This is why you should ALWAYS read the contract - r/AskReddit

serious hey ribbit what was your thank God I looked at the contract moment I signed up for a gym membership on a whim and got sketched out when they initially charged me 250 instead of only the 90 for the month I went home and legit didn't sleep because I was so mad I went through with it I called and asked the next day to see if I could cancel and almost everyone I spoke to said either no it was impossible or only if I move to an area that didn't have a gym I checked the contract and you could cancel within the first two weeks and I was only three days into the contract you bet your ass I cancelled so fast landlord agreed to let me move out a month early since he wanted to lease the apartment to someone else we had to sign new paperwork to let me out of the original lease and to make me agree to the out by an earlier date I knew he was a recently convicted forger so I made sure to read what I was signing he'd added the condition that if anything fell through with the new tenant that I would still be on the hook for end after I moved out I called him out on it and he said oh yeah I just added that part to protect myself then he stole my deposit I still need to take him to court for that Frick you John went to buy a new phone for $200 the employee told me they were closing soon and asked if I could come back the next day to sign the paperwork the $200 mysteriously changed to three hundred dollars while the document was sitting in a desk overnight slash called them out on it and got it from somewhere else my wife and I were at a car dealership buying our first car the dealership was offering special no interest financing for recent college grads and we were using that to finance the car the finance guy presented us with two options or three-year payment plan and a five-year payment plan the whole time he made it sound like a zero interest applied to both and so we went for the five-year plan to get a lower payment finance guy tries to get us to sign without reading the paperwork but we weren't having that come to find out the longer payment plan didn't qualify for the no interest deal and we were getting charged six point percent which is a hell of a lot more than zero we got Percy and threatened to walk out after we realized what they were trying to pull and got them to come down on the price I know they've pulled that on other recent grads who don't read the paperwork and just sign some workplace that demanded at least four years of employment or else i wold have had to pay for those four years as you would pay for a course in case of earlier quitting my last restaurant job had a non competition clause in the new handbook i pointed it out to caucus few signed and it was revised in a week when to pick up my car from the dealership and it said by signing the paperwork it gave them permission to lend my information to third parties nope when I bought my commune three years ago the finance department processed and had me sign paperwork at a certain price then they called me three days later and told me that their lender fell through and I would actually have to pay an additional $100 a month I brought in the Packer work with the price I signed for in the case told them they would stick to the contract or they could have their car back with the additional mileage apparently this is a fairly common practice at car dealerships they were I had taken some helicopter flying lessons and was considering switching careers to that so I found a flight school and applied for a student loan fanni me was the only one that would cover it and when I got the final paperwork the interest rate was higher than they told me over the phone and the total payment to them was going to be well over $200 zero zero zero so I cancelled and didn't go to flight school at my high school they set up with me for us to use however in the Terms of Service it said that by signing into the network the school had permission to search the phone and look at its contents I did not sign it and have not of this day buying my house husband signed the paperwork and I went in later that day to sign I started to read through the loan application mortgage lender said what are you doing you don't have to read your husband already signed it I was like now I want to make sure it is what I want loan was a 250 0 dollars a 25% the air right didn't sign it and got out of there mortgaged I said he was going to take me to court I said go ahead it would be cheaper than what he wanted me to sign took over all the mortgage stuff from the non mortgage guy was a friend of a high school friend of my husband viewed this great flat and was ready to hand over a deposit when I decided that I should actually read the rules they sent me once over again I had read the one they gave me when I viewed the place and it was a bit strict and in general I thought it was silly to have written rules when you're paying that much but again nothing I couldn't handle thank God an I checked the rules listed in the email were completely different and included gems like if you wish to bring a guest to the house you must put forth a request in writing at least one week prior and must be approved by all members of the flat there will be no guests allowed after 10:00 p.m. absolutely no guests staying over any guest that comes over will require a $20 fee to go towards water usage for toilets I'm like you want me to pay over $1,000 a month for my own private room and not be able to invite people to come over without jumping through the ridiculous hoops noped out real quick there were a few other ridiculous things but that took the buns we were in the process of selling our business my wife's car was registered under business we sat down with our lawyer to discuss what is included in the sale equipment supplies et Cie and we clearly told him the car is not included in the sale well guess what we received the typed up contract