After just 3 weeks, the Kardashian Kard is canceled. Lawyers for the K sisters sent a termination letter to the bank that had licensed their likenesses and slapped them on its hidden fee-laden debit card targeted at children. Seems they don’t want to be associated with a card that was almost immediately after it launched the source of an AG investigation. See the full letter, after the jump.
As of Tuesday, the Kardashian Kard website was replaced with a Godaddy parked page notice.
The Kardashian Kard May Be a Goner – After Only 3 Weeks! [DefendYourDollars]
PREVIOUSLY
An Animated Takedown Of The Kardashian Kard
Keeping Up With The Kardashian Kard’s Hidden Fees
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Am I the only person who has never heard of these Kardashian people? (Unless, of course, we’re talking about the previous tenants of one DS9 space station…)
That’s all I ever think about when I hear the name.
Robert Kardashian (the father) was one of O.J.’s “Dream Team” lawyers. He’s the only one to do anything of note, and he’s dead.
His ex-wife is now married to Bruce Jenner, FWIW…
Or, as he’s informally known these days, Miss Jane Hathaway.
Thank goodness I’m not the only one who thinks of cable-necked aliens when I hear that name. I’ve no idea who the Kardashians are, otherwise. I’ve just kind of assumed they’re some sort of Jonas Brothers type group.
I’m no fan of the Jonas clan, but at the very least they seem to have some small measure of discernible talent. I’m still trying to figure out exactly why the Cardassians (sic) are “celebrities.”
They were on the “Today Show” yesterday morning and I said to my wife,
“Who the heck is Kim Kardashian anyway ?”
To which she replied,
“She used to be a porn star. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of her.”
I left the room.
BTW and FWIW…
As an interesting little tidbit of useless info…
Any name ending in the letters “IAN” indicates an Armenian background. I believe the city of Detroit is known (or used to be known) as a city with a large Armenian community.
I was reading an article about a developing technology that let’s you eliminate bad memories. Burning any memory of this family out of my bio-RAM would be worth every penny.
I would also like to point out that their lawyer is named Roach. Whose middle initial is A.
AFAIK, Kim Kardashian was peed on in a sex tape, and somehow rode that pee train all the way to Hollywood stardom.
I don’t remember her being peed on.. wikilink stating this somewhere?
I don’t remember her being peed on.. wikilink stating this somewhere?
Yep and that’s got to be the basis of the whole “positive public persona that appeals to everyone” stated in the letter. I can’t think of anything more representative of being “recognized as honest ethical and fun-loving individuals who are kind and caring to others” than being whizzed on in a porno.
Sex is bad?
I don’t remember her getting peed on in that sex tape. You must have the “Euro Edition.” You do get to see her naked, give a bj, and have her glorious butt banged from behind by the guy who played “Carlton Banks” on The Fresh Prince of Bel-air….or did I get that wrong?….and who cares anyway?
Love how the lawyers refer to Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian as “The Property”.
Well he damned sure couldn’t call them “the Talent.”
Well, to be fair the company set up is Dash Dolls, LLC. The names and likeliness just so happen to have those names.
Just like how Howard Stern does not receive a check from Sirius…his production company does.
Good for them. Maybe they didn’t know how screwed up their “Kard” was (they just liked the idea of having their faces on a card).
That card came with a $100 annual fee, not to mention the other outlandish fees for everything.
I think it’s more believable that they liked the idea of 50% of those fees being put into their pocket, and just didn’t realize the backlash.
Now, Can we please terminate the Kardashians?
I’m assuming that they signed a contract to have their faces on this card. How are they able to just break that contract now because they don’t like it? You’d think that they would have checked the terms of the card before they signed the deal in the first place.
A contract can be voided if it is illegal. Here is a good way to put it:
“All parts of the contract must fall within the boundaries of the law. If a contract involves an illegal act, it is not enforceable.” -ehow.com
Thus, if the Kardashians can prove that this “Kard” violates the law (e.g. Connecticut’s consumer laws), the contract is void and all the Kardashians have to do is return any consideration they received.
Unless it has a severability clause (ie, “if one part of this contract is found unenforceable…”), the rest of the contract remains. Most contracts do… heck, most laws do.
But I think in this case they are arguing that there were material misrepresentations during the negotiations.
True, gotta love those clauses. In some ways I like them, in some ways I don’t. I think that they should argue that they have a reasonable expectation to not be under investigation by the AG. It makes me think about a case where guy A sold some IP to guy B. Well, guy C was like, “that’s mine” and sued guy B. Guy C lost. Then guy B sued guy A for legal costs to defend the IP. If I remember right, guy A lost and had to pay because he knew or should have known that Guy C was going to sue over this IP.
According the the second paragraph, the credit card company effectively broke contract by not conforming to all laws and regulations as they were supposed to. Not saying they did, but there ya go with the K’s justification.
You’re assuming they’re breaking it and not taking advantage of an exit clause.
From what I can tell from the letter, the contract they signed didn’t mention the fact that the card was going to be such a ripoff that it would need to he investigated by the government. They probably have a right to terminate if the card company does something illegal, like how the companies that use sports stars as spokespeople can cancel their contract if the celebrity does something illegal, or even just really embarrassing.
Considering there are literally thousands of these kinds of cards in distribution, the Conn AG is pretty much just blowing smoke out of his ass. Many states give out their Social Security and other benefits ONLY through these kinds of high fee cards from hell. They are unfortunately, not ‘illegal’ in any way shape or form in most states. You might object to them morally, but you’re on shaky ground if you want to find them illegal.
The bank probably just said, look we have tons of cards like this already, we’re just throwing your likeness on another one. The other side went, great sounds good and signed away. Again these cards exist, and are in no way illegal, thus there was no expectation from either side to suggest otherwise.
