Modern technology is wonderful: it simplifies our lives in all sorts of spectacular ways. But the service providers don't seem too keen to embrace simplicity, especially when it comes to contracts and billing.
First is cellphone billing. Why are these deals even legal? Can you imagine grocery shopping the way you use your phone? You go into a store, choose items (none of which are price-tagged), get to the checkout (where the register doesn't show you the final price) and carefully don a blindfold before handing over your credit card. Would you shop like that? No? Here's the bad news: as a South African cellphone user, you already do.
The fact is, you probably don't know before you place a call what that call will cost. Is it on network or off? (Number portability has only made this more complicated.) In peak time? Roaming? In or out of bundle? Subject to a random discount? That's nuts. And even if you do have all the information available to work out what the call will cost, the equation to do so is likely to be so complicated that you'd need ninja-like Excel skills to do the necessary calculation.
Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, coined a term for companies doing business this way: confusopolies. Any time the customer is unable - by design - to work out how the business works, he explains, is a sure sign that someone's getting shafted. And he picks out telecoms as a prime example, with good reason.
I almost feel sympathetic for the providers. They are operating in a very tough market, struggling to find imaginative ways to eke out a competitive-edge with thin margins, and using billing systems contorted far beyond their original scope. But I don't, because all they've done is make their problem our problem, and I resent that.
Subject to change without notice
Next: terms and conditions. Like most of you, I use a large number of online services. All of them have terms and conditions which vary from place to place, but one standard piece of contract boilerplate is this: "We reserve the right to modify these terms and conditions at any time."
Almost every service includes some variant of that phrase, and it's one which consistently aggravates me. With start-ups popping up daily on the Web, most of them use template Ts&Cs because it's quick, easy, and cheap. But it's also lazy, and defaults to the lowest common denominator in terms of respect for the user.
The ways in which a supplier could abuse this relationship are too many to list, but it doesn't take much imagination. And there have been cases where a service provider has been caught changing its contract terms for potentially sneaky purposes, such as claiming copyright over material (even if not intentional). It is becoming common for a consumer backlash to prompt either a user exodus, or a hasty redrafting, or both. Instagram was a recent case in point. While crowd enforcement is a powerful phenomenon, it can also be misguided, and it is unfortunate that it takes a user revolt to force a company's hand.
While crowd enforcement is a powerful phenomenon, it can also be misguided, and it is unfortunate that it takes a user revolt to force a company's hand.
Those contract terms also happen to be almost completely pointless, right up there with legal disclaimers in e-mail. SA has the Consumer Protection Act, which safeguards against unilateral contract changes, but even in the US there's the concept of the "weaker party" - the understanding that one of the sides affected by a contract is in a weaker position and may not understand the contract fully - which can affect enforceability. Bottom line: you're just wasting everyone's time.
The most telling factor in all this is the simple fact that few services ever highlight changes in terms and conditions, which looks suspiciously like they're trying to hide something. You'd think it would be easy. The user logs in, is presented with the new version of Ts&Cs, with the amendments highlighted and commented: "We changed
Here's a better idea: don't shaft your users in the first place. Don't give yourself the right to shaft your users, either. It all seems entirely unnecessary anyway. What's wrong with this version? "These conditions may change in the future. We will endeavour to notify you one billing cycle/notice period in advance, via e-mail to your registered address. It's your responsibility to maintain that e-mail address. Sometimes we may be required to make changes without that grace period, in which case we will notify you immediately."
The good news is that some firms are indeed cleaning up their act. LinkedIn, for example, recently updated its terms and conditions. (Paul Jacobson did a great tear-down of the new version at WebTechLaw), including a summary of changes. Google's Ts&Cs promise a 14-day notice period for changes before they come into effect. It would be nice to see local companies following suit.
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