Energy provider retrospectively canceld contract, switching consumer to default provider. Who has to pay difference of energy prices? The German energy provider Stromio went out of business and canceled all end consumer contracts on the 21st of December. However, due to 'technical reasons' the email notifying customers of this arrived at a later date on the 28th. Stromio had contractually guaranteed a fixed price (unless otherwise notified with proper lead time) for the current year of the contract. However, due to the cancellation customer are switched to the regional default provider with different prices (most likely higher). Given that the notification arrived after the fact with literally negative time to react, customer might now face an unexpected increased energy bill until a new contract has been signed with a different provider. Acquiring a new contract is fairly easy yet not instantaneous. Do customer have to pay the difference of energy prices and if not does the default provider have to legally fight Stromio for the difference or the consumer?
The primary source to answer your question is the Stromio contract itself. If it does not contain any provisions pertinent to such a situation: It is correct that you are automatically switched to the local Essential Service Provider (Grundversorger, § 36 Ⅱ 1 EnWG). In default of delivery by Stromio, the ESP is in charge of supplying electricity in lieu of Stromio, § 38 Ⅰ 1 EnWG. This is an example of a contract by law. Because the laws govern so, there is now a contract between you and the ESP. You can terminate this contract within two weeks notice, § 20 Ⅰ 1 StromGVV, but you (and only you) still have to meet all your obligations. Recovery against Stromio? §§ 280 Ⅰ, Ⅲ, 283 BGB Obligation, § 280 Ⅰ 1 BGB? → Effective cancellation of contract by Stromio? Provisions in contract granting the right to terminate contract without notice due to economic hardship? ✘ Force majeure, § 314 Ⅰ BGB, ✘ b/c commercial risk burden of any entrepreneur ⇒ Contract between you and Stromio continues to exist, even though Stromio will never again meet its obligations. Breach of duty? § 283 BGB → § 275 Ⅰ BGB: it is impossible to deliver electricity in the past and it does not make sense to deliver electricity today when it was actually needed on December 22, 2021. ✔ No defense? ✔ § 275 Ⅱ BGB ✘ cf. above, § 320 BGB ✘ ⇒ Breach of duty ✔ Responsibility, § 276 Ⅰ 1 BGB? ✔ According to the email, Stromio deliberately stopped delivery. Causal damage? ✔ You would’ve (presumably) paid less if Stromio continued delivery. ⇒ You can charge Stromio the difference you had to pay more. Write them a (registered) letter, enclose the ESP’s bill, refer to your quote you had with Stromio, highlight the difference (“€12.34 due”), indicate your banking account, and set a reasonable deadline. It is unlikely they will fulfill your demands, but still. The ESP is unaware of all of these troubles. They do not have a contract with Stromio. They will not sue them.
Why is a business allowed to refuse a customer? Because also freedom of contract is a right. Except for discrimination on the basis of protected categories, a person or entity is entitled to discretion on whether or with whom to do business and enter contracts. The last sentence in your post reflects a misconception of "completely different set of values and laws" between the USA and members of the EU. Clearly there are many differences, but a comparison of the Wikipedia link you posted and, for instance, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2 reflects an overlap of protected categories in the laws of the Netherlands and of the US, such as religion, sex, race, or national origin/nationality. One would need persuasive evidence to support a finding of unlawful discrimination in the two examples you have experienced. Assuming the bank responded to your GDPR inquiry truthfully, the bank's refusal to open an account might have stemmed from profiling or decision-making that (1) does not precisely require specific data about you, and/or (2) uses information the bank does not need to log for purposes of compliance with the GDPR. Note that the GDPR does not outlaw algorithmic decision-making. Since legislation in the EU (as in the US) portrays an approach of market economy, both bank and landlord are entitled to made decisions on the basis of their inner policies for risk management. The policies might be unclear to you, but that does not necessarily mean they contravene principles of equal opportunity.
A piece of paper with writing on it is NOT a contract! A contract is the terms and conditions that the parties agree that they will be bound to. A written contract merely serves as evidence (really good evidence) of what those terms and conditions were. For this to matter, it would have to be part of a dispute about the contract. If the parties looking at the term know and agree on what it means then that is what it means. If there is a dispute about this term then a 3rd party (e.g. judge, arbitrator) will look at the term and the context of the contract (both the written contract and the actions of the parties in giving effect to the contract) and decide what they think the parties meant. For the example given, I don't think there is any room for dispute about what is meant and it would be disingenuous of either party to claim that there could be. "Time is of the essence" is a commonly used legal phrase with a well understood meaning - it explicitly makes time a condition of the contract; generally, time is a warranty. A condition is a term for which termination of the contract is a possible remedy; you cannot terminate for breach of a warranty. "Time of the essence" is either a typo or, if deliberate, is clearly trying to get across the same concept. TL;DR 100% enforceable.
