They tell us we're supposed to read the fine print, but we also have to get on with our lives. As one reader found out on a recent trip to CompUSA, it can be pretty much impossible to do both.
"I made a purchase at CompUSA today with my credit card," the reader wrote. "On the receipt I had to sign, below the signature line was a statement that read approximately: 'I have read and understand the return policy below and on the back of this receipt.' I cannot say what the wording is for sure, as it does not appear on my copy of the receipt."
Since the reader was about to affirm with his signature that he had read the policy, he thought he should actually read it. "The cashier immediately started telling me what it said," he wrote. "I told the cashier that since I was signing it, I needed to read it. As I read, the cashier kept telling me what was in it, then called out 'Next!' I tried to ignore the cashier, and was not otherwise prevented from reading the text to completion, whereupon I signed the receipt."
As far as the reader was concerned, it was just too bad if he was irritating the cashier. " The cashier asked me if I had shopped there before," he wrote. "I replied that I did not shop there often, but that the wording could have changed since the last time I was there. I did not notice whether there were any signs posted with the return policy, but even if there were, that would be no guarantee the text agreed with the text on the receipt. In terms of annoyance, both to me and to people behind me in line, asserting my rights here is approximately equivalent to doing so at those parking garages which have signs at the entrance reading 'This contract limits our liability. Please read it.' Of course, if you do, you can have all the cars behind yours honking at you."
Now, you could certainly argue this reader was making too big a deal out of a very mundane situation. But, if we are all to live the way the sneakwrap-as-legally-binding-contract folks say we should, we would have to spend much of our lives insisting on reading the fine print as he did, or standing in line behind someone else who is. So perhaps more of us should be making scenes like this until we've convinced all the cashiers that this is no way to run a railroad.
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12:23:46 AM 
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