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Comment by maccard | Hacker News Reader

> In the end of my response, I counter-offered 80% plus arbitration filing fee reimbursement. The next day, they responded back with an acceptance and sent over a release form. Case pretty much closed.

This is so depressing - it cost him $200 to get to the point of arbitration in the first place (lucky for him that he had $200 to file it in the first place), _and_ he didn't even get the total amount back, he get less than $1500 rather than the $200 he likely should have got.

For anyone who claims "just take them to court" or "just sue them for breach of contract" - this is what you're looking at, getting back 75% of what you expected after paying for their complaints procedure.

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He asked for $1800 and accepted 80% plus the $200 filing fee, so he got back $1640, so it cost him around $360. --I'm guessing his deductible would have been in the $100-200 range, so, yeah, he ate $160-260 rather than spend the time going through arbitration, but it's perfectly fair for him to consider the cost of his time in determining whether or not it made sense to continue fighting.

In the end he still comes out ahead since it looks like a normal sized electric water heater runs around $500 plus the cost of installation and repairing any damage from the leaks.

On the other hand, that was purely due to his counter-offer being 80%.

Given the amounts we're talking, there's basically no difference between $1500 and $2000 for a big company - the entire process already cost them as much, and continuing said process would keep costing them more especially as it's a clear-cut case of breach of contract they are unlikely to win regardless of how much time they spend on it.

If they didn't believe he had any ground to stand on, they would've declined immediately regardless of how low his counter-offer was. Given that they accepted it immediately, they knew they were in the wrong and would've accepted a repayment of the full amount just as well.

AAA arbitration costs a company about $3,000 (and the costs of an attorney they hire). Some may/will pay nuisance settlements if it’s the economically rational play—even if they think the claim is bogus. Although, to be clear, this claim sounded very very legit. (Candidly, I would have pushed for a much higher settlement. But don’t blame OP for not wanting the headache).

There’s some interesting arbitrage opportunities in this space. I have the legal (and arbitration) experience. I’ve been noodling on how to marry it up with a tech-minded individual to capitalize on these opportunities.

Sounds like an interesting opportunity. Some ideas immediately come to mind. I'm a previous founder and CTO/CEO. Feel free to reach out if you're interested to discuss. You can find my email in my profile.

Judging from the article negotiating was fast, indicating that OP probably could have concluded on more advantageous terms. I enjoy these negotiations but OP’s process was swift and relatively painless. Probably a more economical use of time.

I disagree. FTA:

> After about five calls of runarounds, I realized that customer service channels would not help me and I had use the legal system.

> I filed a case online for $200 > Two days later, I received a response <..> I respectfully declined. > A day later, I requested a 3rd party pre-auth to find an outside plumber. > I counter-offered 80% plus arbitration filing fee reimbursement. The next day

By my count, he called them 5 times, threatened (and followed up with) legal action, and took 4 rounds of negotiation all to receive less than he was entitled too.

Also, I don't blame OP at all here - they did a fantastic job of handling the situation they were in, but it's a shitty system that allows them to be caught like that in the first place.

As the lawyer above said, they could have hired a lawyer to do the work for him and the company would have had to pay the lawyer. Alternatively they likely could have claimed for their time based on their hourly rate, also they should likely have claimed for the inconvenience of being without water for several days. I think they really went to light on the claims and that's likely also why the settlement was so quick.

I like your perspective. However, I have to make about that many calls every week just to deal with messed up bank balances, errors in credit card bills, etc. I spend well over an hour a week on stuff that in the late 80s and early 90s could have been taken care of with a single phone call to the institution involved. (I have several residences and small businesses so YMMV.)

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