Can a business put whatever they want into a contract? No. There are some things a business cannot put into a contract. But I don't see anything stopping them from putting this into a contract. It's not reasonable to assume that you have to cancel before the 20th every month. It's not reasonable to assume that - except there's no assumption needed. The contract states it flat out. You are most likely stuck paying. Requiring cancellation about 10 days in advance of the month doesn't seem like it would be an unconscionable clause. (Requiring cancellation 10 months in advance would be a different story.) Michigan law does say the following is prohibited: Taking advantage of the consumer's inability reasonably to protect his or her interests by reason of disability, illiteracy, or inability to understand the language of an agreement presented by the other party to the transaction who knows or reasonably should know of the consumer's inability. But I doubt that applies in your case. It also prohibits: Gross discrepancies between the oral representations of the seller and the written agreement covering the same transaction or failure of the other party to the transaction to provide the promised benefits. So if you were promised you could cancel at any time without notice or penalty, but you later found out the contract said differently, this law may apply.
Is there a legal reason why many advertisements say “Limited Time Offer”? Sometimes, especially where the advertisement specifies the deadline. This would help defeating a claim of unfair and misleading practices that customers might pursue apropos of an open-ended offer. An offer triggers the offeree's power of acceptance. Lapse of time --whether reasonable or specified by the offeror-- and revocation by the offeror are two permissible methods for termination of that power. See Restatement (Second) of Contracts at §§ 36, 41. By specifying a deadline, the offeror preempts both the question of fact as to what constitutes reasonable time under the circumstances, Id. at 41(2), and an argument that revocation of the offer was so arbitrary that it took customers by surprise. Is there a law that says they have to include that? No. The decision mostly depends on the offeror's marketing preferences and the litigation risks associated to making an open-ended offer.
In all such offers that I have seen, there is an agreement explicitly saying that if the service is not cancelled by the end date of the trial, a recurring charge for the price of the service will be made, and the customer authorizes this. If there was such an agreement, the charges would be authorized, not fraudulent. The question does not say what agreement accompanied the free trial. But any reasonable person would know that credit card info is only provided when a charge is at least possible. Addition: The question now says: Reviewing an example of the vendor's website, it says in big print &quot;Monthly Plan $0.00/mo&quot; and in fine gray print it says &quot;Renews at $5.88/month.&quot; In that case it seems to me that the customer agreed to the recurring charge. What was purchased was access to the service, and whether the service was in fact used is not relevant. Unless there is a consumer protection law specifically requiring such terms to be &quot;prominent&quot; or otherwise making this deal unlawful, it seem to me that the customer has agreed, and the charge nis in no way a false claim. But it is possible that a court would rule otherwise. It is my experiences that in such cases the credit card company can and sometimes will act as an agent for the customer, and can often obtain refunds for multiple past charges. No doubt they have mush stronger negotiating power. But such refunds are not a matter of law, I think, rather of business practice and good will.
We can assume there was a meeting of the minds when the contract was drafted, and both parties expected payments to me made based on product usage. Plaintiff alleges that this did not happen. Thus plaintiff is indeed alleging that the contract was breached. Now plaintiff alleges that defendant broke the contract, while defendant counters that plaintiff broke the contract. "[T]o be determined by tracking software" is woefully ambiguous. The court will want to know which party drafted the contract, as disputes arising from ambiguity are often resolved in favor of the non-drafting party.
Not going to hold up. Dutch Supreme Court confirmed 2012-09-21 in LJN BW6135 that arbitration is still covered by the the right to an independent judge, as established in Golder v UK, ECHR 1975-02-21, nr. 4451/70. Stack Exchange can't decide the rules themselves. (The Dutch case confirms that sector-wide arbitration is in fact legal, with regard to a standard arbitration clause commonly used in the Dutch building sector. The arbiter was found to be independent in that case precisely because they weren't picked by the builder involved.) The GDPR is only indirectly relevant, but the fact that it's mentioned does mean that there is an indisputable intent to provide services to EU consumers. (See section 23 of the GDPR, or its national equivalents). As such, you can't hide behind a US business address. If you intend to do business in the EU, it's under EU laws - all of them. You can't say that only the GDPR applies, and not other rules. I'm having a bit of a problem finding a source, but I'm fairly confident that consumers have the right to sue at their own, local court, overruling the default of suing in the court where the counterparty is located. Finally, I have the right under national law (Dutch: BW 6:236 start and sub-n) to strike the arbitration clause up to 30 days after the conflict arises, and demand a court decision. That's not 30 days after I accept the "Public Network Terms", that's 30 days after the arbitration is invoked. Dutch law explicitly allows arbitration abroad, and arbiters may apply foreign law, but as written the arbitration clause has no legal basis in the Netherlands, and any arbitration resolution would therefore not be considered valid. You may wonder if it matters to Stack Exchange that the arbitration decision would not hold in the EU. Well, consider a clause like Indemnification, which demands the user indemnifies Stack Exchange. That's a pretty empty demand if it's not enforceable.