'A blog in support of stupid people's rights (probably the most important...)' blog

koolkatsaffi

People who have other sensory impairments - like deaf or hard of hearing - I am deaf and have found myself many times in situations where I have not heard salespersons correctly - especially on the phone where I am unable to lip read...I was caught out a few years ago by a home energy salesman who treated me like I was stupid because I kept asking him to repeat what he was saying...When all the paperwork came through I was horrified to see what he had signed me up for and managed to resolve it all but it was a scary experience all the same!

JonPhred

"Those who don’t read every term and condition - Sometimes there are over 5,000 words of legalese, anyone who doesn’t check them…well – just stupid I suppose?"

I don't like seeing this catch-all in the list. Agreeing to something without being bothered to establish exactly what it is to which you're agreeing (when you are actually capable of doing so) probably is just stupid.

However, to remove it from the list requires that it shouldn't be made difficult to understand the full and true nature of a deal. Documentation for certain transactions may need to be formal in wording for good legal reasons but typical consumer contracts should be expressed in a clear and simple manner (Crystal and Honesty Mark standards) rather than obscured by "5000 words of legalese".

Surely the objective should be to eliminate obfuscated TnCs so that the catch-all becomes redundant. If someone doesn't fall into any other category then they shouldn't be able to claim immunity from enforcement of the contract on the grounds that they simply couldn't be bothered to check for themselves what they were signing.

For example, the reason I don't use the Chrome browser is because I've read the linked licences and policy documents and don't agree to the contents - but it was difficult and tedious to ferret out the full set of relevant TnCs (actually I didn't read all the documents in full - I only got as far as finding unacceptable clauses and then determining that they weren't excluded elsewhere).

The last category listed is "Those who trust banks" but that strikes me as having become a redundant category. It certainly would have been valid until relatively recently (my father-in-law was afflicted by the notion) but there's surely no longer anybody who would now fall into that category. The remnants of memory of "my bank manager is a nice gentleman who has always given me good advice in financial matters" have surely all been swept away by now.
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Those self-clearing ticks when a webpage is re-presented due to alleged incompletion are a personal gripe and are a clear example of improper conduct intended to entrap - as is a list of checkboxes in which the phrasing of the odd item is reversed such that a "No" response has a consequence totally at odds with the consequences of "No" responses elsewhere in the list.

Baalmaiden

:TMoney saving can get to be a full time occupation - but for those who have the time, numeracy, inclination and access to the internet. There are many who don't. By the time I had found out what I would actually pay per unit for fuel I think I deserved a PhD in financial research! By the next month all the tariffs were changed anyway.

Consumerist

Baalmaiden wrote: »

By the time I had found out what I would actually pay per unit for fuel I think I deserved a PhD in financial research! By the next month all the tariffs were changed anyway.

My preferred energy comparison site is UK Power which provides a full breakdown of unit costs and annual costs in their "details" page for each tariff. No PhD required.

joehoover

dtsazza wrote: »

That's what this issue boils down to - I don't agree that it's deception.

The terms are laid out in front of you, stating what the institution is proposing to do. If you sign a document, to agree to be bound by something without knowing or understanding what you've just signed up for - well, I just can't see an excuse for that.

Or rather, I'm sure there are lots of excuses, but it comes down to taking responsibility for your own actions. It's my view that trying to wrap the whole world in cotton wool, so that people are now told that coffee is hot, is both incredibly wasteful and condescending, and gets in the way of the crux of humanity: actions leading to consequences.

You are being fairly delusional assuming everything is black and white and all companies are working within the law. When I worked at house of Fraser many moons ago staff had an incentive of £1 to open a Frasercard for a customer and another £1 for PPI. The customer would sign the forms without PPI and staff would add it themselves after the customer had signed the form, I uncovered this after receiving many requests to cancel months later, staff made off with hundreds of pounds this way. The store ended up closing down, no wonder why, you treat customers like crap then they'll go elsewhere.

