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Scientists hit with massive bills after speaking at COVID-19 ‘webinars’
- carlotte 3y ago[dead]
- pvaldes 3y ago[flagged]
- jacquesm 3y agoAre you seriously suggesting that virologists would 'take revenge' on others by using their professional skills or do I read your comment in entirely the wrong way?
- peteradio 3y agoIsn't this the normal thing to do? As a physicist I might set up a large pendulum to knock over a foe or perhaps a frictionfull ramp with a uniform cylinder to flatten my foe.
- thfuran 3y agoI have done in no fewer than three enemies by forcing them into infinite loops.
- scrollaway 3y agoMy accountant trapped his ex wife into accounts receivables. I think she’s still in there today.
- baz00 3y agoSomeone did this recently to me i.e. showed me something I'd signed which I didn't. Fortunately this lead to their demise as I am friends with their manager which was unknown by the party in question. Historically I tend to try something on with employment contracts too - I return an unsigned copy to the company. Only 1 out of 6 companies I worked for didn't just stick it in a filing cabinet and forget about it. Ultimately I learned that a signature is definitely not proof that someone explicitly signed anything or what the state was at the point of signing it. It must be the full document plaintext and date signed with your private key and should be verifiable with your public key by a court before a claim is even approachable. Docusign sort of does a half-assed version of this but there needs to be a full legal PKI system on this planet and people need to understand it too. That's the most difficult problem to solve.
- jacquesm 3y agoSomeone forged my signature on docusign on a pretty official document and I raked them over the coals for it. Highly annoying these services, they don't do even the most basic verification that the person signing really is the person that should be signing.
- baz00 3y agoYes this is the point about docusign being half assed. It doesn't do any identity validation really. It should verify the signer and the signee are the parties in question using identity services. It doesn't. I believe it can but it doesn't usually get used.
- bombcar 3y agoA signed document that isn't notarized is just a formality, in my opinion. If you care enough to get it really signed, pay the notary.
- ghaff 3y agoMost people's signature these days isn't much more an attestation than putting on an X on the line or checking a box that "I agree." Docusign just makes the process a bit more formal. To the degree that signing a lot of documents is something of a formality, most of us don't want to have to go to a notary every time we need to put our signature on something.
- mindslight 3y agoSo then every Docusign use would demand that you help the surveillance companies verify the files they have on you, where you used to live, etc? And then they would use this shoddy "verification" as evidence that the person who clicked accepted was really you? No thanks! What actually needs to happen is that things like Docusign need to be contextualized and treated as the appropriate amount of evidence of a contract that they are. Which is to say not much, just like a piece of paper with a signature on it these days. A "signed" Docusign is evidence that someone opened an email link and clicked a box from a certain IP. It does not prove that a specific person did this. It does not prove that the person who did this actually read, understood, and agreed with the words in the document. In fact, a Docusign that didn't allow marking up the document is itself evidence that the person in question was coerced into accepting unilateral boilerplate terms, rather than being able to make modifications. Like many legacy systems in the US, the jankiness from using an antiquated system is actually preventing a much more draconian system that would develop if the abstraction was made solid (for a straightforward example, see "identity theft").
- 8organicbits 3y ago> until recently the online tool who.is indicated that the [Polish arbitration court, Pan-Europejski-Sąd-Arbitrażowy] PESA website was set up by Villa Europa itself in September 2021 Quite alarming. Is it normal to charge speakers such high fees? I remember some conferences giving free admission to speakers as encouragement.
- jacquesm 3y agoNo, it's normal to pay speakers or to at least accommodate their expenses. This was just a scam.
- Closi 3y agoI don’t think this is quite right with all conferences - I’ve personally found it quite common for these event companies to give talks to “platinum” sponsors as an indirect way of charging for them. (Although this particular instance sounds like a scam)
- jacquesm 3y agoYes, true, there are 'pay for play' conferences but that's not the kind of conference that these scientists are normally approached for.
- ghaff 3y agoYeah, many conferences absolutely rely on company sponsorships to cover some or even most of their costs and many of those packages cover some sort of speaking slot among other things (booths, logos, swag bags, etc.). And some conferences have a lot of that sort of pay to play going on. But maybe because I'm used to it that seems different from a naked speaking fee situation.
- wincy 3y agoIt depends on the type of conference. My wife went to a politically focused conference recently and while there were some paid speakers there were a lot of speakers who got stage time by virtue of paying the $2000 or so for a booth on the floor of the conference. She said these speakers were annoying as they’d try to keep talking when they’d run out of time and the sound guy would have to resort to cutting their audio or playing music loudly to get them to get off stage. Everything but the long pole with a hook basically.
- johnbellone 3y agoThe answer is if it isn’t notarized I didn’t sign it. Go away. And then I submit a copy of one the judge signed as evidence.
- nkozyra 3y agoThat's a nice answer but I don't think that prevents you from spending money on arbitration or their getting a default judgement against you.
- pas 3y agodo they even have jurisdiction? have the speakers agreed to arbitration? otherwise it's just more spam. edit: ah, okay, so they signed a "license agreement", which is basically a scam. welp.
- the_mitsuhiko 3y agoThey likely put a binding arbitration clause into the initial contract for speaking.
- johngladtj 3y agoWhy would a contract that is in dispute change the jurisdiction? The point is that the contract is invalid, so it makes no sense that it would be valid for jurisdiction
- the_mitsuhiko 3y agoI responded to this question: > have the speakers agreed to arbitration?
- the_mitsuhiko 3y agoDoesn’t work if they decide to go to arbitration.
