I'd be more disturbed if there were people who read the contract and still signed.

"Stay? Sure, I have an empty schedule today. Push-ups? I could use the exercise. Electrocution? Awesome."

Depending on if asked before my first cup of coffee of the day or not, I'd not only sign up for, I'd actually pay extra for the chance to shock my classmates until they screamed, cried and asked for medical assistance.
...But not past the point of their soiling themselves, because I've watched Gandi. Twice.

I'm not shocked. You'd be surprised some of the things I've put into sales contracts. People never read things all the way through. What do they think is going to happen? Do they think they will just wait till the movie comes out and that will explain everything? And you wonder why people are all concerned that their terms change on their credit cards when they never read the actual terms and conditions that SAID your terms may change. I'm going to blame it on the fact that most people can't read if there aren't pictures attached.

This is already a well known fact. UT Austin did a study where they offered free UT T-shirts to anyone who applied for a credit card. The application asked for all of your personal information, your paypal information to 'link it to your credit card', bank account numbers etc.. They found people will fill in all the blanks with their personal info just for a free T-shirt. The other part of the study was in the fine print you gave the fake credit card company binding rights to drain your bank account, paypal, and open up accounts in your name for any use whatsoever. But, hey you get a free T-shirt.

@Lucky225: Was it at least 100% cotton?

100% organic cotton grown in a third world country with an oppressive military dictator.

I always make a point to read contracts before I sign them. EULAs however...

No. I hire my own farking lawyers and make them work for their $.

But, since I just farked over the buyer's own lawyers on a land deal I will be sure to watch over the shoulder of my own lawyers in the future.

I used to work at a store that rented musical instruments to kids (well, their parents, really). I worked there for four years, and I personally processed over 100 rental contracts each year (store avg. was about 700). The contract was one page, legal size, double-sided, and I can remember two customers who actually stepped back from the counter and read it. TWO out of 400+.

We were taught a script to explain the major points and the other 398 trusted that we weren't lying or hiding things, because the script ended with, "I need your signature here, here and here. Thank you," and they all signed, some for several thousands dollars worth of payments.

Back then, it surprised me; now that I'm a freelancer and I again routinely use contracts for work, it no longer shocks me. Nobody reads ANYthing. I can't even get some clients to read the emails I send them.

(FWIW, the music store experience taught me to read everything before signing, and I actually do.)

@ShadyPghGuy: Same here... I need to start making a habit of actually reading them.

@Papa Midnight: EULA's that is.

I actually went to the catering hall yesterday to make sure I got to read the contract in advance. I have to work tomorrow and want to see the paper to be signed my by fiance (we get $ off per person price for booking during their showcase, hence why it has to be tomorrow while I'm at work). I was pleasantly surprised to see it was very understandable and straightforward. :)

If you ever want to really piss EVERYONE off, be the last person through MEPS for the day and read your ENTIRE contract before signing:)

I own and run a dog boarding service, and have a contract that new clients have to sign. I always insist that they read it, or I read it to them. I tried to use clear, unambiguous language and took input from new clients who had questions about different clauses. I still make occasional changes, almost two years on, to make it clearer. I spent many, many hours making sure that there was no way to be confused about the meaning of the sentences, and even have different versions in different languages for different clients so that there can be no confusion.

Any confusion or misunderstandings will only lead to, at best, short term profits. I may be able to get extra money once by screwing over a client with ambiguous clauses with dual meanings, but all that'll accomplish in the long term is a loss of repeat customers and a bad reputation.

I was opening up a new bank account and I was reading the terms and I saw the fees. I really pissed off the banker because I had a check in my hand and I refused to sign the document and walked out. I bet I was one of the few people who realized there was a large fee for closing the account before a certain date.

This is true for most of the time, in fact for probably 99% of the time. No one reads anything. People and businesses need to assume this. Also when you put up a sign, no one will read it, or people will purposely try to do the opposite of what it is on the sign. Even if you did read it, how many people have the mental capacity to process what is in some of these contracts in a reasonable time frame, or process it at all? There have even been recent suggestions that putting the M rated label on video games or the R rating on movies makes kids want to watch the movie or play the game even more! Sometimes your better off not drawing attention to it at all, instead of pushing for more and more regulation and more and more warnings, and more and more signs.

Because the more signs and more warnings, the more people are going to want to do the thing that people are being warned not to do

I always read anything I sign all the way through, and it makes the people handing me the papers really, really irritated.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the time I've read all the way through a contract AND not gotten crap for it from the person wanting me to sign. They try to hurry you along with "oh, it's just standard terms" or "Everything's okay, right?" Doctors' offices are the worst; they are always shocked that I actually ask for a copy of their privacy policy before I will sign the paper that says "I have received a copy of the privacy policy and have read and understood it."

