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A.I. Is Making Sure You Pay for That Ding on Your Rental Car

(www.nytimes.com)
42 points pseudolus | 2 comments | 13 Jul 25 01:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.506s | source
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remram ◴[13 Jul 25 03:15 UTC] No.44547197[source]▶
How does that hold up? If I return the car, the attendant inspects it, and I go home... then later I receive a bill about a scratch that the attendant didn't point out and that I cannot possibly inspect on the car... why would I possibly pay up? How could anyone litigate if I disagree and the car has been rented again?

It would make a lot more sense to scan the car immediately when I return it, point out the damage, and bill me right there. I don't think that is what they do though? Is the scanner in another location?

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c0nducktr ◴[13 Jul 25 04:14 UTC] No.44547440[source]▶
Don't worry, they'll probably make signing up for binding arbitration part of the rental agreement, conveniently having the arbitration decided by someone who sides with the company 99% of the time. It's all good though. They're certainly not scamming you.
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1. anonym29 ◴[13 Jul 25 04:20 UTC] No.44547471[source]▶
What's weird is not that companies would want to try to be greedy, but how society has socially normalized not even reading important, binding legal contracts with real consequences, and just signing them without much, if any, serious consideration of the ramifications of what we're agreeing to.
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2. atq2119 ◴[13 Jul 25 04:49 UTC] No.44547609[source]▶
What's actually weird is how society normalized binding contracts that are far too long to be reasonably read by the people they are supposed to be binding to.

A well functioning legal system would throw out everything in those contracts on that basis alone.