Is this a uniquely irish mentality?

davo10

Melendez wrote: »

I am not denying that people should be fully acquainted with the terms and conditions of a contract and must be prepared to face consequences for not doing so. They should also have an expectation of a degree of fair play even when they fail to do this.

If I do a job worth €2000, I will charge €2000 for it. If I would legally get away with charging €5000 for it, how much would I charge? €2000, because that is what the job is worth. That is what most service providers with any sense of personal responsibility will do. Your corporate heroes appear to be people who tarmac old folks driveways for €10K, repair the guttering for €5K or sell €10 worth of data for €900.

I have never in my life read through one of those tiny print, 5000 word, terms and conditions documents, not to mention memorized them so I can act to the full advantage of my contract. Skimmed, yes. Cautious enough to realise not reading the contract could cause problems, yes. I will check my roaming costs when I go abroad, or how far in advance I need to cancel without penalty when I feel a cancellation looming. If I am in a minority, I suspect it is quite a sizable one. If some day I get caught out by what I believe to be an unfair clause in the contract, I reserve the right to feel disgruntled and moan about it. Thankfully, it has not happened yet to anything past nuisance level - a fair price to pay to avoid memorising all those tiny print T&Cs.

I think this is turning into a "oh, yes you can" "oh, no you cant" loop. So I'll leave it at that.

Is this not what this thread is about? I don't think I could have written a better example for my opening post.

Consumer agrees to contract, doesn't know what they are agreeing to because they never took time to research/understand the main points (see previous post re comreg recommendations), when debt builds, suddenly charges are "unfair" and consumer moans that provider is not being fair in dealing with the debt.

Is the aim of all businesses to make profit? Is it the responsibility of consumers to know what they are agreeing to? I am not sure that any of us can know for certain how much it costs to provide a €10k item of service, we do not know the cost of providing that service, but it is an easy excuse to throw out there.

This isn't a "yes you can/no you can't " thread, it's a "should we read the important points of T&Cs, can they contact us if we don't pay, why do we feel entitled to blame someone else when we don't take time to research/understand what we are buying" type of thread.

This is not being smug or moralistic, I wondered if in other countries/societies, consumers have the same laissez-faire attitude to entering contracts and debt.

Melendez

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evolving_doors

Melendez wrote: »

In my opinion that is a very self-righteous opening post.

I have never seen anyone starting a thread saying they owed money, were asked to pay it back, but would rather not.

Most of the time the amount owed is in dispute (occasionally without proper cause due to not understanding the nature of a contract, but I believe the thread opener genuinely feels aggrieved). Other times the poster simply does not have the resources to pay a bill and is looking for advice to deal with the situation. This can be an extremely stressful situation, made worse when a debt collection agency is using heavy handed tactics to "queue jump" as usually a person in this situation is juggling multiple bills/debts.

If you feel no empathy for a particular poster in a particular situation you can always move onto the next thread without offering advice, there is no need to be affronted by it because you are clever and worthy enough not to allow yourself get in that situation.

Agree 100%, devil's in the detail.. folk who just come on and take the view that they dont want to pay for no reason are given short shrift.

davo10

It's the consumers responcilbility to know what they are signing up to, the important points particular to your needs (see comreg reference). You don't need to memorise them. Yes I know what I'm getting, how much I'm paying, when they end etc,

I don't sneer at you, but I do think it is wrong to blame the provider for charging you what you agreed to and wrong to blame them or their representatives for contacting you about the debt.

Shakespeare's Sister

Melendez wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

This is the kind of thing that can get resorted to in these discussions - "your corporate heroes": where on earth did they indicate these companies are "heroes" of theirs?
"Appear to be people who tarmac old folks driveways for €10K, repair the guttering for €5K" - yeh in your head maybe. There has been utterly no indication of service providers being that unscrupulous. Do those tarmac people give customers T&C? You're not comparing like with like. Some people have a gripe with every service provider ever, just because they're big companies. Being of the view that this is an irrational outlook is not the same as viewing these companies as "heroes".
And nobody said anyone had to "memorise" terms and conditions, they just need to be aware that if something happens down the road that they don't like and this was covered in the T&C, then... they should have read the T&C before agreeing to them. You even acknowledged this.

If some day I get caught out by what I believe to be an unfair clause in the contract, I reserve the right to feel disgruntled and moan about it.

Says it all. So basically, even if you agree to the terms and conditions, you'll still moan afterwards. This is precisely what the OP is talking about.

Nobody's "sneering" at anyone either - they are telling self righteous, self entitled people why they are wrong.
If someone put their hands up and said "Ok, I admit, I didn't read the T&C - do I have any comeback?" then people should be more sympathetic. But the situations the OP is referring to are ones where they act as if they've been victimised and get stroppy with anyone who tries to explain how they haven't. Bizarre that anyone would defend such a mindset.

thehouses

Companies have a responsibility to clearly inform customers about the important parts of a contract. For example insurance companies have a certain legal standard which they must adhere to when selling insurance and certain pieces of information must be communicated to the consumer. At the moment there are certain laws which should be in place to protect consumers but aren't. Until they are in place companies get away with some things they shouldn't get away with.

If a customer is made aware of charges and agrees to them then they should pay and not be surprised when contacted by the company. However if a company does not disclose information clearly a dispute can arise. Some terms of a contract may not be legal either and the courts may be needed to test this if necessary.

People would take exception to being contacted about debts if there was some kind of dispute and naturally people will not give fully accurate details/information on-line if a dispute is taking place. People have preconceived ideas and often jump to conclusions without being aware of the full facts of a situation.

The OP wrote:
"Do we think that we should be able to walk away from a debt because we don't want to pay it, scott free, and then be entitled to feel hard-done-by when they contact us for their money?"

My answer is no if the money is legitimately owed then pay up, however if there is a dispute and charges are not warranted then consumers should not be ripped off and will naturally feel unfairly treated. It depends on a variety of factors, things are rarely as black and white as people may wish them to be.