Squashed: It’s My Fault. I Didn‘t Read the Fine Print
The point isn’t that all the boilerplate should be inherently unenforceable. Most of it is pretty benign. “This is the address to which you should address your billing dispute.” “We really can’t promise that our network is so robust you can run a hospital or nuclear submarine on it. So please don’t try.” “In case for some reason you were confused, the trademark ‘Verizon’ is not yours, even though it’s stamped on your phone.” But sometimes there’s something nasty in there. Forced arbitration clauses. Class action waivers. Undisclosed charges (or whatever it is that makes AT&T think it can just tack on a few dollars in extra charges every month to pad its bottom line). There’s really nothing an individual consumer can do about any of this.
Anyway, two points.
1. The Consumer Financial Protectin Bureau is really important to curb the worst of these abuses.
2. Let’s not blame people for “agreeing” to things that they didn’t actually agree to in any meaningful way.