Cancelled Subscription via Paypal - Can I be forced to pay?

gb12345

Danie1le wrote: »

When I signed up I clicked that I agreed and understood the terms and conditions, I believed they were the terms and conditions I had already read, which is on every page of their website. There was no indication for me to believe that they were any different.

So basically then you agreed to something that you hadn't read, because you believed you had already read it.

Personally, I would never agree to something if I wasn't 100% certain what I was agreeing to and if I am presented with a document to agree to I would make sure that I check that particular version - you never know what they might have slipped in that you are agreeing to.

I would say that if they decided to take you to small claims court for the £228 that you appear to owe them then your chances depend on the mood of the judge that you happen to get and whether he thinks that your belief was reasonable.

Danie1le

gb12345 wrote: »

So basically then you agreed to something that you hadn't read, because you believed you had already read it.

Personally, I would never agree to something if I wasn't 100% certain what I was agreeing to and if I am presented with a document to agree to I would make sure that I check that particular version - you never know what they might have slipped in that you are agreeing to.

I would say that if they decided to take you to small claims court for the £228 that you appear to owe them then your chances depend on the mood of the judge that you happen to get and whether he thinks that your belief was reasonable.

Thanks for your help. I have paid the first £19 to try and alleviate the situation, but that is the stage that I am at. I am going to see what Citizens Advice make of it before I write to them again.

I personally think it stinks because a lot of vulnerable people seek their services. I am no legal or business expert, I have never been in any situation like this before, why should I have believed that the terms and conditions were any different to the ones on the website?

Eversir

Again, there is the fact it can be fairly argued it is impossible for a contract to exist as these specific terms and conditions were not made clearly viewable during the sign up process. There is already a clear link on their homepage at the bottom stating t&c which are wholly different to the second set of terms.

As previously discussed, the link to this second set is not clearly highlighted or differentiated from the remainder of the text within the sign-up process, hence it alludes it is referring to the terms posted on the homepage and other pages.Therefore it can be argued there is severely diminished assent to the agreement (as stated in the article in an earlier post of mine regarding online agreements to contracts).

All of the above would be taken into consideration by a judge, if it came to it, along with the fact the company was clearly notified by PayPal that a subscription cancellation has taken place (they even confirmed this had happened in writing to myself).

Danie1le

I showed my local CAB everything from links on the Legal Care website to the e-mail exchange between their customer services and myself and explained my situation as I have done in this thread.

They haven't been able to clarify my position either way but they have advised me to put in a complaint with the Citizens Advice Consumer Service which I have now done so.

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer_service

Buzby

Oh dear - buck passing. Even then, they will not fight your battle simply offer an opinion (pretty much as on here).

I would suggest that if you have made ANY payment at all, it will be construed that you fully agree to the T&C's prevailing. If you have paid nothing, there is room to argue you have not.

gb12345

Eversir wrote: »

As previously discussed, the link to this second set is not clearly highlighted or differentiated from the remainder of the text within the sign-up process, hence it alludes it is referring to the terms posted on the homepage and other pages.Therefore it can be argued there is severely diminished assent to the agreement (as stated in the article in an earlier post of mine regarding online agreements to contracts).

You must have a very strange definition of "not clearly highlighted or differentiated" then.

On the sign-up page where you put your password, there is a large section saying

Please read our terms and conditions, tick the box to confirm your agreement to them, and click Get Answer
LegalCare Free Trial Terms & Conditions - Click Here to Download
I have read, and agree to, the LegalCare Free Trial Terms & Conditions

Would seem quite clear to me that there are some T&Cs for the Free Trial and I am ticking the box to say I read and agreed to them.

I might just be a bit obsessive, but as I said in an earlier post, I wouldn't tick a box saying I had read and agreed to something unless I actually had.

Eversir

Actually, and speaking as a qualified web designer, a black underlined hyperlink within a section of black text does NOT qualify as clearly differentiated Standard practice is a contrast ratio of at least 50%

gb12345

Eversir wrote: »

Actually, and speaking as a qualified web designer, a black underlined hyperlink within a section of black text does NOT qualify as clearly differentiated Standard practice is a contrast ratio of at least 50%

Really, what "qualification" is that then and who defined the "standard practice"? Sounds more like it is just your opinion.

