This is the guy, one of the greatest heroes of our modern consumer society, surely. This is what a proper hero looks like, isn't it.
A hero even to me, who wouldn't touch a credit card with a ten-foot pole.
But he did score the biggest one for the little guy, if only in Russia. Or especially in Russia?
Telling people that, no, the contract is legal, and no one forced them to sign it, so they have to pay, is part of my daily routine at work. I don't enjoy it, quite the opposite. But on the other hand, a lot of people don't get the concept of what a contract is. The stuff they get upset about tends to be the fairly common-sense stuff. No, you can't cancel your subscription just whenever it takes your fancy. I get you weren't aware of this when you signed, but you really should read stuff before signing it. Stuff like that.the unknown journalist on rt.com wrote:$700k windfall: Russian man outwits bank with hand-written credit contract
A Russian man who decided to write his own small print in a credit card contract has had his changes upheld in court. He's now suing the country's leading online bank for more than 24 million rubles ($727,000) in compensation.
But surely, without doubt, it warms the cockles of my heart that a bank, the sort of organization that lives on contract law, didn't read their own contract and now doesn't like it. Just the sort of behavior marketing departments count on when trying to fish for customers, people not reading what they agree to. Hoisted by their own damn petard! I absolutely, positively, love that.
Now, how would someone even get the idea to try something like that?
Ha! It's doubly their own damn fault - they didn't just not-read it, no. They weren't entrapped by some scheming villain, no. They made him an offer he didn't ask for or want - and he just made a counter offer! As you do in a free enterprise system. But they accepted!!the unknown journalist on rt.com wrote:Disappointed by the terms of the unsolicited offer for a credit card from Tinkoff Credit Systems in 2008, a 42-year-old Dmitry Agarkov from the city of Voronezh decided to hand write his own credits terms.
Now, what exactly did they accept?
the unknown journalist on rt.com wrote:He opted for a 0 percent interest rate and no fees, adding that the customer "is not obliged to pay any fees and charges imposed by bank tariffs." The bank, however, didn’t read ‘the amendments’, as it signed and certified the document, as well as sent the man a credit card. Under the agreement, the bank OK'd to provide unlimited credit, according to Agarkov’s lawyer Dmitry Mikhalevich talking to Kommersant daily.
"The opened credit line was unlimited. He could afford to buy an island somewhere in Malaysia, and the bank would have to pay for it by law," Mikhalevich added.
Agarkov also changed the URL of the site where the terms and conditions were published and hedged against the bank’s breaking of the agreement. For each unilateral change in the terms provided in the agreement, the bank would be asked to pay the customer (Agarkov) 3 million rubles ($91,000), or a cancelation fee of 6 million rubles ($182,000).
I must admit. A credit card like that, I would touch, probably with my bare hands even.I know this couldn't work in Germany, I'm fairly certain any contracts by service providers or banks I've seen include clauses that invalidates any clauses or terms the customer might try to bring in.
But Russia, as much of a despotic toilet it's once more becoming, seems to take the idea of contract law serious. You sign it, you're stuck with it. Lovely!
Also, of the people who invent these contracts in the first place, who come up with the "we own your soul now" clauses, quite a lot of them will have to go looking for a new job now, won't they. No fail-safe clauses, nothing to prevent this sort of thing? Wit the media circus erupting around this, their references will be worth their weight in manure, won't they.
