[keltex]

Reminds me of a SPAM email we get quite frequently, the "World Company Register". The attached PDF reads, "To update your company profile, please print, complete and return this form. Updating is free of charge. Only sign if you want to place an insertion."

Then at the bottom in tiny type it says that you've agreed to a 3 year insertion at 995 Euro per year.

I can see small businesses easily falling for this.

[readams]

If you register a trademark, you'll get multiple fake bills in the physical mail for hundreds of dollars to similarly record the trademark in various "registers." The fine print says it's not a bill but a solicitation, but of course it's just a scam in reality.

[gabereiser]

Or a patent, or register a company. These vultures just want to prey on the uninformed or gullible business owners who are just trying to make a living. I received “notices” of “dues” to several different “agencies” for my company’s listing. When I wrote back that all I needed was a federal id number and a business registration on file with the clerk, they stopped harassing me. One of these fake bills was $4,000 for a DUNS registration. Wow. Just wow.

[sidewndr46]

I get these even though I have never registered a trademark or company at my address

[asnyder]

Still surprises me that tactics like these are legal. There shouldn't be a concept of fine print... The whole notion is ripe for abuse.

Same with elder scams. Too many potential avenues for scams via contracts.

[retrac]

It's probably not a valid contract, assuming a fair hearing. The scammers would not sue the victim here, most likely. They get their money from these schemes purely through fear and anxiety and vague legal threats. A simple, pay us what we tricked you into signing or we'll sue you, often gets an impaired or naive victim to pay up even though they owe nothing legally or morally and the threat is empty.

[amelius]

This is where dot-matrix printers shine: they destroy the fine print.

[beebmam]

This is a delightful nerd joke that I have decided to steal

[flangola7]

These scams often aren't. They rely on a certain % of people to give in without a fight.

[permo-w]

are they legal? ianal, but surely that kind of contract doesn't hold up legally

[ClumsyPilot]

the concept of fine print, i believe, is to provide more detail on terms you already agreed to. Like "what happens if the delivery is late"

It is not to introduce entirely new terms, like "actually you have to pay for this"

[ghaff]

Yeah, this isn't really about the signatures rabbit hole this thread has gone down. I've spoken at well over 100 events (and many webinars/videos) and it's totally routine as a speaker, or even as an attendee, to click through all sorts of routine terms and conditions like codes of conduct, agreement for photos/videos to be used for marketing purposes, and probably various other things. If there were some buried condition about payment after the event, I could easily miss it because it would be so unexpected. (An actual number would hopefully jump out at me but it would be so unexpected it might not if it were carefully hidden.)