Yesterday I bought a microwave oven via the web and picked it up this
morning. When I started opening up the box I noticed that there was a
statement about arbitration on the box.

I'm used to arbitration agreements with insurance companies,
hospitals,and most doctors. And in principle you should be able to do
them for consumer goods as well.

But... last time I looked, a contract for the sale of goods was complete
when the buyer paid for the object and the seller accepted the payment.
I bought this over the web and there was no mention of an arbitration
agreement in the Best Buy listing.

Unless the rules for contracts have changed, that "arbitration
agreement" should not apply to me.

Thoughts? Updates?



--
I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 8/27/2025 7:08 PM, Barry Gold wrote:

Yesterday I bought a microwave oven via the web and picked it up this morning. When I started opening up the box I noticed that there was a statement about arbitration on the box.

I'm used to arbitration agreements with insurance companies,
hospitals,and most doctors. And in principle you should be able to do
them for consumer goods as well.

But... last time I looked, a contract for the sale of goods was complete
when the buyer paid for the object and the seller accepted the payment.
I bought this over the web and there was no mention of an arbitration agreement in the Best Buy listing.

Unless the rules for contracts have changed, that "arbitration
agreement" should not apply to me.

Thoughts? Updates?

Unless it is somewhere in the fine print on the website where you made
the purchase, as soon as you made the payment for the oven, you
completed your end of the purchase contract. Sometimes in these cases
there is an Agree button or something similar with a lot of words and
sometimes links and footnotes with purchase requirements that you have
to press for completing the sale, but if you bought on Amazon or Best
Buy or something like that, you should be good.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

According to Rick <[email protected]>:

On 8/27/2025 7:08 PM, Barry Gold wrote:

Yesterday I bought a microwave oven via the web and picked it up this
morning. When I started opening up the box I noticed that there was a
statement about arbitration on the box. ...

That would be a shrinkwrap license. They used to be popular 40 years ago on packaged software, a license notice on the package that said if you don't like it, return the unopened package for a full refund. The case law is mixed, some courts agreed, some didn't:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkwrap_(contract_law)

In this case, I think it's rather a stretch. While it was normal for software to
have licenses, and there were reasonable questions a license might resolve like how many computers you can install it on, it is just bizarre for a kitchen appliance to purport to have one. I suspect that if the vendor tried to enforce it a court would say it's unreasonable and they would lose, but in today's legal
climate, who knows?



--
Regards,
John Levine, [email protected], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)