from our lawyer and he had added the car along with other things thank God we read it and had it removed before signing it and sending to buyer's lawyer was sent a freelance contract for a job offer in the media industry I was a graduate at the time with two years experience was offered BS 6.50 hourly pay and with the expectation that I must be available to work 37.5 five hours per week I had to use my own car for business purposes but couldn't claim expenses for fuel / mileage and above all the contract demanded full rights for the company to use any creative works I produced within two years before the start date of the position I didn't accept the job my husband then fiancee was getting ready to buy a used car that's often used for street racing / rally racing he doesn't do that but it's a damn fun car to drive and is pretty much shorter had aftermarket modifications if it's been owned by someone who used it for racing or as a status symbol my husband had done his research and neither of us were going to be taken for a ride and even though this was the car we absolutely wanted we were prepared to walk away it was fairly low mileage the dealer a third party outfit not a brand dealership kept swearing up and down that the car was still under manufacturer's warranty and had no aftermarket mods I was skeptical I knew that if the car had any aftermarket mots the warranty would be void for that portion of the car if not the whole thing depending on the extent of the influence of the mods I read every piece of paperwork they wanted my husband to sign and explained them to him but I couldn't find anything that guaranteed that the car was still under manufacturer's warranty so I straight up told him to walk away from the deal unless they gave us a piece of paper that both parties signed that said exactly that they did it lo and behold the car had an aftermarket downpipe a really nice one that had been installed improperly it was affecting the airflow through the engine and could have eventually caused permanent damage to the engine it was going to cost us hundreds of dollars to either habit reinstalled properly or return the engine to its original unmodified state which would give us warranty compliance yaaaay but surprise [ __ ] we had a piece of paper that gave us a hold on their bowls they tried to avoid us for a week or so until we left them a voicemail saying that if we didn't hear from them in 24 hours they'd be hearing from our and that's how we didn't pay for having the car restored to warranty specs we even got to keep the downpipe it's kind of spiffy mine wasn't really extreme but my gf and I was shopping for houses and we were checking out a townhouse style condominium the price was within our budget in the monthly maintenance fees were average for the area it was an open house event hosted by a retailer so the property's annual expenses were included in a pamphlet I found that on top of the regular monthly maintenance fees around three hundred and fifty dollars there was an additional expense of eight hundred dollars every six months I asked why there was an additional expense if there were already regular fees she responded that the extra one thousand six hundred dollars per year was used to keep the fees low I responded that the fees are average for the area in many places in the same neighborhood are already lower long story short it was a nice house but we didn't pursue it further I'm on board with the idea of condo fees if they cover things that I would normally pay for like eat / water snow removal garden care et Cie and if needed additional expenses for major upgrades like new roofs or door / windows but expecting 12 houses in the Rue complex to each kick in a 1600 bonus every year without specific accountability isn't something that interests me I went to a reasonably well advertised jewelry store to pick up an engagement ring knowing that I wanted to be a surprise and that she would want to pick out her own ring in due time I made sure that the ring would be returnable for full price and even for a full refund from that store when I bought it for about 900 dollars after the proposal my then fiance found a ring she liked better at a different jeweler so I went to return the ring when I said I wanted to return the ring the Clark said no problem just sign this and we'll get you sorted out I read the small paper and it stated something very close to I now confirm this sale to be a final sale and cannot be refunded or returned for any reason I read it pen in hand looked at her and said why would I sign that she took the slip back got her manager and I was able to get the full amount returned via the same way I paid on my debit card for those interested it was a People's jewellers in Van Calder I noticed a lot of contracts have the following clause you can cancel when your contract is up for renewal but if you fail to do so your contract renews for another year I said several reminders to prevent that auto renew thing from kicking in US Marines I was enlisting for a program that's five years of active duty age 19 get the contract and it says eight years nobody had ever mentioned anything about that I asked in the recruiters point out that it's an overall eight year contract but only five active and the other three years I can serve in the reserves or Indian active Ready Reserve they explained that I means you still are eligible for service on paper but have no monthly or annual obligation except keeping your address updated and that all it means is if World War three breaks out and they are drafting guys anyway you'll come back in at your old occupation and rank so I signed note this was pre nine over eleven when we had no major Wars going on nine over eleven happens I do two tours in Iraq while on active duty and six months before my eight years is up I get involuntarily recalled and sent to Afghanistan for six months I just bought a used car and my wife and I had to bring our newborn