this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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I'm just a regular person making about $70K a year in a big city, and I've recently felt incredibly powerless dealing with private companies. For instance, my landlord’s auto-pay system had a glitch that excluded my pet rent and water bill. I ended up with over $1,000 in late fees. Despite hours on the phone, it turns out their system doesn’t really do auto-pay and requires a fixed amount instead of covering the full rent. It feels like a scam, and my options are to pay the fees or potentially spend a fortune on legal action.

Another frustrating experience was trying to cancel my pest control service. I had to endure a 40-minute call followed by 35 minutes of arguing, just to finally cancel. There’s no online cancellation option, and the process felt like a timeshare sales pitch.

Why do ordinary people seem so unprotected against these shady practices, and how can we change this? How does one person even start to address these issues?

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[–] Mobiledecay@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We're peasants and there's nothing we can do about it.

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[–] ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago

Have you seen the !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world community? This would be a good post there as well, I think!

[–] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

Open revolution is about the only avenue left.

[–] kava@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

There are laws against excessive fees like this. In my home state of Florida, a landlord cannot charge more than 20% the rent in late fees.

And trust me, Florida is not known for its consumer protections. So chances are your state has a similar law which is probably better.

So if I were you I would look up the law and not pay.

Assuming of course you are telling the full truth- your full rent payment was late for a short period of time.

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago

It can be very cheap to get a letter written by a lawyer on their letterhead, to demand things like service cancellation.

It's not perfect and shouldn't have to happen, but what's your time and mental health worth?

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The entire justice system rests on how much money you have.

It's capitalism, capitalism is the core of the problem.

It treats people who have wealth as good people who always have a chance to appeal injustice and people without wealth as never having an opportunity to fight injustice.

You would literally need to tear it all down and start over because the US Consitution is kind of a piece of garbage and we spend way too much time jerking off the old dead white slave-owners who wrote down that "All men are created equal... as long as they're white and own land."

In some more civilized countries, they do things like peg criminal fines to the wealth of the person who committed the crime? Poor person? Small fine. Rich person? Huge fine. It's decided based on a percentage of their wealth. So the wealthier criminals literally pay more because of their financial influence.

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[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 1 points 3 months ago

Let me guess, red state?

[–] TomAwsm@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

What the hell is "pet rent"?

[–] parrhesia@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago

A monthly fee for having a pet in a rental

[–] ShadowCatEXE@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This is why we have commas.

[–] parrhesia@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

It's a real thing. It's a fee every month for having a pet in a rental.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You need to read the terms of the agreement

If you are in the right, don't pay and let them sue you. Go to the judge and explain the situation.

This is how you handle if you are confident you are right.

If you are not confident, then tuck your dick and pay daddy what he said.

There is nothing in-between.

[–] Gordito@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes they have automatic payments that go though your account. Once they took it try to get it back.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

He's saying they will illegally initiate a transfer from your bank of more money than they agreed to take. Forcing you to sue them to get it back, rather than the other way around.

With the understanding of course that initiating a lawsuit is prohibitively expensive for normal people.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Particularly normal people whose money they can take.

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