No written contract. Do I have to pay undisclosed early termination fee? A credit card payment processing company agent approached my business and offered to try out their service for free for a month as a trial. However, I decided not to use it after this one month trial, and request to cancel. Now they have already charged $840 as cancellation fee and PoS deprecation fee. Since there was no contract, I don't agree to pay these fees. Do I really have to pay them?
A contract need not be written to be valid and enforceable. However, if there is no written contract, then in a dispute the burden of proving (via a preponderance of evidence) a contractual obligation falls on the party asserting it. In the scenario you describe it sounds like that would be impossible for the processing company.
No If you breach the contract that may allow the rental company to terminate it (among other things), however, termination would need to be communicated to the customer. Only if they kept it after that, with the intention of permanently depriving the company of it, are they stealing it.
What do I do? Promptly hire a new lawyer. Dispute claims for fees to the extent that they were not earned or that no value was conferred.
Unless the lawyer is sitting around with nothing to do (in which case s/he has bigger problems than one yelp review) s/he would have to take time which could otherwise be spent on paying cases to file such a suit. The lawyer would still have to pay court fees to file such a suit. If such a suit were clearly meritless (say the review is not defamatory but merely an expression of opinion) then it should be dismissed early in the process, and the judge and other legal insiders who may follow such matters are likely to have a negative view of the lawyer based on such a filing. This may well hurt the lawyer. more than any Yelp review ever could. If the lawyer files a clearly meritless suit, the court may well order that s/he pay your legal fees as well. There are no guarantees, but the risk of a lawyer filing a "revenge suit" over a moderately negative Yelp review seem low.
Given the facts as stated in the question, it appears that Spirit owes a refund. If the portal or site through which the service was sold also handles other flights that do provide wi-fi, there may not have been an intention to sell an unavailable service, and so this may not have been fraud. It is not proper to knowingly sell a service that is not available, but if it is an error, it is not strictly illegal, but the contract has not been fulfilled. One could, in such a case, attempt to place a charge-back with the credit card through which payment was made, if a card was used. Failing that, one could take the matter to small claims court. Before opening a court case, I would send a physical letter by certified mail to the airline's customer service address, with a copy to its HQ address, explaining what happened and requesting a refund by a specified date. If there is a customer service email, a copy to that as well.
The community charges $300 annually for access to the community pool, to which I only actually used the first three years living here. It likely does not matter whether you used the pool or not. I was handed a case by a police officer today saying I have exactly 30 days upon receiving the letter to pay dues for the community pool for the past 8 years that I have not used it. I imagine the result of failure to pay the HOA fee is a lien on the property. I don't know whether foreclosure is an option but it might be. The communities HOA has made it incredibly difficult to contact to ask for a copy of the rules and regulations, since their automated phone system demands a pin of some sort to which it swiftly disconnects you if you do not have it. This is not likely to be a valid excuse for not paying the HOA dues. You almost certainly owe them regardless and you probably also owe any late charges or penalties associated with not paying on time. My question is, can they legally force me to pay this fee? Nobody can force you to pay. But if they present their case in court and win, the judge can force you to pay, have your assets seized, garnish your wages, or put you in jail if you refuse. That comes pretty close. Is there another way to obtain a copy of the community rules and regulations? Of course. Send certified letters requesting the CCRs to: The HOA office The government office where the deed is recorded If the CCRs are valid and binding something to that effect will be recorded on the deed. If so, the current valid and binding CCRs may be filed with the government or may only be available from the HOA. I am not a lawyer. If you have $2,400 to pay I suggest you pay it and stay current on all future payments. HOAs that actually notice missing fees are not to be trifled with. If you think they are making your life miserable now, you ain't seen nothing yet.
The contract between you and the company is for the supply of the goods. How they get them to you is irrelevant; they may have them in stock, or they may order them and ship them on, or they may send an order to the factory to ship them directly to you. There is nothing saying that they have to be in stock anywhere. The law you refer to says that they must ship within 30 days unless they provide a specific date. In effect "shipped within 30 days" is an implicit term in the contract. If after 30 days they have not shipped the goods then you are entitled to rescind the contract (i.e. get your money back). Where things get interesting is if they took your money knowing that they would not be able to ship within 30 days, or at least being reckless (i.e. not caring) about it. It does rather sound like this may be the case. If so then it may rise to the level of fraud, and the FTC or state authorities may take action. Try writing to the FTC. A single event won't get any action, but if they get lots of complaints then they might.
we would like to know whether we have sufficient legal grounds to sever/terminate/exit this contract with Superior Management Co.*, if the company does not mutually agree to do so. No. In that event the HOA is stuck with the contract at least for the remaining part of the current period. The HOA's concern that the provider could breach the contract by significantly underperforming seems speculative and does not entitle the HOA to breach it first. Changes in the name and/or ownership of a party does not alter the parties' rights and obligations pursuant to the contract. This implies that neither party is entitled to disavow his obligations by terminating the contract altogether. For early &amp; unilateral termination to be an option, it would have to be provided in the terms of the contract itself.