she hadn't pooped all day and I knew from her doing it the day earlier that a monster crap was brewing well it happened in the finance office and she crapped all over me now just before this we talked about the 250 dollar cancellation option how I didn't want it how I sold cars in my past we had a good conversation about it well this jabber only give my wife a digital paper to sign to reject it and zooms in to help her sign but is really obscuring the fact he had her sign for it after I emerged the bathroom covered in watered-down crap I read the whole long form in quarters he pretended not to know what the charge was then he said it will take awhile to manually read oh I told him to get to it it didn't take hours I didn't know about the signature until after I got home because he gave me a digital copy of that on a USB Drive when I got her and looked over the digital part of the contract I was floored to see and put together what happened this the shatzer are struggling with our new baby and thought he could steal two hundred and fifty dollars from us to pad the back end police I once had said the landlord agrees at the renters expense to blah blah with the blood law being a list of deep cleaning services to be completed at the end of the lease likely many hundreds of dollars worth first time renter here moved out of uni Ruiz to get my own place so I could take my family cat found a nice little apartment for cheap downtown intended to move in with a roommate or two to split the cost close friends of mine the landlord didn't speak English very well so although he insisted oh yeah everything good everything okay I wasn't sure he understood what I wanted when he brought out the contract it said in writing that pets were not allowed and the cost would increase for more people living there I pointed it out to him but he retorted to the effect of I used this contract for all tenants those rules don't apply to you bull I told him I wasn't signing unless he rewrote the contract but he refused saying he wasn't going to waste time pandering to paranoid people I offered to write the contract myself and was baffled that he agreed to it so I wrote up my own contract with super lenient conditions making sure to protect my own ass I had a lawyer look at it and notarized it and now I live with my cat and roommates at the original cost we were young my friend signed for a pre-owned Audi and came over to my house said it was like 300 Aish a month and in his glove box I read the paperwork and tell him you know this says 550 dollars a month right he was clueless but thankfully it was over a weekend so Monday morning he went back and caused a scene to give the car back without penalty my wife and I were three days away from signing paperwork to buy a condo and they sent us the latest and we noticed that they changed the interest rate by a tiny amount like 0.2 percent they said the change was because they reran our credit so they altered the interest to reflect our current credit rating that left a bad taste in our mouth so we said no thanks and walked away the next week my company got bought out and they moved us out of state if we would have signed we would have had to either immediately sell or quit my job we bought a new RV and received a coupon for three free nights at a luxury RV campground park of course to receive a free nights we had to sit down with salespeople trying to sell us a membership first my ex was very gullible and gobbled up the free cookies and sales pitch after they showed us the beautiful photos of their campgrounds all over the state there were many promises made of ocean views club houses swimming pools et Cie I was young and he was definitely the one in charge at the time so next thing I know the three free knifes turns into a full-blown membership with extremely pricey annual fees but now we can camp anywhere anytime right we head out that weekend to the dedicated property for the three nights and it's an absolute crap hole there is no ocean view the pool is covered in scum the clubhouse has the smell of mismanaged senior home with three residents staring at us oddly basically it's a gravel lined trailer park for people who live in their RVs I'm mad the kids are sad and trying to play on the rusty swing set we bailed out that night after driving three hours in the next morning he tried to cancel they had told us we could cancel in a time yeah right after we reading the contract this was a lifetime membership and you could not cancel it without following their exact fine-print instructions of cancellation via certified mail written in the blood of your firstborn it also had to be done within 48 hours of signing these [ __ ] sent people away for three days to a dumps though when you come back you're contracted for life like a timeshare lucky for us my Bischoff it got us home within 24 hours rent up their ridiculous demands for cancellation and boo yard right out of there then they tried to not refund us despite it all and I threatened them with litigation so they finally did I have a scathing yelp review about them that gets regular votes for being useful and funny they recently tried to get it removed and failed suck it you dirty rotten leeches I went to sign up at Snap Fitness and it said they'd charge a $50 gym enhancement fee every year they said it would go to equipment upgrades I told them that's what my monthly fee should be going to they refused to remove the thing so I bailed and went to in a time fitness they immediately proceeded to pull the same crap plus the key fob to get in was going to cost me 70 dollars you can buy a pack of 100 of them for like $20 on Amazon they too refused to budge so I backed out eventually I moved to an apartment with an on-site gym so that worked out for the better looked at renting a house about seven years ago and the homie awana had inserted some of her own clauses into the standard tenancy agreement now this is absolutely fine to do but they were