Item — HN Reader

Sounds like an excellent law to stop the horrid practices in so many online shops. Let's hope a form of this law spreads throughout Europe and the U.S.

This caught my eye, however:

"A failure to comply cancels the transaction. You can get your money back and keep the goods. If the sale was for a service or a digital download, the contract is cancelled and no further payments are due."

Wow. Seems like it would make a ton of financial sense to go hunting for online shops located in the U.K. that are not complying with this law yet and take advantage of this, helping them learn "the hard way"?

7 comments

It is a good idea, but in practice getting them to return your money before you return the goods might involve a small claims court.

This directive actually has a lot less "teeth" than you'd think from reading this article. It is good that it exists, but aside from class action style lawsuits, few companies will get hit by individual customers seeking refunds+goods.

Perhaps including the credit cart "dispute charges" process into this discussion would help?

That was my guess as to where enforcement takes place. But this is already a great way to "reeducate" terrible retailers since there are often expensive chargeback fees even if the vendor wins the dispute ($15-25 in the US)

Chargebacks are a significant risk as merchants, because if you start to rack up too many of them then it won't just be the individual chargeback fees for each of those transactions that you have to worry about. As I understand it, you can also wind up paying higher processing costs generally, or even being kicked by your payment services and/or not accepted by other services in the future if your track record gets bad enough.

Then again, even my tiny little start-up manages to advertise an honest recurring subscription fee, tax-inclusive, with no other charges added on top later. In our entire time trading, I think we've had exactly one person complain that they didn't realise it was a monthly fee when they signed up. I'm not sure how they managed to miss it -- we tell them right next to the price, in full size text, throughout the sign-up process. But even so, we just refunded their second payment and cancelled their ongoing subscription to avoid the argument, and that was the end of the matter. We never got as far as any sort of formal dispute/chargeback process via the customer's card company.

So I guess I don't have much sympathy if the kinds of big businesses mentioned in this article can't figure it out and wind up suffering for it under these new laws. These "dark patterns" are obviously deceptive and obviously unfair to consumers, and I'm glad the big businesses are going to have to play by the same rules as the rest of us in the future.

> Let's hope a form of this law spreads throughout Europe

Ummm... this is a EU wide law. The UK, as a member state of the EU, had to implement it into UK law (that's how EU laws work).

This is already the law of the land in all EU countries. Nearly all good consumer rights laws are done at the EU level.

European countries are largely far less fraud based economies and thus do not allow so many practices that are permitted in the USA.

You misread the quote. They said "Europe" not the EU. So presumably they were hoping it would spread to non-EU European countries also.

I find that it's increasingly the case that "Europe" gets used in place of EU in much the same way as people will say "America" when they mean the USA.

Then people are "increasingly" using it incorrectly. Europe is a continent, the EU is a political alliance. There are too many countries within Europe but not in the EU to use the terms synonymously. For example:

Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City

I think it is pretty interesting that I got heavily downvoted for pointing out that the person above me conflated Europe and the EU and then tried to correct someone else based on that misunderstanding. This place is turning into Reddit more and more day by day, people are using the down arrow as a "I disagree" button... Which is exactly why Reddit has gone right down the toilet.

> "people are using the down arrow as a "I disagree" button.."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness." - pg, 2382 days ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 "Downvoting has always been used to express disagreement." - pg, 2085 days ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 "IIRC we first had this conversation about a month after launch. Downvotes have always been used to express disagreement. Or more precisely, a negative score has: users seem not to downvote something they disagree with if it already has a sufficiently negative score." - pg, 1898 days ago

(If you were not aware: pg is Paul Graham, the founder of YCombinator and Hacker News.)

FWIW I did not downvote you in this thread (I actually upvoted you.) I'm just informing you of the principle -- downvote for disagreement is totally cool on HN.

> FWIW I did not downvote you in this thread (I actually upvoted you.) I'm just informing you of the principle -- downvote for disagreement is totally cool on HN.

I disagree. From what I've come to expect from the voting behavior, downvotes are reserved for comments that are badly written (missing punctuation etc.), insulting or objectively false in an easily verifiable manner (like "Java does not include floating point numbers").

As far as I can overcome my personal bias I try to only upvote posts that contribute to the discussion or are greatly written and not those that only agree to my opinions. After all, having yet another echo chamber of the worldview of yet another community is way less useful than a greater diversity of ideas and ideologies. How else can we hone our arguments to make them convincing for anybody but us.

I realize I don't fall under the "older than a year" rule so let me quote the top voted comment on your first link:

> I have seen quite a few comments that were extremely insightful, and/or interesting that got downmodded due to an unpopular opinion. The reason this is unfortunate is not only that you tend to miss these (assuming that there is a higher probability that you read or think about comments that are rated higher, which I am surely not the only one that is guilty of) but also that it tends to promote groupthink . This is especially important on a forum like this where we are here to learn and share our thoughts, ideas and experiences for a very particular niche: Starting startups.

