6 ms·

Under the "What is the actual language in the agreement sent by Chase?" FAQ item, it says -- "Can I (the customer) reject this agreement to arbitrate? Yes. Yo

Under the "What is the actual language in the agreement sent by Chase?" FAQ item, it says -- "Can I (the customer) reject this agreement to arbitrate? Yes. You have the right to reject this agreement to arbitrate if you notify us no later than 8/9/2019. You must do so in writing by stating that you reject this agreement to arbitrate and include your name, account number, address and personal signature. Your notice must be mailed to us at P.O. Box 15298, Wilmington, DE 19850-5298. Rejection notices sent to any other address, or sent by electronic mail or communicated orally, will not be accepted or effective." (emphasis mine) How does this service handle the "personal signature" requirement?

mjkornbl 7y ago
We are relying on legal opinions that the site fully complies with the ESIGN Act. That act makes electronic signatures on par with physical signatures. (Disclosure = I'm not a lawyer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Global_and_National_Commerce_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Globa...
- eganist 7y ago
  Edit: dumb question from me. I didn't follow the flow because I don't have a chase account, so I wasn't aware it was a multi-part form. Original comment below: --- I'm likewise not an attorney, but how hard would it be to do a simple "Type your name here to represent your signature" type of deal? This is the most common lay practice I've seen, with the more common CYA practice for electronic records being e.g. what Docusign or Adobe offer, or the use of cryptographic signatures.
  - mjkornbl 7y ago
    If you fill in your info on the page and click the buttom, this happens as the final part of the flow before it submits.
    - lozenge 7y ago
      "By checking this box, I certify that my account information is accurate and I want to e-sign and mail this document to chase to opt out of binding arbitration." The document is not actually present.
      - mjkornbl 7y ago
        Not a lawyer. I'll make sure we have a legal opinion addressing this if we don't already.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  Just a layman here but that seems like a misinterpretation of the statute? The idea of the statute seems to be that the government will not void, nullify, or refuse to enforce the terms of an electronic contract. It does not state that in any given contract, private parties must accept the terms signed in any form whatsoever -- that's still left as something for those people to agree on, and Chase very clearly spelled out that that's not valid for the contract. So the "reason" for the invalidity of a contract wouldn't be that it has an electronic signature, but that one of the parties simply didn't follow the terms it set for validity (whatever they were -- in this case, that they be personally signed, and mailed by the actual account holder). So I'm very curious how legal opinions interpret the statute otherwise, since I don't see any hint that it was intended to be interpreted as allowing one of the parties to change the signing terms to include electronic signatures.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > the idea of the statute seems to be that the government will not void, nullify, or refuse to enforce the terms of an electronic contract Unless Chase explicitly said wet signature, then a government court would find the electronic signature valid.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      While I disagree on that point, what about the fact that the terms require you to mail it yourself. Edit: Also, I'm not sure what "wet signature" means. The claim was not quite that the signature has to be in ink. The debate is over whether you (not someone else) are performing the signing, and whether you (not someone else) are mailing (not emailing etc.) it on paper (not e.g. a flash drive) or not. Which, to me, means you could sign on your computer/tablet/etc., then print that as your signature with a printer and then mail the form, with no ink involved anywhere in the process. That seems like a pretty reasonable interpretation of "personally signing" the letter and "mailing" it, so Chase would have a hard time arguing you didn't do that. But to type your name on a random website for someone else to print and mail the contract on your behalf? You neither personally signed that letter (whether on the computer or on the paper) nor did you mail it... all you did was casually tell some random guy on the internet to impersonate you to your financial institution.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
SCHiM 7y ago
Can someone knowledgeable explain how a company can pick and chose was does and what doesn't constitute a binding agreement? AFAIK in the Netherlands oral statements, when overheard by a witness, have the same legal standing as a signed contract.
- Gene_Parmesan 7y ago
  I'm a US attorney but not in contracts. Contracts is a fairly complicated area of law, and the fundamental common law of Ks that you study in law school tends to be very different from how Ks work "on the ground." Most notably, statutes currently exist that change the way this common law operates in sometimes non-obvious ways. Standard disclaimer here that this is in no way to be construed as legal advice, this is not my area of expertise; take this as high-level background. Essentially, under the common law here, all that a contract needs in order to be valid is three things: a valid offer, a valid acceptance, and valid "consideration," where consideration is a legal term of art referring to 'something of value' gained through the agreement. The idea is that, there is no servitude. Companies can offer whatever terms they want (subject to a very few number of restrictions, dependent on the industry/regulatory domain). You are under no pressure to accept. You can easily reject the terms by simply not using the product. Courts have generally been reluctant to prevent parties from agreeing to whatever lawful thing they want to agree to. The main exception is that you cannot have contracts which serve 'an illegal end.' In the US, there's no need for a contract to be written or overheard at all. There need be no written document, no witnesses, no record whatsoever. So long as there is a valid offer (obvious jokes are not held to be valid offers, for instance), valid acceptance (you generally need to affirmatively signal acceptance, but this need not be oral or even explicit), and valid consideration (really nothing more than a formality nowadays, this is why many deeds say "exchanged for consideration of $1"), the contract is valid, even if it only exists in the minds of the two parties. Obviously, proving such a contract can be difficult, but it can be done, particularly if the parties were acting in accordance with the terms of the claimed contract. If we orally agree that you will start working on building a shed for me, you buy supplies and deliver them to the site, but then stop work, you can't claim the contract never existed, because you've acted in accordance with that oral contract. In this area specifically, there's been some progress made in getting the courts to understand the enormous power differential at play here. You nearly can't survive in this country without at least one credit card, and if all the major companies' cards have terms like this, then you don't really actually have a choice in the matter. It's been a slow process however.
latchkey 7y ago
I wrote to Chase on their 'secure message portal', which feels like it is straight out of 1995. I told them I'm out of the country and cannot send mail. I told them that I am rejecting the agreement to arbitrate. I also said that since their message portal feels official, this would be what I would use as proof of my opt out in court, if the need arises. I saved some screenshots as well. They have updated me once already to say that they are still working on a response.

