Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Elphaba
That does seem to be the American solution to everything.
|
holding a company responsible for a breach of written contract? Hell yeah.
Buyer beware doesn't exist in a regulated state such as the US. Caveat emptor is a rather draconian and unethical business philosophy. The US realizes this, and strives to protect the consumer in a hundreds if not thousands of ways in their everyday lives.
As someone looking to make a career in the business world upon graduation in little less than a year, these are the types of issues provided us in our classes--and how
not to screw up in such a manner.
The company is clearly in the legal and ethical wrong for violating their customers' privacy rights along with their contract with said customer regarding protecting that sort of information. On top of that, rather than accepting responsibility, they've filed charges against the man. They had no legal rights to the information they forfeited him, so they should have been wiling to pay the fair market value of the information (and even a bit more to maintain customer/client goodwill), which is FAR above 3500 dollars. They honestly must not value their customers, therefore, I have no sympathy for them at all. Anyone that could claim their clients' privacy is worth less than 3500 dollars doesn't deserve to be in business. The man should sue them for slander, breach of contract and neglect on the behalf of their clients (the last two charges as a class-aciton suit). Slander could actually be upheld because the company was dumb enough to file extortion charges (which, if the charges are found insubstantial with a grand jury, show obvious malicious intent on the part of the company--which is one of the precedents for slander).
Any company this careless and dumb doesn't deserve to stay in business and should be shut down. It endangers and undervalues its clients. end of story.