purposefully put into different sections of the document so if you read the part detailing security deposit you wouldn't see her additions as she put them in another area on the paperwork one clause was that no foot aware of any kind can be worn inside the property failure to adhere to this will mean the whole property's carpeting must be professionally cleaned another was the waiving of the mandatory notice period before the home er winner can come by and inspect the property there's supposed to be a minimum amount of time they must give you notice wise before they can come over unless there is a serious property fault leaky TC so that they can't just turn up unannounced she wanted that waived so she could check we were treating her property right and if we weren't then we'd be immediately evicted I also caught her telling a relative that she registers eviction proceedings upon the start of the tenancy so she can evict them as soon as she decides they've broken Harold's there was a mandatory waiting period between commencement of eviction proceedings and being able to actually get enforcement officers to evict a tenant not sure of the current rules on this anymore as I don't have as much to do with rental properties now nope doubt of that house really quickly and got a much bigger cheaper house albeit more of a deathtrap a few streets away had company I worked for bought by another the handover included new contracts for all staff with the new owners I went through every word and glad I did as one cause gave the new owners rights over any type I had ever had egg if I had a patent from before I even worked for the previous company I was signing away all rights to it to the new owners without any compensation this included if they ever moved into a new area of business so if I suddenly got successful in another field outside of work time and nothing to do with their business they were allowed to just start a new field of endeavor and take everything from me I'm extra glad I did check because they later proved to be deceitful and dishonest kept on changing our salary payments super contributions accidentally forgetting to pay us all sorts of stupid stuff recently I just started a new job and the employee agreement said I wasn't eligible for overtime but it was something I 100% confirmed I was eligible for and it was in my job offer letter I pointed it out on the spot and ours crossed it out and initialed it she claimed she must have grabbed the wrong agreement by mistake I hope there wasn't anything else in the agreement that didn't pertain to me it did have a forced arbitration clause that I'm still unhappy about but this job is just a stepping-stone for me bit long but satisfying to me at least was leasing with a big apartment company where I had a garage along with my apartment the lease contracts they cook up are 20 plus pages long and naturally slanted heavily in their favor and they use them as clubs against their tenants generally scummy behavior all around they removed the Rose affected access gates because they were tired of maintaining them and kept advertising it anyway etc so the contract comes up for renewal and they of course raise the rent on both the apartment and the garage counting on inertia to keep me there even though they're blatantly advertising a lower rate on the same model for new leases now at this point I'm planning on leaving in a year anyway to buy my house so I swallow it and tell them to write up the contract for me to review I sit down and read the thing and notice they've clearly left the garage fee off the contract even though it's noted as being leased I bite my tongue and read it over and yes according to the papper work that sum total of everything was the price of just the apartment and the total is less that what I paid the previous year I sign it fully expecting to hear back that they made a mistake before the property manager counter signs it a few days later I get my fully executed contract on my doorstep now the fun begins I wait until the bill shows up on their payment website and call them up saying there seems to be some mistake you're charging me dollar sign X when my lease is four dollar sign Y please correct they tell me they'll review a couple days later they call to say oh it's just a mistake in the patter work you can either pay the full amount or we can take the garage off your lease oh no no no my contract clearly states the apartment and the garage is this price please correct your billing I paid them the amount owed for the contract on the first now come the threats eviction delinquent payment going to affect credit corporate lawyers luckily I have prepaid legal services through my work I call up the lawyer they refer me to and send off the contract he calls me back the next day and says you're absolutely right they don't have a leg to stand on here get their attorney to provide you in writing what they believe their legal basis is for demanding more than what's in the contract and I'll take care of it my favorite line in contracts like this is how they clearly state that it is the entirety of the agreement so there's no chance of slipping in things on either the property manager calls me to come visit her in the office the same day and says she reviewed it with their attorney and he believes they are in the right because of generally advertised pricing or some other such nonsense she also implied that the person who wrote the contract was in danger of losing their job because of the issue as if she wasn't more liable for it for signing off on it this is where I get to tell her I've also retained legal services and passed on what he said the look on her face was priceless she told me she'd take it back to them end of the story I received a very terse note dropped on my doorstep a day later saying they've removed the extra charge from my account I'm happily living in my new house for four years now but that still gives me a warm glow when I