mjkornbl 7y ago

We are relying on legal opinions that the site fully complies with the ESIGN Act. That act makes electronic signatures on par with physical signatures. (Disclosure = I'm not a lawyer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Global_and_National_Commerce_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Globa...

eganist 7y ago
Edit: dumb question from me. I didn't follow the flow because I don't have a chase account, so I wasn't aware it was a multi-part form. Original comment below: --- I'm likewise not an attorney, but how hard would it be to do a simple "Type your name here to represent your signature" type of deal? This is the most common lay practice I've seen, with the more common CYA practice for electronic records being e.g. what Docusign or Adobe offer, or the use of cryptographic signatures.
- mjkornbl 7y ago
  If you fill in your info on the page and click the buttom, this happens as the final part of the flow before it submits.
  - lozenge 7y ago
    "By checking this box, I certify that my account information is accurate and I want to e-sign and mail this document to chase to opt out of binding arbitration." The document is not actually present.
    - mjkornbl 7y ago
      Not a lawyer. I'll make sure we have a legal opinion addressing this if we don't already.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mehrdadn 7y ago
Just a layman here but that seems like a misinterpretation of the statute? The idea of the statute seems to be that the government will not void, nullify, or refuse to enforce the terms of an electronic contract. It does not state that in any given contract, private parties must accept the terms signed in any form whatsoever -- that's still left as something for those people to agree on, and Chase very clearly spelled out that that's not valid for the contract. So the "reason" for the invalidity of a contract wouldn't be that it has an electronic signature, but that one of the parties simply didn't follow the terms it set for validity (whatever they were -- in this case, that they be personally signed, and mailed by the actual account holder). So I'm very curious how legal opinions interpret the statute otherwise, since I don't see any hint that it was intended to be interpreted as allowing one of the parties to change the signing terms to include electronic signatures.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > the idea of the statute seems to be that the government will not void, nullify, or refuse to enforce the terms of an electronic contract Unless Chase explicitly said wet signature, then a government court would find the electronic signature valid.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    While I disagree on that point, what about the fact that the terms require you to mail it yourself. Edit: Also, I'm not sure what "wet signature" means. The claim was not quite that the signature has to be in ink. The debate is over whether you (not someone else) are performing the signing, and whether you (not someone else) are mailing (not emailing etc.) it on paper (not e.g. a flash drive) or not. Which, to me, means you could sign on your computer/tablet/etc., then print that as your signature with a printer and then mail the form, with no ink involved anywhere in the process. That seems like a pretty reasonable interpretation of "personally signing" the letter and "mailing" it, so Chase would have a hard time arguing you didn't do that. But to type your name on a random website for someone else to print and mail the contract on your behalf? You neither personally signed that letter (whether on the computer or on the paper) nor did you mail it... all you did was casually tell some random guy on the internet to impersonate you to your financial institution.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

SCHiM 7y ago

Can someone knowledgeable explain how a company can pick and chose was does and what doesn't constitute a binding agreement? AFAIK in the Netherlands oral statements, when overheard by a witness, have the same legal standing as a signed contract.

Gene_Parmesan 7y ago
I'm a US attorney but not in contracts. Contracts is a fairly complicated area of law, and the fundamental common law of Ks that you study in law school tends to be very different from how Ks work "on the ground." Most notably, statutes currently exist that change the way this common law operates in sometimes non-obvious ways. Standard disclaimer here that this is in no way to be construed as legal advice, this is not my area of expertise; take this as high-level background. Essentially, under the common law here, all that a contract needs in order to be valid is three things: a valid offer, a valid acceptance, and valid "consideration," where consideration is a legal term of art referring to 'something of value' gained through the agreement. The idea is that, there is no servitude. Companies can offer whatever terms they want (subject to a very few number of restrictions, dependent on the industry/regulatory domain). You are under no pressure to accept. You can easily reject the terms by simply not using the product. Courts have generally been reluctant to prevent parties from agreeing to whatever lawful thing they want to agree to. The main exception is that you cannot have contracts which serve 'an illegal end.' In the US, there's no need for a contract to be written or overheard at all. There need be no written document, no witnesses, no record whatsoever. So long as there is a valid offer (obvious jokes are not held to be valid offers, for instance), valid acceptance (you generally need to affirmatively signal acceptance, but this need not be oral or even explicit), and valid consideration (really nothing more than a formality nowadays, this is why many deeds say "exchanged for consideration of $1"), the contract is valid, even if it only exists in the minds of the two parties. Obviously, proving such a contract can be difficult, but it can be done, particularly if the parties were acting in accordance with the terms of the claimed contract. If we orally agree that you will start working on building a shed for me, you buy supplies and deliver them to the site, but then stop work, you can't claim the contract never existed, because you've acted in accordance with that oral contract. In this area specifically, there's been some progress made in getting the courts to understand the enormous power differential at play here. You nearly can't survive in this country without at least one credit card, and if all the major companies' cards have terms like this, then you don't really actually have a choice in the matter. It's been a slow process however.

latchkey 7y ago

I wrote to Chase on their 'secure message portal', which feels like it is straight out of 1995. I told them I'm out of the country and cannot send mail. I told them that I am rejecting the agreement to arbitrate. I also said that since their message portal feels official, this would be what I would use as proof of my opt out in court, if the need arises. I saved some screenshots as well. They have updated me once already to say that they are still working on a response.