More small business owners are falling prey to online "predatory" lenders offering them quick cash. Some business owners are in such extreme financial strife that they have been forced to sell their family home.
Not to victim blame too much, but when you’re starting your own business, you should probably stop just signing stuff you haven’t read and relying solely on consumer protection.
I suspect you didn’t bother to read the article, because if you had you would know that she was in a desperate situation because of the impact of COVID on her business. Many people, including small business owners, were really struggling during that period and made poor decisions as a result. It is pretty low to sit here years later and act like they were just stupid.
As a small business owner, I know the feeling, and I absolutely think this shit should be illegal. But on the other hand, as a business owner, you DO have a responsibility, and unlike random consumers, there’s an expectation you have some ability to read and comprehend your contracts. You make the choice to be a business owner, you don’t freely chose to be a consumer, and that’s a very good reason why consumers need more protection.
The main quote of the article is “We took on a loan that we knew nothing about, basically”. That is 100% your own fault, and while the lender is absolute scum, at least a small fraction of the blame lies on the people who don’t understand what they, as a business, are agreeing to.
You’re just repeating the same thing again, only longer. No one is suggesting the small business owners weren’t also to blame. They themselves will know that they fucked up and that only increases the mental toll. It is dickhead behaviour to go around doing “welp you should have done X, it’s your own fault” thing way after the fact without offering any sympathy or assistance. It’s similar with people who fall victim to phishing or phone scams; you are only perpetuating the stigma they feel by reacting like this to their situation.
And you’re repeating as well.
If we’d expect the victim to read this I’d be with you - this audience here seems a different one though: and if the harsh tone of (edit) thread OP encourages even one founder to read one more contract than that’s a good thing.
Perhaps the statement should be stronger worded as: look at this small business owner and learn! She paid for your education!
Simply saying “don’t talk about what could’ve been done different” perpetuates not the stigma but the abuser instead.
To be clear: this isn’t my headline, I don’t change headlines unless it’s overly clickbaity or unclear. It’s the headline the ABC initially wrote (so shows up when browsing the headlines in their app), and is also the suggested title Lemmy/third party apps offer to auto fill after the link is submitted
If we’d expect the victim to read this I’d be with you
It’s not about the individual literally reading that exact comment. It’s about the discourse in our society. If we want to de-stigmatise this experience for victims then we can start by approaching their situation with sympathy and empathy instead of just lecturing them like they’re a small child.
and if the harsh tone of OP encourages even one founder to read one more contract than that’s a good thing.
Again, there are already quotes in the article that do this. There is no need for the people commenting on it to have a circlejerk about any mistakes the victim may have made. Don’t make this out as some kind of altruistic thing - everyone knows that people only do this to feel better about themselves. Be and do better.
No, the problem is people not reading the contracts they sign.
You’re asking for idealism, assuming that we can prevent scumbags - that’s not possible, and simply leads people to naively signing anything, and ending up like this story.
Trust, but verify.
Do you think contract lawyers exist solely to create docs? Or maybe to take the time to ensure contracts their clients sign achieve the intent of their clients?
Yes, scummy lender does scummy things, but it was right there in the contract - no one held a gun to her head to sign it. She voluntarily signed it without understanding it.
It is dickhead behaviour to go around doing “welp you should have done X, it’s your own fault” thing way after the fact without offering any sympathy or assistance. It’s similar with people who fall victim to phishing or phone scams; you are only perpetuating the stigma they feel by reacting like this to their situation.
But it’s NOT similar to phising. That’s my whole point. A random consumer shouldn’t be expected to grasp the fine details, they didn’t volunteer to exist in a society and should be protected against threats they don’t understand, like phising, predatory loans, etc.
But for a company, it’s different. They literally DID sign up for this, and should be expected to grasp the details. You voluntarily take on this responsibility when you start a company, very much unlike some random person getting scammed.
Like other peope, if you start a business: Reader beware
I never said it was similar to phishing. Read my comment again. I was clearly referring to the impact of stigmatisation on the victim. Phishing and phone scam victims also often feel an extreme burden of guilt because they believe they acted stupidly in blindly trusting a link or a person who cold called them. Reinforcing this guilt by telling them “yes you are stupid and you fucked up” doesn’t help them. It has the exact opposite effect.
I don’t know why you keep trying to frame this as “they started their business and instantly made a mistake because they can’t/didn’t read”. The article is about small business owners being taken advantage during periods of severe financial stress. We are not discussing happy people fucking up due to some innate character flaw. We are talking about people who are suffering from extreme stress and making irrational decisions as a result. Lecturing them as if they didn’t sign these contracts as an absolute last resort, in exceptional circumstances is not helpful in any way.
