conclude that when a passenger makes this request, that is in fact their intent, not to fly to city C.

[dragonwriter]

> Do you have a legal citation for this?

As far as I am aware, no one has actually attempted to make a fraud claim on the grounds that mere purchase (and/or the statement of intent to purchase) a composite good or service was a representation by the buyer to the seller of intent to use every portion of the good or service so sold and had the case survive to a published decision on that question.

But, you know, if you can find a case supporting your claim that this intent would clearly be inferred from such an aggregate purchase, I'd love to hear it.

[foton1981]

Damn. If this becomes legal precedent will I be forced to read every page of books I buy?

[brewdad]

And you'd damn well use both items of your Buy One, Get One Free offer. No sharing. No only using half of the second item.

[lordlimecat]

To purchase the ticket you agree to the contract of carriage, which explicitly disallows hidden-city ticketing in section 6, subsection J, paragraph 1. See here: https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.ht...

So when you agree to use the ticket to travel all the way to the final destination, I think that qualifies as a "representation... of intent to use every portion of the good".

[dragonwriter]

I addressed that (assuming that the contract likely covered this) in my first post in this thread: “Even if the contract of carriage has language to that effect, which might give you a breach of contract claim, I don't think you’ll find much support for the use of language in a contract of adhesion as a representation by the non-drafting party for fraud claim.”

[p49k]

The representation in question is "I want to buy a ticket that allows me to fly from City A to City B, stopping in City C."

[otterley]

The declaration of intent is made before the stopover city is revealed to the prospective buyer. You don’t get to specify a stopover city when you select your origin and destination; only after those are entered is the routing revealed to the customer.

[p49k]

I hope you can take a step back and see the absurdity of your argument. Using a search engine in one particular way doesn’t imply intent, nor does buying something that’s not exactly what you need.

Airlines can’t have it both ways: if they wanted to, they could make customers pony up a “trajectory abandonment” deposit, or force customers through an interstitial in which they explicitly agree to extra charges, or something similar, but they want the financial/competitive advantage that comes with the customer not having any worries (i.e. being clueless) about being charged for missing or not taking a connection.

[otterley]

We’re talking about a situation in which the customer already knows they want to go to city B. If they’re being truthful up front, city B is the destination they’ll be putting in the destination box when searching for tickets, and they will get a routing to that destination without any additional segments when they do so (assuming, of course, that the route is possible).

[kryogen1c]

Your argument seems absurd to me. The price break exists because it's a good deal for airline and long distance flier. Abusing this system only ends in two ways: airlines punish short-stoppers, or raise prices on everyone.

[Someone1234]

> Do you have a legal citation for this? I'm unaware of any law that supports this assertion.

One could argue the same about every post you've made on this topic thus far. You're arguing that simply the act of buying something is a representation, which can then result in misrespections ala fraud, but you've provided no legal citations and the one citation you have provided was about contractual agreements which aren't in scope here.

[otterley]

The reason I'm not citing anything is because there's nothing to cite. The (mis)representation in this case is crystal clear: "I want to fly to city B."

[johnm1019]

I completely disagree it's crystal clear.

How does buying something indicate your intent, wants, or wishes? If I buy a can of spray-paint, the store has no idea if I am using it to paint my child's bicycle, tag graffiti, use it as a weapon and hit someone on the head, or as part of a wonderful "Rube Goldberg" device which at the end an implement hits the sprayhead which sprays through a bright white light as part of performance art.

Another example, a true story: yesterday I visited an ice cream store with my friend. She wanted a scoop with chocolate sauce, and I wanted just a scoop. 1 scoop was 4.29+tax. A 3 scoop sundae with chocolate, nuts, and strawberry-sauce was 7.98+tax. Even though we only wanted 2 scoops we got the sundae because it was cheaper and scooped the strawberry-sauce off and into the trash (crazy I know, we don't like it). Did we defraud the ice cream store?

People buy "more than they need" all the time, and purchasing a good provides no intent as to what one wants or how they wish to use it.

[otterley]

Facts and circumstances matter; not every case is comparable. In the specific case of buying airplane tickets, it’s reasonable for a carrier to infer intent to travel to a particular destination from the user’s input.

