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Why does the USA have so few legal protections for ordinary people, and how can we change that?

I’m just a regular person making about $70K a year in a big city, and I’ve recently felt incredibly powerless dealing with private companies. For instance, my landlord’s auto-pay system had a glitch that excluded my pet rent and water bill. I ended up with over $1,000 in late fees. Despite hours on the phone, it turns out their system doesn’t really do auto-pay and requires a fixed amount instead of covering the full rent. It feels like a scam, and my options are to pay the fees or potentially spend a fortune on legal action.

Another frustrating experience was trying to cancel my pest control service. I had to endure a 40-minute call followed by 35 minutes of arguing, just to finally cancel. There’s no online cancellation option, and the process felt like a timeshare sales pitch.

Why do ordinary people seem so unprotected against these shady practices, and how can we change this? How does one person even start to address these issues?

some_guy ,

I just started listening to a new podcast series called Master Plan that talks about how this happened deliberately and systematically over decades. It followed the Powell Doctrine. You can hear a conversation between the primary host, David Sirota, and Brianna Joy Gray (she’s not one of my favorites, but I tuned in because it was him) on Bad Faith podcast.

capital_sniff ,

Corporations tried out binding arbitration and the people just took it with very little complaining. So why not keep eroding consumer protections or the other rights citizens fought for in the before times?

swordgeek ,

Open revolution is about the only avenue left.

FireTower ,
@FireTower@lemmy.world avatar
  1. Contact local counsel. There’s probably an attorney who practices in rental law near you that does free consultations.
  2. It’s not that we don’t have protections it’s that we have an access to justice issue.
fiend_unpleasant ,

everytime I start telling people how to make guillotines everyone gets upset and says that they really didn't solutions they meant.. like... bandaids

RobotToaster ,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

Have you seen the price of timber these days?

ALostInquirer ,

Have you seen the !politicaldiscussion community? This would be a good post there as well, I think!

dan1101 ,

I don’t know, but companies shouldn’t be allowed to merge if you call either of them and the wait time to speak to a person is more than 2 minutes.

Also companies should have customer conceriges, call them and explain your issue and they navigate the company infrastructure, resolve your issue, and report back.

BlucifersVeinyAnus ,

In a nutshell: average Americans don’t have extra billions of dollars laying around to lobby against corporations writing laws so lawmakers don’t have to be bothered with it

ITGuyLevi ,

Really each vote only costs thousands from what I’ve heard, plus with recent rulings/interpretations/laws, you might not have to prepay and hope they follow through. That last part could be me taking the piss at something I read about kickbacks from contracts though.

Gordito ,

I finally was able to cancel a Telus home security service after they tried to put me in a 3 yr contract. I finally was able to cancel. I sent the equipment back and then they started charging me other monthly fees as if I had renewed. I didn’t even have their equipment anymore.

another 45 minutes on the phone and they say it is finally cancelled. But who knows. I’ll probably have to call again when they take the amount from my bank account despite removing my bank info from their site.

A company with 19.2M users. Imagine how many people are robbed “by mistake.” This is not a mistake but part of their internal procedures.

Cancelling a service even when contract is over is made difficult on purpose.

BearOfaTime ,

This is why you never use autopay

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The entire justice system rests on how much money you have.

It’s capitalism, capitalism is the core of the problem.

It treats people who have wealth as good people who always have a chance to appeal injustice and people without wealth as never having an opportunity to fight injustice.

You would literally need to tear it all down and start over because the US Consitution is kind of a piece of garbage and we spend way too much time jerking off the old dead white slave-owners who wrote down that “All men are created equal… as long as they’re white and own land.”

In some more civilized countries, they do things like peg criminal fines to the wealth of the person who committed the crime? Poor person? Small fine. Rich person? Huge fine. It’s decided based on a percentage of their wealth. So the wealthier criminals literally pay more because of their financial influence.

AndrewZabar ,

I guess they don’t have their wealthy running the government and writing the laws.

Sabre363 ,

It’s just corporations and rich assholes running the show and they absolutely do not give a fuck about anyone but themselves, especially if the anyone is poor ordinary. The only way to solve the issue is to completely remove these entities from the equation and start making our own protections.

sunzu2 ,

You need to read the terms of the agreement

If you are in the right, don't pay and let them sue you. Go to the judge and explain the situation.

This is how you handle if you are confident you are right.

If you are not confident, then tuck your dick and pay daddy what he said.

There is nothing in-between.

Gordito ,

Sometimes they have automatic payments that go though your account. Once they took it try to get it back.

sunzu2 ,

I am not following

MissJinx ,
@MissJinx@lemmy.world avatar

Sorry I’m not american, but what is Pet Rent? never heard of that

Thavron ,
@Thavron@lemmy.ca avatar

I assume it’s a surcharge on their rent for the fact that they have a pet.

MissJinx ,
@MissJinx@lemmy.world avatar

I assumed that too but couldn’t believe

pezmaker ,
@pezmaker@sh.itjust.works avatar

It’s exactly what it sounds like. Extra bullshit monthly rent tacked onto the regular rent in addition to a usually non-refundable pet deposit at time of move in or pet adoption.

Basically you’re a money faucet in the US, and wide open if you have pets or kids

MissJinx ,
@MissJinx@lemmy.world avatar

Wait, Kids too?!! omg

I get the deposit, pets can be destructive, but pet rent is peak captalism. It’s like charging rent by the weight!

thank god I don’t have that here coz I have 2 dogs and 2 cats.

So that applies to any pet? Even hamsters and fish?

pezmaker ,
@pezmaker@sh.itjust.works avatar

To be clear, rent is usually one value for however many humans will be living there, but everywhere has different rules for pets. For the most part you’re restricted to one or two dogs specifically if they’re allowed at all. Some places will charge the same for one or more, some will charge more for 2. It’s really variable. But with RealPage leading the way with the largest rental management companies, is getting pretty unified and difficult to not get fucked over by.

Smaller pets like fish or hamsters usually aren’t mentioned or charged for though that I’ve seen.

Zorsith ,
@Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

My lease explicitly prohibits fishtanks (and waterbeds IIRC). Pretty limited to just cats and dogs.

mke_geek ,

It’s an extra monthly fee to cover the cost of extra cleaning and repairs needed due to tenants having pets and the damage they cause.

Professorozone ,

Because non-ordinary people make the rules.

Linktank ,

People don’t fear for their lives when they fuck people over any more. We need to bring that back somehow. Ratfuckers should be fearful after they ratfuck somebody that they’re going to get theirs.

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