We are not discussing happy people fucking up due to some innate character flaw. We are talking about people
No, we are not talking about people at all. We are talking about companies. Again, if we were talking about people, I would agree with you 100%, but we’re not. This is one company making a contract with a different company. Companies are legally distinct from people for very good reasons, and this is one of them.
Of course, there are reallife human behind those companies. And if those people had made these choices as individual people, they would in fact be protected under the law. But they chose NOT to be protected under those laws so they could operate as a company with the ups and down that entails. They voluntarily took this risk to get the benefits of running a company, and now they are crying that they didn’t know any better. It doesn’t work like that, if you don’t want to be treated as a company, don’t be one. You don’t get to have all the advantages on one hand, and none of the disadvantages on the other.
I want to re-emphasize this: You can absolutely do this work as a private individual. Mia Li, the window-frame importor from the article could have done all her business as a private individual, but she obviously didn’t, probably because that comes with some big downsides in taxes. She voluntarily started a company, chosing the waive the very protections she had as a private person, in order to get benefits in the form of tax advantages and other things. And now that she suffers the downsides from her own choises (that choice of starting a business, that she made well before covid), she’s upset that she’s not shielded from the consequences of her actions like a regular consumer would be.
I don’t feel sorry for people when they their voluntary, intentionally risky, actions have consequences. When you chose to forego risk-mitigation in order to recieve financial benefits, you’re making a choice. If that goes wrong, you literally only have yourself to blame.
If you assume incompetence as the default, as with most consumer protection, then it becomes basically impossible to deal business to business. Can a company lie to a consumer, and then claim they simply don’t know or didn’t understand? If your industry has a higher profit margin than mine, can I sue you for being scummy?
The basis of consumer protection is that consumer can’t be expected to be experts in everything. The basis of business law is that businesses know what they’re doing in their field. If you don’t, you’re doing it wrong.
I don’t feel sorry for people when they their voluntary, intentionally risky, actions have consequences. When you chose to forego risk-mitigation in order to recieve financial benefits, you’re making a choice. If that goes wrong, you literally only have yourself to blame.
What happened to “we’re not talking about people”…?
Would you prefer to argue the semantics, or the actual point?
Someone intentionally, knowingly, drops their legal projections to increase their personal benefit. They stop acting as an individual legally, and start acting as a company. And then the consequences of that action happen.
It’s not a lie. The other commenter was implying that I was comparing the two on culpability and I clearly wasn’t, as I explained in the comment you’ve replied to.
But, of course, you already knew all this and are simply trying the lazy gotcha route because you are unwilling or unable to actually discuss the topic in good faith.
Not to victim blame too much, but when you’re starting your own business, you should probably stop just signing stuff you haven’t read and relying solely on consumer protection.
I suspect you didn’t bother to read the article, because if you had you would know that she was in a desperate situation because of the impact of COVID on her business. Many people, including small business owners, were really struggling during that period and made poor decisions as a result. It is pretty low to sit here years later and act like they were just stupid.
As a small business owner, I know the feeling, and I absolutely think this shit should be illegal. But on the other hand, as a business owner, you DO have a responsibility, and unlike random consumers, there’s an expectation you have some ability to read and comprehend your contracts. You make the choice to be a business owner, you don’t freely chose to be a consumer, and that’s a very good reason why consumers need more protection.
The main quote of the article is “We took on a loan that we knew nothing about, basically”. That is 100% your own fault, and while the lender is absolute scum, at least a small fraction of the blame lies on the people who don’t understand what they, as a business, are agreeing to.
You’re just repeating the same thing again, only longer. No one is suggesting the small business owners weren’t also to blame. They themselves will know that they fucked up and that only increases the mental toll. It is dickhead behaviour to go around doing “welp you should have done X, it’s your own fault” thing way after the fact without offering any sympathy or assistance. It’s similar with people who fall victim to phishing or phone scams; you are only perpetuating the stigma they feel by reacting like this to their situation.
And you’re repeating as well. If we’d expect the victim to read this I’d be with you - this audience here seems a different one though: and if the harsh tone of (edit) thread OP encourages even one founder to read one more contract than that’s a good thing.
Perhaps the statement should be stronger worded as: look at this small business owner and learn! She paid for your education!
Simply saying “don’t talk about what could’ve been done different” perpetuates not the stigma but the abuser instead.
To be clear: this isn’t my headline, I don’t change headlines unless it’s overly clickbaity or unclear. It’s the headline the ABC initially wrote (so shows up when browsing the headlines in their app), and is also the suggested title Lemmy/third party apps offer to auto fill after the link is submitted
I apologize for not being clear, Baku. I referred to the thread OP, not the post itself!
Oh righto, no worries!
It’s not about the individual literally reading that exact comment. It’s about the discourse in our society. If we want to de-stigmatise this experience for victims then we can start by approaching their situation with sympathy and empathy instead of just lecturing them like they’re a small child.