One of my top pet peeves: Handing someone information on paper, they give it a cursory glance at best, and then ask me, "What's this?"

It's a piece of paper with information written on it. The information will be transmitted from your eyes to your brain where it should register with word definitions you have stored in your brain that your brain will then combine into meaning. I am not your outsourced brain. Do the work yourself.

Isn't this the same reason we're having the housing crisis? No one really read what they were signing, so they didn't know they just signed to something they'd never be able to pay.

@SarcasticDwarf: MEPS=?

OK, the argument I am going to make is my first couple of years in the US I was speaking/understanding English at a pretty good level but when it came to contracts consisting of legal jibber jabber in addition to comma splices and what terms defines which part of the sentence due to complex legal jargon I gave up. How was I suppose to understand any of this (something that is written for a lawyer per see) without a lawyer.

@ColoradoShark: Either Medical Expenditure Panel Survey or Military Entrance Processing Station.

@parkavery: I have to write contract for work all the time. There are certain client attributes that will throw a project for a loophole, make everyone want to gouge their eyes out and loses money. I need to take advantage of this to write some more bad behavior controlling things into the last third of the contracts used. I am thinking of adding that calls to my personal cell phone will incur a $1000 fee per incident.

Anyone who fails to completely read and understand any and all terms in every contract, EULA, notification, fine print clause, acceptance based on use notice, nutritional information packet, warning, or waiver that they sign... deserves and bears full fault for anything and everything horrible that ever happens to them from then on, no matter who or what commits the horrible act on them.

Signed,
'Blame the OP' Commenters Everywhere

:p

@TEW: Good for you. We almost went with DirecTV until we received one the big color flyers in the mail. That was the only promotional materials including the website that was open about the whole contract and ETF.

I skim through the Terms of Service/Terms of Use when installing software. Those are the only "contracts" I come across.

I rarely sign anything without doing a quick read-through at least (like a reciept). When it comes to contracts and things like work orders, I make sure to read every little thing even though there's somebody tapping their foot wondering why I'm reading it. Heck, if I'm paying for something, I'm making sure that I'm getting what I agreed to verbally, no less and no more.

I've caught some people that way trying to sneak in things that they want me to pay for that they didn't do.

@ShadyPghGuy: ...are unenforceable, so why read them?

"And you wonder why people are all concerned that their terms change on their credit cards when they never read the actual terms and conditions that SAID your terms may change."

It also said that they had to give written notice, but they never did that.

Couldn't it just be that people participating in University experiments are aware of the IRB and their rights as a subject? One of the most important of which is to be able to drop out whenever they want to.

This is really not surprising at all; in fact, I would be much more surprised by any study that found that any substantial fraction of people DO read the contracts carefully. A very similar major problem that has found with computer security is that people tend to ignore warning messages that are presented to them, especially when the warning interrupts the flow of what they were trying to accomplish. I'm sure the mentality here is similar; people a) don't want to take the time to carefully consider the consequences of the contracts when they are in the middle of a transaction, and b) are not even capable of making an informed decision about the contents of the contract even if they did read it. Thus, they respond by simply ignoring them, just like people ignore messages from their anti-virus software when opening email attachments.

I think these cases are both examples of systems of rules being designed by experts (lawyers or computer experts) that then have to interpreted and used by lay people. Most people simply make poor decisions when asked to deal with these processes that are outside of their area of expertise. Moreover, they are intentionally set up for failure by the experts who design these things: the lawyers and such KNOW that most people will just agree to the contracts without reading them, so they feel empowered to insert egregious nonsense. The only real answer, in my opinion, is to set up rules that don't require lay people to make decisions. In the case of consumer contracts, that would mean putting in place regulation that ensures that things are done in a way that is fair to both consumers and businesses, and doesn't require people to understand contracts. In fact, we should probably just outlaw the practice of consumer contracts altogether in situations where people aren't represented by a lawyer or otherwise cautious (in other words: contracts for insurance or real estate transactions = okay; click-through EULAs or POS contracts = not okay). But that's probably too radical a notion for people to embrace, since it would put so many lawyers out of work ;)

I have always read contracts before I signed them. That was one of the things my dad made sure I was aware of when I turned 18 and was old enough to sign contracts.

My husband is currently in law school, and it's really funny to watch someone waiting on him to sign a contract. Not only does he thoroughly read the contract before signing, he tells them when something in the contract is illegal/unenforceable.

If I cross out and initial the portions I don't agree with, then sign it and give it to them, am I still liable for those portions I crossed out?