[lordlimecat]

>How does buying something indicate your intent, wants, or wishes?

Because when you buy a united ticket you agree to a contract of carriage that specifically says you will use the ticket in its entirety.

[bfdm]

I don't want to fly anywhere. I want to buy a plane ticket with my name on it good for travel to B if I decide I want to do that later.

[otterley]

The law doesn’t care about your subjective intent; it will be interpreted objectively, according to the facts and circumstances that can be observed externally of the interaction between you and the carrier. This is a basic tenet of contract law.

[cft]

If I order a meal at McDonald's and don't eat the fries, is that fraud, because the cost of a burger plus soda separately maybe more than the meal with a burger, soda and the fries?

[otterley]

Technically yes, but the injury is de minimis so McDonald's isn't likely to demand recompense in this situation.

[otterley]

Correcting myself here: this particular example isn’t fraudulent. You asked for something that was being offered, you paid the asking price, and you got it. They’d sell it to you whether you intend to eat the fries or not. They don’t care. So there’s no misrepresentation and no reliance. Those elements aren’t met, so no fraud occurs.

Services can be different than goods in this regard. In the airline example, the seller prices flights differently for different destinations. When you indicate an intent to fly to city B by requesting a ticket with that destination, and the airline offers you a ticket whose destination is the one you asked for, their offer is made in reliance on your stated intent. So if you intentionally abandon your trip sooner, you reveal your true intent: to fly to city C. And if the price for flying to city C was higher, then you deprived the seller of a benefit they’d otherwise have had because they wouldn’t have sold you the ticket for the same price had you revealed your true intent at the start of the transaction.

[cft]

I am sorry but I am seeing an exact analogy, other than your statement that services are somehow different from purchases. I am also depriving McDonald's from the added profit of selling me a coke and a burger separately for more than a meal, and I do have the premeditated true intent of not eating the fries, that I reveal by tossing them repeatedly every time I order a meal. Maybe it's harder to prove that I toss the fries every time, but according to your logic McDonald's in theory can collect the difference and threaten my credit too.

[cft]

Again, nested depth limit but: I could have told the cashier "I only want a coke and a burger please" revealing my true intent. In that case, the cashier would have sold me what I wanted, for more money. Since I concealed my true intent from the cashier and said "I want a combo meal please" I deprived McDonalds of this profit.

Now if you tell me that I violated some written United contract, that I had to explicitly agree to when purchasing a multi-leg ticket, that's another matter. But I will still argue that that contract is not enforceable. And to my knowledge, they do not have a clearly visible contract with an opt in in this specific case.

My point is that the burden is on the airline to prevent such loopholes by revisiting their pricing schemes, rather than attempting to bully its passengers (also for Streisand effect reasons).

[otterley]

I’m sorry to say that you’d lose.

Law school is expensive, but I’d recommend attending if you’d like to better understand beyond what I’ve already said here.

[otterley]

In this hypothetical, McDonald’s does not care what you do with the fries they sold you. Even if you told them that you were just going to throw them in the garbage, they’d still sell you the combo at the cheaper price.

United, however, does care how you use the ticket they issue. How can you tell? Because they would not have sold you the ticket at the discounted price had you told them your true intent (to fly to a city other than your ticketed destination). They offered you a particular fare because they relied on what you claimed. That’s the difference.

The key to analyzing these questions is, what would the other person have done had they known your true intent? If they’d have done something different, then reliance can be shown and that element can be satisfied.

[dragonwriter]

No, because you did not make, and McDonald's did not rely on, any representation of your intent to eat the fries.

[cft]

What representation did that person make of his intent to fly to the final destination?

[dragonwriter]

I'm not agreeing with the upthread poster’s characterization of that transaction, either (for similar reasons); see my response to their post further upthread.

[InclinedPlane]

Not at all, eating is not part of the contract, only receipt. If you buy a meal at McDonald's and throw all of it in the trash, that's not fraud. It's yours to do with how you please.

[cft]

What if I repeatedly buy non-stop tickets and don't show up? I have done it a lot. According to you, I breached my promise to fly to the final destination?