Again, there are already quotes in the article that do this. There is no need for the people commenting on it to have a circlejerk about any mistakes the victim may have made. Don’t make this out as some kind of altruistic thing - everyone knows that people only do this to feel better about themselves. Be and do better.
Well you seem to know more about why people do what they do than I do. But as “everyone” knows I simply must be behind.
Not behind, just in denial that your attitudes and behaviour could be contributing to a problem in society.
Are you aware that I am not the thread starter? You’re talking with two different people.
Hahahaha
No, the problem is people not reading the contracts they sign.
You’re asking for idealism, assuming that we can prevent scumbags - that’s not possible, and simply leads people to naively signing anything, and ending up like this story.
Trust, but verify.
Do you think contract lawyers exist solely to create docs? Or maybe to take the time to ensure contracts their clients sign achieve the intent of their clients?
Yes, scummy lender does scummy things, but it was right there in the contract - no one held a gun to her head to sign it. She voluntarily signed it without understanding it.
But it’s NOT similar to phising. That’s my whole point. A random consumer shouldn’t be expected to grasp the fine details, they didn’t volunteer to exist in a society and should be protected against threats they don’t understand, like phising, predatory loans, etc.
But for a company, it’s different. They literally DID sign up for this, and should be expected to grasp the details. You voluntarily take on this responsibility when you start a company, very much unlike some random person getting scammed.
Like other peope, if you start a business: Reader beware
I never said it was similar to phishing. Read my comment again. I was clearly referring to the impact of stigmatisation on the victim. Phishing and phone scam victims also often feel an extreme burden of guilt because they believe they acted stupidly in blindly trusting a link or a person who cold called them. Reinforcing this guilt by telling them “yes you are stupid and you fucked up” doesn’t help them. It has the exact opposite effect.
I don’t know why you keep trying to frame this as “they started their business and instantly made a mistake because they can’t/didn’t read”. The article is about small business owners being taken advantage during periods of severe financial stress. We are not discussing happy people fucking up due to some innate character flaw. We are talking about people who are suffering from extreme stress and making irrational decisions as a result. Lecturing them as if they didn’t sign these contracts as an absolute last resort, in exceptional circumstances is not helpful in any way.
deleted by creator
No, we are not talking about people at all. We are talking about companies. Again, if we were talking about people, I would agree with you 100%, but we’re not. This is one company making a contract with a different company. Companies are legally distinct from people for very good reasons, and this is one of them.
Of course, there are reallife human behind those companies. And if those people had made these choices as individual people, they would in fact be protected under the law. But they chose NOT to be protected under those laws so they could operate as a company with the ups and down that entails. They voluntarily took this risk to get the benefits of running a company, and now they are crying that they didn’t know any better. It doesn’t work like that, if you don’t want to be treated as a company, don’t be one. You don’t get to have all the advantages on one hand, and none of the disadvantages on the other.
I want to re-emphasize this: You can absolutely do this work as a private individual. Mia Li, the window-frame importor from the article could have done all her business as a private individual, but she obviously didn’t, probably because that comes with some big downsides in taxes. She voluntarily started a company, chosing the waive the very protections she had as a private person, in order to get benefits in the form of tax advantages and other things. And now that she suffers the downsides from her own choises (that choice of starting a business, that she made well before covid), she’s upset that she’s not shielded from the consequences of her actions like a regular consumer would be.
I don’t feel sorry for people when they their voluntary, intentionally risky, actions have consequences. When you chose to forego risk-mitigation in order to recieve financial benefits, you’re making a choice. If that goes wrong, you literally only have yourself to blame.
deleted by creator
If you assume incompetence as the default, as with most consumer protection, then it becomes basically impossible to deal business to business. Can a company lie to a consumer, and then claim they simply don’t know or didn’t understand? If your industry has a higher profit margin than mine, can I sue you for being scummy?
The basis of consumer protection is that consumer can’t be expected to be experts in everything. The basis of business law is that businesses know what they’re doing in their field. If you don’t, you’re doing it wrong.
Good luck preventing all scummy practices.
Not that we shouldn’t try, but to expect them to not exist is naive.
The article is literally about individual people.
What happened to “we’re not talking about people”…?
Would you prefer to argue the semantics, or the actual point?
Someone intentionally, knowingly, drops their legal projections to increase their personal benefit. They stop acting as an individual legally, and start acting as a company. And then the consequences of that action happen.
If you can’t be honest, at least don’t lie
deleted by creator
It’s not a lie. The other commenter was implying that I was comparing the two on culpability and I clearly wasn’t, as I explained in the comment you’ve replied to.
But, of course, you already knew all this and are simply trying the lazy gotcha route because you are unwilling or unable to actually discuss the topic in good faith.
This is nothing like phishing. You are just grasping at straws.