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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know... what would the best-case legal outcome be?

Do you take Verizon to small claims court, calculate the cash value of the service, and have the judge award you that? Can you sue them for false advertising? Can they face any kind of punitive damages? Do you form a class-action suit for everyone who bought a Chromebook and then didn't receive the service? At what point does/would Verizon choose to settle instead, and just provide the service after all?

I mean, this seems like exactly the kind of abuse that laws are designed to prevent, no?

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You can only sue if you incur any loss due to lack of the free 3G service subjected to terms and conditions of the service. In this case, it's not worth it. Just return the chromebook back to Amazon.

You can probably sue Amazon for false advertising (again, subjected to Amazon's terms and conditions), but good luck proving that you have incurred any loss.

I don't believe you have any ground to sue Verizon.

Isn't the fact that he bought something that wasn't then delivered upon a "loss"? I.e., if I buy a year's worth of coffee from you for $5,000, and you only give me a month's worth, I've lost 11/12 of $5,000, right?

He bought a Chromebook. He got the Chromebook.

He did not buy 100MB of Verizon service, that was a "bonus/bundle/offer".

Just because it's a 'bonus/bundle/offer' doesn't mean he didn't buy it and is not obligated to receive it. In fact, an "offer" and an "acceptance" constitute the fundamentals of forming a legally binding contract in the US and many jurisdictions globally.

Unless you're a lawyer or very well-versed in the UCC, I'd avoid trying to make conclusive statements like that about this topic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offer_and_acceptance

Unless you're a lawyer or very well-versed in the UCC

Are we to understand that you are?

Absolutely not, nor was I drawing any definitive legal conclusions. I have run through bar flash cards on the UCC so I have some idea of what I don't know and that there can be a lot of complexity. For example, I vaguely recall an ad in a newspaper is not an offer, but an 'invitation to an offer.'

For example, I vaguely recall an ad in a newspaper is not an offer, but an 'invitation to an offer.'

I think you mean an 'invitation to treat'. A price sticker in a store can be an 'invitation to treat', i.e. you can look at a price sticker in a store and have a reasonable expectation that if you offer the teller the amount on the price tag, then that teller will accept the price.

It's more like an 'invitation to offer [verb]' than an 'invitation to an offer[noun]'.

A newspaper advertisement can be considered an offer, though. I don't know much about US law, but there is a famous case from the UK in which a lady claimed some money from a company on the basis of an advertised reward. They didn't pay and said it wasn't a serious claim. She fought in court and won: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlill_v_Carbolic_Smoke_Ball_C...

US law schools often phrase it exactly as invitation or solicitation to an offer. I definitely don't claim to have any authoritative knowledge on its applications in any jurisdiction.

Bullshit. Bull. Shit.

He bought a product that clearly promised something he is not getting. That is a loss. Amazon or Samsung should be liable. (Unless they can legitamitely deny him service because he waited a year to activate it).

I bought a really expensive coffee maker that comes with a 3-month supply of coffee beans from a 3rd party supplier. I chose this pricier coffee maker over a competitors because of that included supply made up the difference.

That supplier is refusing to send me the coffee beans, so I now have a loss.

You can sue for any reason whatsoever - does not mean you will win.

I am sure that Verizon was smart enough to put a limitation on the time that one had to activate the service. They have very many lawyers that would never allow a deal with no end date.

But again, you buy something over 1 year ago and only activate now? Did you really need this service?

Anyhow - you should not expect people to have a special offer that never expires, you must activate it to get the benefits.

But honestly, sounds like you are crying over nothing if it is really 1 year ago that you purchased this. You are being unreasonable.

Shouldn't said lawyers have made sure there was an expiration date on the original wording of the offer? If not on the packaging then somewhere in the fine print? In the absence of one you might successfully argue that it was open-ended.

You can only sue if you incur any loss due to lack of the free 3G service subjected to terms and conditions of the service.

IANAL and not from the US. In the UK, though, if the firm really had breached the terms by withdrawing the service promised, the customer could procure replacement service at reasonable/market cost, and then sue for that amount. So, if it cost you $20 per month to get Verizon service on the laptop, then could you sue for $240.

I have no view on this particular case as I'm not familiar with the contract. (It does seem reasonable that the customer should activate the service within some finite time, but the contract should define this. If it were 100 years since the person bought the laptop, I'm not sure people would still be surprised they couldn't activate the offer.

You can sue in small claims. They have to send/fly in a lawyer to respond. If you know what the corp lawyers charge, you can't possibly lose by filing, playing tough and negotiating at the last second. The judge has to believe your losses if you don't bluff.

Punitive damages or even small claims court are excessive, the only group which owes you something is Amazon, and it seems to be a straightforward case of failing to update the product description in a timely manner.

You might be able to compel them to provide you with the service as promised, you might not. You could probably get a return from Amazon plus a little extra something if you're nice about it.

Doubtful - he bought the device in January -2013-, went to activate it in January -2014-, only to be told they'd just discontinued the activation of new services.

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