It’s common to receive a mail from some service that they’re changing the terms and conditions of their service (internet provider, gmail, etc.) These changes are unilateral and can be about anything, from their privacy policy to the money they intend to charge me.
Why can’t I unilaterally send them a mail and say, I am changing the terms of my patronage and will now insert my new policy (pay only xx amount, or demand a mint Chico chip ice cream every Tuesday)?
you can! if they agree to that contract. which is incredibly unlikely.
NOTE - This happened in russia
https://detechter.com/man-creates-credit-card-sues-bank-for-not-paying/
A valid contract under US common law (which has it’s roots in English common law) requires three things: offer, acceptance, and consideration (which means each side gives up a legal right in exchange for something, i.e. you become bound to pay a monthly fee in exchange for the other side being obligated to provide a service). So when a company sends you a contract with pre-set terms (an offer), you can either sign that pre-drafted contract (acceptance), ignore it (rejection), or change one or more terms and send it back to the drafter to either accept or reject (rejection and counter-offer).
Every time language is changed it rejects the previous offer and creates a new counter offer. You don’t have a “contract” until an offer is accepted with no changes (also known as mutual assent).
As a practical matter, no large company is going to accept a counter-offer for a contract with one consumer. Their entire apparatus is constructed to serve the terms of a form contract. There is no practical way for a company with thousands/millions of customers to honor the unique terms of one customer’s contract.
With that being said, even if a company could theoretically honor the modified contract, they aren’t going to risk it. They would have to have a lawyer or legal employee review it and analyze its costs and benefits to the company. That would cost a lot of money per each modified contract, so the company will simply ignore the changes and move on the the next customer.
That’s the argument that it shouldn’t be an enforceable contract. The company is unilaterally establishing terms with no opportunity to negotiate, which is not a valid contract. Unfortunately it seems to be treated as one in our dystopia
You want to blame Singer Sewing Machine company for this. They’re the ones in the 1850s that came up with the idea of pre-made non-negotiable contracts. Before this, every single contract had to have lawyers adding and removing terms until both sides agreed to it. I know today’s version sucks, but the alternative could be worse.
Imagine having to bring (and pay!) your lawyer to a car dealership to buy a car or even sign up for Netflix. Imagine how much more expensive the goods and services would cost you because of the army of lawyers needed to negotiate contracts for every single consumer.
The first time I rented an apartment, they sent me a lease to sign, and I made a bunch of addendums and changes, and sent it back.
They said “nah” and sent me the same lease to sign.
20 something me was was like “what the hell”
You can. But the prefilled one implies they’re already OK with the terms. Adding/changing stuff requires their approval. If both parties agree to the altered version, then there’s no problem.
I doubt they’ll allow a special case just for you, though.
I have returned additions/corrections to employment contracts and had them accepted. My usually go to is to change the overly broad “we own all IPRs developed by you” to “we own all IPRs that come from work related tasks or as a direct furtherance thereof”. If they want to own anything I developed outside work for my own projects then that’s fine, but then they’d have to pay extra.
You can try, but you sure know the corpo will fight it in court when you try to enforce it.
they hold all the cards. so, while you could try, they’d most likely tell you to pound sand. they have many, many others to exploit and profit off of—they don’t specifically ‘need’ you.
If you and I make a contract, and then I turn around and change some terms with crayon, it’s not like you’re beholden to the new ones.
The one who dictates the terms of service is the one who provides the “service”, questionable though it might be. You agree to it when you sign up. When they change it up on you, it is with the assumption you’ll quit if you disagree strongly enough to the changes.