Based on the fact that I was able to identify with no difficulty that there was a link there and clicking it will download the T&Cs, my opinion is that it is quite clearly highlighted. The phrase "Click Here to Download" is a big clue to anyone that can understand English.

The fact is that you ticked a box saying that you had read and agreed to the T&Cs, when quite clearly you hadn't. Or perhaps the checkbox didn't meet standard practice and you ticked it in error?

Eversir

BA Honours Degree, if you must know. But lets not start a flame war on who knows what better.

Go do some research on web accessibility standards, there are some excellent reads out there. Worth pointing out that making a website accessible is also a legal requirement (The Equality Act 2010), and that includes making considerations for people with visual impairments (however slight). A 50% contrast ratio is the minimum acceptable amount for clear differentiation between text and backgrounds, and this also extends to hyperlinks too.

Your entitled to your opinion however and I commend you for your clearly superior observational skills, but if you have a good read through the entire thread and do a bit of Googling - it's actually quite a few people that have been caught out by this.

My informed opinion, based on fact, is that a black hyperlink surrounded by black text leading to terms and conditions, where separate terms and conditions have already been discussed and shown on other parts of a website, would result in an unenforceable contract should the user state that they could not see these new terms.

If you go back to the previous page there is also a really good article about diminishing assent when it comes to website terms and conditions. The fact the user has to click a hyperlink at all to read terms are strong grounds for diminished assent to a contract.

gb12345

Eversir wrote: »

Worth pointing out that making a website accessible is also a legal requirement (The Equality Act 2010), and that includes making considerations for people with visual impairments (however slight). A 50% contrast ratio is the minimum acceptable amount for clear differentiation between text and backgrounds, and this also extends to hyperlinks too.

The Act makes no mention of contrast, so who has arbitrarily decided on this 50% figure and determined it is legally binding? But the even if it is, there is a clear contrast between the text (and hyperlinks) and the background on this site (black text and white background = 100% contrast). I would also doubt that the act would make any mention of the differentiation between text and hyperlinks as that has nothing to do with equality.

Eversir wrote: »

Your entitled to your opinion however and I commend you for your clearly superior observational skills, but if you have a good read through the entire thread and do a bit of Googling - it's actually quite a few people that have been caught out by this.

My informed opinion, based on fact, is that a black hyperlink surrounded by black text leading to terms and conditions, where separate terms and conditions have already been discussed and shown on other parts of a website, would result in an unenforceable contract should the user state that they could not see these new terms.

If you go back to the previous page there is also a really good article about diminishing assent when it comes to website terms and conditions. The fact the user has to click a hyperlink at all to read terms are strong grounds for diminished assent to a contract.

The post you refer to says

"At the other end, by contrast, if a user must click on a hyperlink, or series of hyperlinks, to view the terms, the significance of clicking “I Agree” as showing assent diminishes, depending on the difficulty in actually finding the terms and whether a reasonable Internet User would have done so."

And my opinion is that the terms are easy to find as they are linked to right above where you agree to them. Some dodgy sites will hide the relevant terms away by putting the link to them in small text miles away from where you agree to them, which I agree would diminish the assent, but that is not the case here.

The problem is that the decision on whether the terms were difficult to find would come down to a Judge (and it won't cost them a fortune to make a claim - just a quick MCOL application).

I don't consider myself a "reasonable Internet User" as I've been using and desigining sites for years, so to get some idea of what one might do, I emailed the URL of the site to my father (a 75 year old retired builder, with no technical/legal etc skills - just uses the computer to email family and browse the web) and asked him to go through the free trial process (but not actually enter a password) and tell me what the expectations of the trial were. His response was:

• I'm getting a 14 day free trial, which if I don't cancel within those 14 days will then become a monthly subscription of 19 quid per month for a year.
• To cancel I have to do it through my account area on the website.

I asked him how he knew this and he said that he saw the * after "Free Trial" and went looking for what it meant and found the details at the bottom of the screen. He also saw a box referring to agreeing to Free Trial T&Cs and some text saying "Click Here to download the T&C", so he clicked and read the document that opened.

I asked him if he thought the link was clear. His response was "it didn't jump out at me, but the text told me to click to download the terms, so I clicked - it was obviously those terms they wanted me to agree to as they were right above the box".

Yes it is only one person, but he had no preconceved ideas about the site and didn't know why I wanted him to do it, so I think he would qualify as a "reaonable Internet User"