Terms of Service

So, I know I mentioned that I felt that E*TRADE’s fees were fraudulent, or at least uncalledfor, because they did not exist when I signed up. I didn’t want to go back through the signing up process at E*TRADE to determine what exactly they put into their Terms of Service that allowed them to impose fees on my account without giving me notice, but I’m sure it was something similar to this phrase in another site’s Terms of Service that I’m going through right now:

(click to enlarge)

In case you can’t read legalese, it says they can start imposing fees anytime they want, in any amount they want, for any parts of their site or services they want, and all they have to do is have a file somewhere on their site called the ‘Agreement’ that says they’re going to start charging fees. They don’t need to email you, or put a notice on the site, they just need to add a phrase or two to a document you thought you’d already read, and then just by accessing the site (or in the case of some of the services of this site, just not removing the content you’ve uploaded) you are agreeing to pay them whatever amount they choose. How about that?

I just thought I’d share, for those of you who thought I was exaggerating or being unfair. Companies really do this. You’ve probably agreed to dozens of things like this already. When the fees show up, know they were in their legal rights to charge them.