They probably had some termination language in the contract, giving them an exit under various circumstances. Their attorney would not have let them sign a completely binding contract with no exits at all.
I guarantee they have an exit clause for the reason described in the cease and desists letter, namely that they can canel the agreement if it harms the Kardashian’s reputation. Since that is a pretty subjective concept, it gives them a pretty open door to exit as desired.
That’s a shame. Can’t a nice, upstanding family interested in keeping a low profile be allowed to make an honest buck anymore?
So what do you have in mind for Bristol’s card?
I would say a picture of a really tall fence with a pair of eyes peeping over the top…kind of like the Wilson character on Home Improvement.
Just incase readers have no clue what I am talking about:
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/the-gaggle/2010/05/28/sarah-palin-real-estate-watch-vol-iii-completing-the-danged-fence.html
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9VkceDR9smg/SbRV9-Jc9WI/AAAAAAAAAjM/jSdzrL3OONI/s400/medium_wilson.jpg
“…Khloe, Kourtney Kardashian…”
HNNNNGHH. Asberger’s Impulses… RISING…
My favorite line: “The Kardashians have worked extremely long and hard to create a positive public persona that appeals to every one, particularly young adults.”
Best euphemism for “Talentless T&A” that I have ever heard…
Agreed. That whole paragraph seems like it would be grounds to dismiss the entire document as fantasy tripe.
Isn’t Kim Kardashian famous for a sex tape involving Golden Showers?
So leaking your private sex video to the web is an acceptable example for families but high interest rates on your credit card crosses a line
“The Kardashians have worked extremely long and hard…they are recognized as honest, ethical and fun loving individuals who are kind and caring to others”
I know a guy who pushes carriages at a grocery store for a living who probably works longer and harder than the Kardashians and who is also a fun loving individual and kind and caring to others.
His only drawback is that he doesn’t have his own debit card and doesn’t make millions of dollars a year.
When you have The Revenue Resource Group working for you, you know your clients wallets are about to be plundered.
That sentence struck me as well. If they had one wish in the world, would it be for world peace?
Apparently Heineken had it wrong. Legally, women are “Property.”
http://consumerist.com/2010/11/heineken-no-longer-thinks-of-women-as-prey.html
Heh-heh…VERY nice catch!
What “Professional Corporation” uses the term “Black Friday” needlessly in a formal legal notice?
Simply stating that the AG made his announcement on November 26 would have been fine, since “Black Friday” had no relevance to the situation.
This is in no small part due to your excellent reporting. Seriously, no sarcasm. Kudos to the whole Consumerist team.
I bet the Kardashians were all like “We’re gonna make sooooo much money from those fees.” and then the Internets showed how full of fees the cards are and now they’re trying to do some damage control.
E.X.A.C.T.L.Y.
There aren’t enough o’s in soooooooo to show how true that is. There ignorance of the card fees is the same as that of a major league ball player saying, I didn’t know that was steroids being injected in me, the guys said it was liquid “vitamins”.
“Their” ignorance
Their contract is a pretty standard ‘endorsement’ contract. Basically the bank pays them a flat fee in order to be able to represent them in a product. They in no way collect ‘fees’ or ‘royalties’ in this scenario.
Do they have to give back the advance?
Depends on the exit clause of their contract. You can bet both sides will have an army of lawyers making sure their side doesn’t have to pay out a dime, and will try to extract as much money from the other side as possible. That’s something you won’t hear about on the news though.
Using the ‘cards are illegal’ argument is going to be hard to support. Currently lots of cards exist that have similar fees associated with them. Some states use them to pay out unemployment and such. So the Kardashian’s lawyers are going to have a hard time breaking the contract just on that alone. Having a card with lots of fees is bad, but it’s not illegal.
You’ll definitely see the bank counter-suing for their advance back, breach of contract, etc etc. This is going to be a lawyer field day.
Sorry my mistake, reading the last few lines of the contract they will be giving back the “Initial Deposit” as per the agreement. So the bank is getting ‘something’ back.
Still the lawyers are going to be coming out for this one.
I can’t stand how their favorite adjective is “soooooooooooooooo……….”
“I’m soooooooooooooooo happy”
“It’s going to be soooooooooooooo much fun”
GACK!!
The card was stupid anyway. Who would use that? 16 yo boys?
I do, however, love Kourtney’s “slob kebab” term.
Am I the only person who laughed extremely hard at this line?
“The Kardashians have ‘worked’ extremely long and hard to create a positive public persona that appeals to everyone, particularly young adults”
I wasn’t aware that appearing in a sex tape getting rammed by a total stranger was working hard. Apparently, I’m in the wrong business.
“Seems they don’t want to be associated with a card that was almost immediately after it launched the source of an AG investigation”
You accidentally it.
Reread the sentence, the part you are looking for is at the end. Awkward wording though, I agree
immediately is an adverb.
there is no verb in that sentence.
Kardashian’s guide to fame:
1) Make sextape with a 90′s artist’s brother.
2) E! realizing your talent, offers you a tv show.
3) Boom! You and your family are now famous.
Am I not right?
Whatever could be the problem with a Kim Kardashian Kard?
Oh. Right.
And yes, as many of you suspect, she’s never actually done anything and is pretty much a conceited consumer whore / youth role model. She preaches shameless selfishness, willful ignorance, and self-imposed helplessness.
I envy no one with a daughter in these times.
I still think the Kardashians’ are a bit on thin ice when breaking the contract. Even the silly Conn AG admits that the fees are only ‘morally’ wrong, and are only ‘investigating’ if they are actually illegal. Since such cards are in wide circulation across America, to say they are ‘illegal’ is going to be pretty difficult no matter how tough the consumer protection laws are in Conn.
“Roach Motel” – where your credit cards go in, but never come out! *wicked laugh*