[...]

> So I think that the up and down arrows should not express agreement, but insightfullness or truth. Not opinion. That way I will be able to judge the validity of a comment in a field that I do not know well by its points. And hopefully learn something.

> "I disagree."

Sure, some people disagree. But the site founder has said it's OK and expected.

To be fair, I (and most people) don't downvote out of mere disagreement very often. I downvote comments that fail to add value -- because they're overly insulting, or wrong in ways that are not mere opinion, or so poorly expressed as to be useless.

I'm European and I conflate them all the time. You're getting downvoted because it's a pointless derailment, not just out of disagreement. You may also wish to read the guidelines, especially this one:

If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yes, but a lot of those have strong bilateral ties to the EU. Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are part of the EEA, which means that this becomes law there. Switzerland has a ton of bilateral agreements, so this law should be expected there as well. Monaco, Mentenegro and San Marino have Association Agreements as well. The EU's reach is a bit bigger than it looks like.

> Then people are "increasingly" using it incorrectly. Europe is a continent, the EU is a political alliance.

Well, it's exactly the same as with America (the continent) and United States (a country). You can either argue that both calling EU Europe and USA America is wrong and we should stop, or accept that in both cases, people can figure things out from the context.

USA has always been called "America". Europe the continent has been Europe the continent far longer than the EU has existed. Both are incorrect, and thankfully "The Americas" has caught on to fix one of these wrong labels. Besides, the continent has always been called North America, not America. There is no other label of Europe the continent than "Europe", so it's a flat out wrong label of the EU at best, and at worst it's offensive to those not living in the Alliance.

I have never understood calling Europe a continent. The division strikes me as political rather than geographic. And no, I can't be convinced otherwise.

Define 'always' ?

IIRC the USA hasn't really bee around all that long...

it's exactly the same as with America (the continent)

Where is this continent called "America"? I've never heard of it. I've heard of "North America" and "South America", but those are separate continents.

Yes, it's a common metonymy, but whether its use is valid or misleading for no good reason depends on the context in my opinion.

If somebody said "let's hope this law spreads throughout America", you wouldn't assume they meant just the US, would you?

Calling the United States "America" is often handy, but it's sort of a sloppy language all in all. Personally I rather avoid it if ambiguity is likely.

People are also often referring to the United Kingdom as "England" (disregarding the existence of Scotland and Wales) and while it's probably fine as a mental shortcut, it can make you misunderstood or get on somebody's nerves once in a while. And that's a fact of life, too.

Disclaimer: I'm European / EU citizen / Polish.

> If somebody said "let's hope this law spreads throughout America", you wouldn't assume they meant just the US, would you?

Yes I would. Irish person here. Native English speaker.

In "Let's hope marijuana legalization spreads throughout America", I would indeed assume they meant the U.S.

>If somebody said "let's hope this law spreads throughout America", you wouldn't assume they meant just the US, would you?

That depends on whether the law is federal or not.

But devoid of context I would expect someone to use 'the Americas' if they're talking about both continents, not 'America'.

> People are also often referring to the United Kingdom as "England" (disregarding the existence of Scotland and Wales)

More to the point, when I use "England" instead of "United Kingdom" I disregard the separation and jurisdictional peculiarities of Scotland, Wales and England and refer to the whole as "England". As neither I nor the great majority of people in my social circles know how their government works precisely and what their national identity multitude is about, the linguistic separation seems mood anyway. That's not to say that it is actually unimportant, though.

I agree.

Disclaimer: also European / EU / Polish citizen :).

So in that list you have three large countries that are famously not part of the general european political bloc, noted for usually being part of their own bloc. Then you have a bunch of countries that are so miniscule, that diplomatic relations are handled for them by diplomats assigned for other countries (Monaco? A couple of square kilometers. San Marino? Fewer people than my suburb). Then there's Turkey, which has a technical foothold on the continent, but has never been considered politically part of Europe. Then the Balkan states, most of which are trying to get into the EU (as is Turkey, to be fair). You're left with Norway and Switzerland, neither of which are in the EU, so there's some support there, but they do have strong bilateral links with the EU, such as with the Schengen Area.

I mean, you're so desperate to find counter-examples, you've even included an island nation (Iceland) that is nowhere near Europe, especially given your own definition that 'Europe' is specifically a continent. Iceland isn't even on the European continental shelf.

It's clear that there are multiple values for the term 'Europe', and that the socio-political one is a bit different to the is-it-on-a-connected-landmass one. Otherwise Ireland and the UK would not be part of Europe...

>I mean, you're so desperate to find counter-examples, you've even included an island nation (Iceland) that is nowhere near Europe, especially given your own definition that 'Europe' is specifically a continent. Iceland isn't even on the European continental shelf.