People go out of their way to con other people, it is not purely people being 'stupid' some cases are cons, I'm not talking about the emails from Nigeria asking to deposit millions in your bank account, I'm talking about things companies do without your knowledge and agreement, you are complately unawares as they are being fraudulent after the event that you have signed something. Debenhams did it to me recently, I complained to the head office of their fraudulent acts and they said I had phoned them requesting insurance (I have never taken insurance on any credit product in my life) The head office despite many follow ups to them had never once responded to my complaints - I will never buy from them again as a rsult, they brushed a serious fraudulent claim against them under the carpet, shows how bad some companies go to rip customers off

Better_Days

I do think the word 'stupid' has some unfortunate connotations. I don't consider myself stupid but I have made some (in hindsight) stupid decisions. I was mis-sold gas and electric by a doorstep salesman. Normally I would never buy anything from a cold caller but he caught me when I particularly badly cognitively impaired as a result of a chronic illness. During this period I thought I had insured our vehicle but when we went to renew the tax we found the vehicle had been uninsured for months. The scary thing is that when I am going through one of these periods I am unaware that it is happening. A friend of mine has the same illness, which affects the blood flow to the brain, and she refers to it as being 'hard of thinking'.

My point is that no-one has any high ground from which to criticise those who make bad decisions when they are, for whatever reason, cognitively challenged. Poor decision making can affect anyone and for a myriad of reasons.

If products are transparent and fair at least there is less chance for things to go wrong, and/or for those who have difficulties to seek advice from someone they trust. But many people will not have the time to plough through the hundred's of energy tariffs to obtain the best rate for themselves, let alone to help a friend or relative. One of the reasons for the low uptake of personal pensions is that the schemes are anything but transparent and fair. Unnecessary complexity in such an important area has resulted time-bomb for our economy.

I tried to insure myself against future illness and took out a critical illness policy. But when I came to claim my insurer refused to tell me what medical evidence they would accept, and from whom, to satisfy the policy definition. They lied to me and deliberately misled me. The problem is that financial institutions abuse their position of power because they make money by doing so, and current regulation does not hold enough of a disincentive to curb this behaviour. Funnily enough as soon as I got a solicitor involved the insurer paid up. But not everyone has the confidence or the savings to obtain legal advice.

I found that an ISA I had was paying 0.1% interest. When I finally got through to Santander on the phone (and then by only chosing the option saying I wanted to open a new account with them) I was told that the rate change was on the website. But it was impossible for me to check because the name of my ISA had been changed. This sort of sharp practice must be stopped. If I knowingly leave funds in a low interest account that is one thing, but if I am not informed of the change, then that is something else entirely, especially as not everyone has access to the internet.

It is a horrible feeling when you realise you have been conned or cheated or misled and this can further lower confidence in financial matters. There is a potential goldmine out there for a financial provider who creates products which are clear and straightforward. They may not necessarily always be the very best deal, but if they are easily understood and the provider earns a reputation for fairness and clarity, profits will follow and everyone will win.

RedGoose

In the midst of the discussion of your blog post, I'd like to say thank you for it.

Yes, it helps to be sceptical and yes, you should always read the small print. However, there are instances where companies go out of their way to be misleading (energy pricing, anyone?) or browbeat people into something they don't need. It helps to have someone on side who has the knowledge (and, moreover, the time) to look into pitfalls and possible savings.

If I'm remotely financially aware, it's as a result of my mother having worked in the financial industry for about 20 years- not everyone's that lucky.

real1314

dtsazza wrote: »

Implied by who, though? And on what grounds?

If you decide to trust someone, and they turn out to be untrustworthy, then you made a bad judgement. Again, it boils down to your fault for making an assumption which turned out not to be true, and I don't see a problem with the negative consequences accruing to you for that (they've got to accrue to someone).

So, if it's the consumer's fault for trusting the bank when they said PPI was necessary, and you think the consumer should not get a refund; presumably the reverse is true - when the bank trusted the consumer to pay their mortgage, and the consumer decided not to pay then the bank should just take the loss and the law should not get involved. The bank made a bad judgement, their fault, their negative consequences.

I'm not saying that you can't/shouldn't trust anyone. The point is that once it comes down to a position of trust, as opposed to a situation with contingencies that protect you, you're taking a calculated risk. If the risk doesn't come off, you'll be the worse for it. You can't expect to fix things to get everything with 100% certainty of a positive outcome, all the time.

And it's especially silly when you can take a small amount of effort to remove guesswork/assumptions, and by extension the imputed trustworthiness, out of the question. For example, in the milk situation, making the decision without taking 30 seconds to work out what the conversion is (Google can do it in a couple of seconds), is foolish.