[otterley]

The question is, would United sell you a ticket knowing you have no actual intent to fly? If they answer is yes, there’s no problem. If the answer is no, then there’s a problem.

[InclinedPlane]

Where have I said that?

[mannanj]

Technically yes? Here's why techincally I law system fucking sucks and favors large corporations, because how in the world would the small guy be expected to find against someone suing us for this?

[cft]

What if I habitually don't like fries? Say I have done it 2000 times?

[otterley]

What is the point of this debate? Only the fictional McDonald's in your fictional scenario knows. It's an unlikely situation to begin with, so let's stick to the facts at hand.

[cft]

We bought a Juniper router on sale for $120,000 and did not use some of its functionality. A base model without this functionality was offered at $150,000 by the same salesperson. I can get the quotes and the invoice. Can Juniper force us to pay the difference and report to D&B?

[cft]

Can't respond due to nesting depth. But I fail to see the difference between my company buying a more expensive model for less and not using the advanced functionality, and them ditching the last leg.

[otterley]

No, what's your point?

[kazinator]

What would the recompense be? They hold you hostage until you eat all the fucking fries they paid you to eat?

[otterley]

The difference in price.

[kazinator]

So, "No, you can't have that to go: we're gonna watch you either eat the fries you were paid $0.25 to eat, or else ask you to return the $0.25."

[Someone1234]

Your argument fails hard at point #1. A ticket buyer, through merely the act of purchasing a ticket, isn't making a material representation.

You should have argued contract law. That's perhaps a winning argument. Civil Fraud isn't because you'd have to argue that the simple act of clicking a "buy" button on a web-site is akin to a representation, and by extension a misrepresenting, an argument which you'd never win.

The fact your example ("I am traveling to ILM from SFO") literally never would be spoken or written, just inferred, should have been a clue. You've constructed that example-misrepresentation from nothing more than making a purchase, it doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny.

[otterley]

> Civil Fraud isn't because you'd have to argue that the simple act of clicking a "buy" button on a web-site is akin to misrepresenting, which you'll never win.

Are you an attorney?

Putting an origin and a destination in a form and asking for the price is a clear representation of intent, not to mention buying said ticket. Intent need not be verbally communicated; any conduct that is recognized as a representation is sufficient. This is basic civil law; your strict definition is hogwash.

It absolutely holds up, in the same way that clicking an "I agree" button in an online transaction is a representation of agreement, which courts have already held to be valid. See, e.g., the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), and Feldman v. Google, E.D. Penn, Civ. 06-2540 (2007).

[dragonwriter]

> Putting an origin and a destination in a form and asking for the price is a clear representation of intent, not to mention buying said ticket.

It's a clear representation of intent to purchase the ticket.

Whether it is a representation of intent to use every leg of travel included as part of that ticket is...at best, a point on which you have provided no supporting evidence, reasoning, or case law.

I think its pretty obvious that in the general case purchase of a composite (or bulk) good or service is not a representation of intent to use all the components, do if you think there is something special about either multileg airline tickets in general or United’s tickets in particular that warrants different treatment, please, feel free to enlighten us.

> It absolutely holds up, in the same way that clicking an "I agree" button in an online transaction is a representation of agreement, which courts have already held to be valid

No, it doesn't, and the cases are readily distinguished, because the representation you wish to infer is (unlike the “I agree” case for contract formation) of a different intent than what is expressly stated by the UI element being interacted with. We aren't arguing over whether a “buy” button indicates intent to buy tickets, but whether it is a representation of intent to use every leg of travel covered by the purchased tickets. Even if the contract of carriage has language to that effect, which might give you a breach of contract claim, I don't think you’ll find much support for the use of language in a contract of adhesion as a representation by the non-drafting party for fraud claim.

[otterley]

> Whether it is a representation of intent to use every leg of travel included as part of that ticket is...at best, a point on which you have provided no supporting evidence, reasoning, or case law.

You're trying to find a loophole that, as a former Federal court intern, I find extremely unlikely to persuade any reasonable judge. When you declare your destination to be ILM in the search field, one can reasonably infer that your intent is, in fact, to travel to ILM. I concede that there's no case law yet on this subject, but I would be surprised if it made it out of the "laughed out of court" stage if you argued otherwise.