Plus Iceland is an EU candidate country and a member of the EEA (European Economic Area) so is a member of the EU's internal market.

For what it's worth when talking about things like consumer regulations talking about the EU is often not the most descriptive term, I'm not 100% sure about this topic but I'm fairly sure this applies to the entirety of the EEA, which is the EU + Iceland + Norway + Liechtenstein.

Croatia is part of the EU.

I stand corrected. Seems might list is at least a year old (they joined in July 2013).

I believe "America" is usually an abbreviated form of "United States of America" whereas "The Americas" is commonly used to refer to the American continents.

Edit: this is a little different than your case where Europe can refer to the European continent, but "America" pretty much never refers to the two American continents.

as people will say "America" when they mean the USA.

Name another country with "America" in its name.

(Replying as edit window is gone)

So the whole reactionary "USA isn't America" thing seems a bit overblown and misguided at best; see for example http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/a_fine_whine...

And while jingoism, imperialism and US-centrism are good things to oppose, calling USA "America" isn't really an example of them. For one thing, by calling USA "America", you implicitly separate USA the country from the rest of the countries in North America and South America, and make the default assumption that the whole world isn't America. Point the second, if US citizens shouldn't be calling themselves "Americans", then neither should anyone else; at least "America" is in the name of the country for USA. Point the third, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but I've always assumed a kind of racism to go along with over-labeling; cf lumping Japanese and Chinese into the category "Asians".

As a final point, if we're really wanting to be more inclusive and eliminate borders and imperialism, shouldn't we all be calling ourselves "Earthicans"?

EU directives sometimes also apply to non-member states. (EFTA, countries that are on track becoming EU-members)

This almost exists already, in a slightly different form - it's the same principle as the unsolicited goods laws codified in eg. the UK's Consumer Protection Regulations[1]; if I send stuff to someone without it being asked for, they legally own it and I can't insist on payment.

Same thing now applies to bundling unwanted extra crap in with a real order - it's just the extra stuff which may not be charged for.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Protection_(Distance_S...

> If goods are sent to a consumer without a contract asking for them, the "recipient may [...] use, deal with, or dispose of the goods as if they were an unconditional gift to him"

which happens to be an incorporation of a 15-year old EU directive:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:319...

> Article 9

> Inertia selling

> Member States shall take the measures necessary to:

> - prohibit the supply of goods or services to a consumer without their being ordered by the consumer beforehand, where such supply involves a demand for payment,

> - exempt the consumer from the provision of any consideration in cases of unsolicited supply, the absence of a response not constituting consent.

> You can get your money back and keep the goods

My guess is that's a journalistic misinterpretation of what canceling a transaction means. It's very common in the law that when a transaction is cancelled, not only do you have to return the product, if you've used it, the seller can make a reasonable deduction in your refund.

If the consequence indeed is as stated, it's not like customers would benefit much in the long term, as the newly introduced risk would render most online shopping totally uneconomical: what if someone successfully sues you for utilizing a "dark pattern", now all your customers can demand a refund "for free" -- without having to return the product? Lose all your past revenue AND your product stock overnight? That's unheard of as punishment in commercial law.

On the contrary, this appears to be exactly what Ms Burns suggests:

In my book I talked about “trading trolls” – people who would surf the web specifically looking for noncompliant sites so that they can place an order, get the stuff, report the site for noncompliance, get their money back, and keep the stuff. After all, if the site is breaking the law, they have no recourse there.

I think I know what is meant now.

The directive (http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contra...):

(60) Since inertia selling, which consists of unsolicited supply of goods or provision of services to consumers, is prohibited by Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market (‘Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’) (2) but no contractual remedy is provided therein, it is necessary to introduce in this Directive the contractual remedy of exempting the consumer from the obligation to provide any consideration for such unsolicited supply or provision.

The way I read that is if you add an item to the customers cart automatically, then you have no legal claim to get paid for that item. The sale of the stuff you actually wanted is still valid.

> Lose all your past revenue AND your product stock overnight? That's unheard of as punishment in commercial law.

(a) Unrealist scare story: In nearly all businesses you won't have "all customers" returning things. (b) I approve of this general scare tactic to ensure businesses don't try to scam their customers.

The part about keeping the goods seems unbelievable. I've skimmed the act, but I can't find a reference to keeping the goods.

It's very easy to link to sections in acts, so I don't know why the author did not add references.

Hi Everyone,

in response to the great reception her interview has received on HN, Heather has created a discount code for her ebook. Use the code 'hackernews' at the checkout to get 50% off.

If you work on any ecommerce products based within the EU then it's a worthwhile purchase.

Get the ebook here: http://www.consumerrightsdirective.info/

Jeepers. I can think of several big US commercial sites that would turn unprofitable overnight.