I think you've rather shot your argument to pieces. :cool:

wozearly

dtsazza wrote: »

It's almost universally accepted that someone with more physical power is not allowed to use that advantage to subjugate others into slavery or similar. At the other end of the scale, it's almost universally accepted that someone with very good empathy/memory/negotiation skills is allowed to be a better Customer Relations Executive (to give an arbitrary example).

One could argue that the former is exploitation while the latter isn't; but in the latter case, a mediocre candidate will still not get accepted for the job, or will be paid a lower salary, thus putting them in a worse position than the skilled application, as a direct result of that applicant's involvement.

I hope that it's clear to everyone that we do need to allow abilities to mean success to some extent.

I've only quoted part of your post, but just wanted to come back to the theme in it, because it echoes tagq2's point about how society should respond to activities that cause a wider social gain or social loss.

Its linked to a concept in economics concept called 'externality', which is about the consequences of an action that don't impact the person taking it (either positive or negative). Externalities are not reflected directly in cost, so actions that have a negative consequence are cheaper than they should be and positive ones are not sufficiently rewarded.

Many regulations are aimed at adding costs to actions with negative externalities (e.g. prohibiting fraud and attaching a prison sentence to people convicted of it). Positive externalities can attract subsidies (e.g. encouraging uptake of home insulation means an overall reduction in the amount of fuel being burned for power generation and associated pollution costs as well as the individual benefiting from paying for less power themselves).

I would see the difference between your slaver and customer relations executive examples as being a social one. Society does not benefit from allowing people to go around bullying and enslaving others with impunity - the negative consequences are significant, hence why there are rules against it to add costs and direct consequences to people considering it.

On the other hand, society does benefit from a situation where the best skilled applicants are appointed to jobs. We don't benefit from employing poor doctors, for example. Equally, we don't benefit from applying arbitrary criteria to job selection (e.g. race, gender). Even if individuals who don't get the job are personally disadvantaged, the wider benefit to society justifies us supporting the approach.

So what about consumer rights?

In the current situation, there are cases where people with intelligence, time and motivation can find loopholes in T&Cs, explore ways to make better use of money, find better deals, make better investment decisions, etc. etc.

There is nothing wrong with this in the slightest - its actually a healthy part of ensuring competition in a marketplace.

Where it falls down is where companies or individuals simply attempt to capitalise on consumer ignorance or misunderstanding for personal gain - be that of finances, marketing and sales techniques, appealing to greed or fear, etc.

This is the reason we have regulatory bodies like the ASA, FSA, OFT, etc. They exist in acceptance that companies have a vested financial interest in parting customers from their money. Even those that operate fully within the rules may seek loopholes or grey areas, such as 'confusion marketing', that tip the balance of favour towards the company and away from the consumer.

These techniques are normally part of attempts to hide things from customers, or disguise what is actually being done, which are at best negligent or misleading on the company's part and at worst fraudulent, even if they're not technically illegal.

I suppose I'd ask how different it is really if someone uses intellectual ability to manipulate and indenture someone for their financial benefit, as opposed to physical strength...

Even if intelligent people benefit from the system as-is, I'd like to think enough intelligent people had a strong enough moral compass to want to help those less fortunate rather than take advantage of them or criticise them for their failings.

RobertoMoir

aliasojo wrote: »

Btw Martin, I'm not usually the type to get too hung up on the terminology of things but I question the wisdom of using the term 'stupid' in your article. And yes, I did note the inverted commas. :undecided

I rather think that wasn't intended to be Martin's own words, rather that he was actually calling out and attacking the people who use "stupid" to describe people who are 'taken in' by scams or bad products, pointing out that their judgement may be impaired for any number of reasons and that this is not a reason to describe people as "stupid".

And it's something I strongly believe in. I work in IT. I'd never describe anyone who isn't IT literate as "stupid" simply for not understanding IT as well as I do, any more than I'd expect a medical doctor to refer to me as "stupid" because I don't have medical training.

My bone of contention (and even then, I'd absolutely agree that abusive terms are unhelpful) is with people who are perfectly able to help themselves, yet wilfully refuse to educate themselves and take responsibility for their own actions. I've seen that in IT and we've seen it here in the financial sense in the forums.