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- keltex 3y agoReminds me of a SPAM email we get quite frequently, the "World Company Register". The attached PDF reads, "To update your company profile, please print, complete and return this form. Updating is free of charge. Only sign if you want to place an insertion." Then at the bottom in tiny type it says that you've agreed to a 3 year insertion at 995 Euro per year. I can see small businesses easily falling for this.
- asnyder 3y agoStill surprises me that tactics like these are legal. There shouldn't be a concept of fine print... The whole notion is ripe for abuse. Same with elder scams. Too many potential avenues for scams via contracts.
- amelius 3y agoThis is where dot-matrix printers shine: they destroy the fine print.
- beebmam 3y agoThis is a delightful nerd joke that I have decided to steal
- permo-w 3y agoare they legal? ianal, but surely that kind of contract doesn't hold up legally
- flangola7 3y agoThese scams often aren't. They rely on a certain % of people to give in without a fight.
- ClumsyPilot 3y agothe concept of fine print, i believe, is to provide more detail on terms you already agreed to. Like "what happens if the delivery is late" It is not to introduce entirely new terms, like "actually you have to pay for this"
- cynicalsecurity 3y agoAh, the notorious Polish judicial system. Why am I not surprised.
- eesmith 3y agoI don't see mention of the Polish judicial system in the article. It mentions a "a Polish arbitration court whose very existence has been questioned by experts in the country" and "Agnieszka Durlik, director general of the Court of Arbitration of the Polish Chamber of Commerce, says she has never heard of it." If it doesn't exist, then it can't be part of the Polish judicial system.
- inglor_cz 3y agoFor all their faults, it seems that official Polish courts never even touched this scam.
- DarkmSparks 3y agoPutting aside any ethics questions. Sounds like the guys on their way to court did actually sign the contracts. Not sure there is much get out clause for them tbh, Im not aware of any court anywhere that will take "didnt read the contract" as a get out of jail free card. Always read the contract kids.
- sideshowb 3y agoIn the UK I suspect it would qualify as unfair terms (ianal)
- frankus 3y agoWe need “anything sketchy about this 20-page contract” as a service (for something less than the cost of retaining a lawyer).
- Enginerrrd 3y agoHonestly, it probably needs to be roped into something like the certificate authority system. Like, if you have a deceptive licensing agreement, the certificate is revoked. And similarly, being asked to sign something that isn't tied to a certificate would be a huge red flag.
- ashley93 3y agoThis seems a perfect use for LLMs.
- mindslight 3y agoRather than increasing the complexity even further, we need laws that anything longer than two standard pages of 12 point text is prima facie invalid. Exceptions for when attorneys are involved, or negotiated contracts that go back and forth a few times with substantive changes. Subjecting individuals to unbounded contract terms, often by contracts of adhesion, is an anti-feature.
- ghaff 3y agoAnd the kids should floss their teeth daily too. I mean, at one level, yes? But if someone seemingly legit asks me to appear on a webinar--I'd be asking more questions about traveling to an event--I'm pretty much going to say yes. And if they send over some apparently routine paperwork including publicity rights and so forth, it's realistically only getting a quick skim.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tlhunter 3y agoRegarding tech conferences: - A good conference will pay you to speak - An okay conference will wave entry fee - A bad conference will ask you to still pay entry - A scam will charge you to speak
- wink 3y agoException: small community-run conferences and barcamps. If the entry fee is like 10 bucks I'll gladly still pay.
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y agoEver heard about the bogus ChemArxiv (as opposed to ChemRxiv) a few years ago? https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-09446-notw13 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-09446-notw13 It turns out the same scammer (Krzysztof Siennicki from Villa Europa) had its part in it: https://www.adrforum.com/domaindecisions/1764106.htm https://www.adrforum.com/domaindecisions/1764106.htm
- onlyusername 3y agoIt is mentioned in the article, but I appreciate the context.
- seesawtron 3y agoWhen will we have regulations that force contracts to be transparent. Perhaps an AI model could be fed with a contract and asked to check for things one should watch out for.
- voisin 3y ago> Many of the speakers, already busy studying COVID-19 and under pressure from the transition to remote teaching, did not notice these clauses. The pandemic “meant working 11 to 12 hours per day,” says another speaker, Johannes Müller, a mathematician at the Technical University of Munich. “The contract was unreadable [but] I eventually sent it.” Maybe I am cold hearted, but I don’t feel any sympathy for their position. They were busy, so they should get out of the contract they willingly entered? These are educated adults that should have known better than to sign something without reading it. Now the counter argument is that no one reads EULAs, but courts have held at common law that only abnormal clauses not in line with industry standards need to be highlighted to draw attention, or otherwise explicitly initialled. In this case based on at least one researcher asking if there were conference fees, it seems that there is at least some precedent for fees being charged to speakers (something that surprises me, but I guess it adds value to the speaker’s CV), so again, I have a really hard time feeling like this isn’t the result of a bunch of people not reading their contracts closely and treating their signature as something less valuable than it is - a binding commitment.
- edmundsauto 3y agoSome of the scientists claim they did not sign the contract with the addendum for fees. Also, apply your judgement - this is highly unusual and my first impression is it’s obviously a scam. If people sign contracts that are altered and a scam, should they be upheld just because someone agreed to it?
- mreome 3y agoIt is not unheard of for a presenter to have to pay the same registration fees as a non-presenting attendee, but it is also common for invited speakers to attend for free and even have their travel and accommodation expenses covered. It is extremely abnormal (if not unheard of) for a legitimate conference to charge a speaker an additional fee for presenting.