remember it we were getting ready to move from the u.s. Midwest to one of the u.s. island territories back in 2000 we had five cell phones that I was going to have to cancel and I was looking at some hefty cancellation fees then I remembered a clause not in the contract but that was printed on our bill a month or two earlier previously they had not charged per minute rates for calls if they were automatically forwarded from the cell number to another number I had mine set up to transfer to my landline the notice had two important points first they would now charge for the duration of the call even if it was forwarded second if I didn't agree to those terms I could terminate the contract with no penalties remembering that I saw that saved me almost $1 zero zero zero in termination fees I was prepared for a hassle when I contacted them but the termination went smoothly quite a while ago I bought an extended warranty for something from Walmart when I got home I found out they put in an act of God clause that basically made sure they'd never have to pay up two years ago I went to buy used car I really liked it test drove it twice and went in for the paperwork they ran the numbers and gave me the paperwork to review I busted out my phone and started doing the math on it using one of those websites that calculates Auto financing and interest for you I did the math with the website and on my own three separate times while they stared me down the numbers didn't add up turns out they had it set up that payments wouldn't officially kick in until 60 months but would still be accruing interest that entire time screw that that and the fact that I caught the salesmen lying to me on all kinds of things like this unused space behind the engine is specifically so if you're in a crash there will be room for it so it won't hit you um no jackass it's the low-end model with a tiny engine don't try and sell this is a safety feature like anyways walked out from them and got a lot of passive aggressive and even threatening texts in the following days screw them was asked to work some days without extra pay Toyota was going to give me a $750 college rebate and 1.9 percent APR for 60 months for my truck finance comes to talk saying I suddenly don't qualify for the rebate and if I did take the rebate offer I'd have a 5% APR 8 and said to purchase the truck without the rebate of 3.5% April luckily I'm not stupid and looked through the rebates fine print prior to walking in I told them to show me where in the fine print where it said I would have to pay that interest rate and why the guy said sure he would show me obviously couldn't find it he walked away and came back and said I actually do qualify for the rebate and lo % April so yeah Richard if you're eating this freak you okay this is just a piece of advice because I know there are actors out there who want to get into the business I'm a talent agent and entertainment lawyer I cannot tell you how many contracts I read that include things that are not enforceable by law or are just plain illegal but actors are so happy to get an agent they sign without looking hire an lawyer I used to charge 100 dollars to read a contract when I still did it it's worth it example I had a client let's call her Jess Jess is an incredible talent in voiceover she to this day is one of my best clients however when Jess first starting about 8 years against Lee signed a contract with an agency out of Kansas City two years later she left the agency and we picked her up and showed her our contract she raised her eyebrows at our rates asking how do you guys make anything with such low Commission rates this along with a few other things made me ask if she had a copy of her old contract for me to read so here we go first it stated that the agency's commission rate percentage of actor earnings they get was 45% the industry standard if you're Union it can legally be no higher than 10% and are usually never goes higher than 15% even for new talent that non-union seconded stated a non-compete clause that lasted for three years and covered the entire you point s in Canada not enforceable and if I'm being honest I could make a judge throw that out on a dime but it would cost you a lot of money for me to do usually you don't find non-compete clauses in acting agencies other than a plenty for breaking your contract with us early which in our agency we usually derive from average of your earnings during the course of a current contract third and this was a fun one said that she could not deny appearing nude provided proper compensation I was tempted to hammer this freakin company after reading this jess was a very attractive woman but that changes nothing let me be clear to will act as you have every right to dan our job for any reason you choose if your agency pushes you into something against your own choice you call a lawyer or your union rep if you have one there were about five other stupid things about ownership and her responsibilities but those are the main ones nothing makes me more sick than agencies taking advantage of kids pursuing their dream they are freakin old age snake oil salesmen who only survive off the desperate iana people who have dreams being an actor is tough and your agent is supposed to be on your side it's an unwritten rule of the profession that unless there are extreme circumstances you hold the line with your client that's literally the rules in my agency and I fired people for freaking over actors for their own game I could go all day but please if you're ever in a situation as an actor or / for where there is a contract just hire a lawyer to consult and have them read it it doesn't cost much in the grand scale of what you could lose and they will always help you because if you're happy then you'll come back if you need them you

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Id: 57ZNGyHODWI

Length: 31min 30sec (1890 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020