[dragonwriter]

> You're trying to find a loophole

No, I'm not.

I'm trying to find an actual false representation, and seeing only a false inference of intent to use every leg of travel from a representation of intent to purchase a ticket; testing this as fraud is something which you seem to admit would see every purchase of an aggregate good or service (the example you specifically addressed elsewhere in the thread being fast food value meals) priced below the price of some proper subset of their components as actionably fraudulent (if not always worth the effort) if the intent was not to use every purchased component but only to save money compared to individually purchasing the components.

[otterley]

I'm going to say this one last time.

The false representation is "I intend to fly to city B." That's it. Nothing else. It's not "I intend to use all components of a series of segments that would get me to city B" as you suggest.

You're making the analysis more complicated than it is, and that's why you would fail to persuade a court.

[Someone1234]

> Intent need not be verbally communicated; any conduct that is recognized as a representation is sufficient.

Indeed. You're arguing that the mere act of buying is and of itself a representation, which is erroneous. The whole rest of your arguments fall apart because that one core detail is wrong.

> It absolutely holds up, in the same way that clicking an "I agree" button in an online transaction is a representation of agreement

Clicking "I agree" binds both parties to a contract, but we are talking elements of civil fraud not contract law. You were arguing that consumers were committing civil fraud by pressing a buy button due to some supposed representations you're insisting they're making. Let's stay on topic here.

[otterley]

> Indeed. You're arguing that the mere act of buying is and of itself a representation, which is erroneous.

It's not the purchase that is the representation. It is the communication that you want to fly to a particular city by placing it in the destination field or by telling it to the ticket agent.

I'm tired of arguing this to amateurs; take it to a judge and try it yourself. I'll bring the popcorn.

[Someone1234]

> It is the communication that you want to fly to a particular city by placing it in the destination field or by telling it to the ticket agent.

By that logic even searching for tickets without purchasing them could be argued as "fraud." Since even putting something in the destination field is, according to your argument, a material representation of intent. None of this holds up.

> I'm tired of arguing this to amateurs

Please review the Hacker News Guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[otterley]

> By that logic even searching for tickets without purchasing them could be argued as "fraud." Since even putting something in the destination field is, according to your argument, a material representation of intent.

If you search for tickets with no intent to purchase, it's plausibly an element of fraud, but it's not fraud. The additional elements (reliance and detriment) aren't met yet. Once the purchase is complete and the rest of the events occur (i.e. intentionally abandoning travel), then all the remaining elements are fulfilled and a plausible fraud claim can commence.

[CogitoCogito]

> I'm tired of arguing this to amateurs; take it to a judge and try it yourself. I'll bring the popcorn.

I've upvoted your comments in this thread because they're interesting, but you don't seem to be providing many references yourself so I'm not so sure why you are demanding references of others. (You did reference the "I agree" button below, but I don't see how that implies fraud in this case.)

The question of fraud aside, my main question is what the actual financial harm is to United. It's not like they can say here's the price you would have gotten by going A -> B -> C and here's the price for A -> B, therefore you owe us the difference because there is no single price to refer to in the first place. All the different prices vary across the board at different times for different people for the same service. Also is there any real harm? Is taking the A -> B -> C route and hopping off at B causing them a financial loss?

[otterley]

The main point of contention here is what representation is being made when a customer tells United what origin and destination airport they want a ticket for, and whether the customer is intentionally misrepresenting their true intent by specifying a different destination airport than the one they actually intend to fly to. The fact that there’s even an argument here that no misrepresentation is being made, in light of my legal training and experience, I find pretty ludicrous.

It’s well known in contract law that the terms of a contract are determined objectively, as a hypothetical reasonable person would interpret them, not subjectively. Courts are understandably loath to try to divine the actual intent of the parties. See, e.g., Winograd v. Am. Broad. Co., 68 Cal. App. 4th 624, 632 (1998)).

I’m sure United can figure out what the price difference would have been under the particular circumstances of the case. If not, a court will make a determination of damages based on the facts provided by the parties.