@johnva:
We don't need more laws. The best part of the free market system is that you can always walk away. I have caught business trying to pull stunts and I have walked out and never have been back since. I have also had a bank add new fees (it was going to be implemented the next month) and I told them I did not like the way they did business and closed my account fee free. Contracts are good for gyms and other places that you pay month to month because they protect the consumer and the owner.

Most contracts I sign were not written by lawyers, but were written by business people. On several ocassions, I've redrafted contracts for the business people I do business with as a gesture of goodwill, and because then I have control over the terms.

Rarely do I take the time to thoroughly read EULA's or contracts where I have no bargaining power, however. If I want/need the service, there's no point if I understand the transaction well enough. A simple skim reading is usually good enough.

@MooseOfReason:

You have never RENTED, LEASED or PURCHASED a TITLED personal or business property?

(Titled property = land, cars, homes, apartments, boats or forklifts and other major business equipment)

You have never purchased health, life, long term care or property insurance?

You have never received a bank loan or credit card?

You have never joined the Military or National Guard?

You never attended college and lived in the dorm?

You never attended college and assigned the proceeds of your PELL Grant or Loan to the school?

Yes, each one of the documents signed in the above mentioned transactions are considered a contract with specific legal conquences which can royally screw you over if you do comprehend and comply with the terms.

@Corporate-Shill:

Add a "NOT" into the last sentence.

can royally screw you over if you do NOT comprehend and comply with the terms.

@Ghede: Where do I sign up?

Most people probably just sign it because they know any attempt to change something to contracts is futile.

In Romania where I live, if I'd start to argue about a contract they'd just say:

"Oh, it's the standard contract, we can't change it"
"I'm just a clerk and i'm not in authority to change it"
"we don't have lawyers to review the changes so just sign it"

They don't even care that they lose your business in most cases.

Not only do I not read contracts before signing them, I didn't even read this posting on not reading contracts before signing them.

@ocdetails: That still doesn't change the fact that the legions of folks on this site will generally defend those people who never read the contract, claiming the business/seller/etc. duped them somehow.

I think the biggest deterrent to people reading contracts is it is seen as offensive or not trusting to the person giving it to you if you sit there and read it all.

I can remember a time when I turned down a cell phone upgrade because it would extend my contract and they got mad and wouldn't deal with me anymore because I declined to sign their paper that had that statement in it.

I've also been given the cold shoulder before when I wanted to thoroughly look over papers for an apartment rental. They kept trying to summarize it for me and I had to tell them that I didnt care I wanted to read it in full for myself.

How often are you handed a contract by someone who isn't authorized to make alterations to a contract anyway? Pretty damned often.

Corporate-Shill, It's not letting me reply to yours, or anyone else's, comment, so I'll post a new message.

I'm 20, by the way.

I bought a used car last April. But isn't that just transferring ownership of a product, so long as there aren't liens against it?
Bank loan, no.
Insurance, no.
Credit card, no.
Military/National Guard, no.
College dorm, no.
Student aid, no.

Maybe I didn't think about it too much. I read the paper/"contract" they gave me when I got a job at a supermarket. And there was something from college. They didn't seem like contracts.

So, few contracts, but I have read them.

@TEW: My whole point was that contracts for many purposes could be replaced by general-purpose regulations. Sort of like how we have laws that regulate common-place situations like the doctrine of first-sale, etc. I think we do need more laws, and I think I gave a convincing argument for why that is. Contracts are worthless as far as protecting BOTH parties if people don't read them, because then they become totally one-sided (the side that hired the lawyers to make up the contract "wins" by default). I just think that when we're talking about common-place, "casual", situations, we should account for human irrationality and laziness a bit more. Pure "free market" ideas assume that everyone is rational, and that's just not so.

@ToysRUsSlave: I've never had anyone be that rude to me, but maybe it's because I've always been very clear that I intend to review it all.

@johnva: And also, I don't really give a damn, at all, what some salesperson thinks of me. Are people so emotionally insecure that they would give up their one opportunity to protect their own interests just to avoid a stranger being rude to them?

If there was a law that mandated that contracts that were not read by the signer (yeah, yeah, I know that would be hard to verify and enforce) were not enforceable against the signer, maybe those asking for contracts to be signed with do things somewhere between requiring them to be read, and making them simpler so they can be more easily read.

One idea I did come up with many years ago was to make a contract with a place to initial at every paragraph. That still wouldn't force people to read them, but it would get them closer to it.

In the mean time, we really do need some kind of law that makes all those implied contracts (the ones people don't get to sign and therefore can't leave them unsigned) are unenforceable.

That and HR 1020.