I've not had disputes worth that much in nearly 40 years on this earth. Makes me wonder whether this is just some exaggerated nonsense. The article is certainly written by an LLM.

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suburban_strike a day ago | parent [-]

Neither had I, until the last few years when everybody decided to abandon all obligation to uphold their end of every contract because they thought they could get away with it.

In the last year alone I've sued my HOA, employer, and fired off a litany of demands for a cumulative total of 10x that amount.

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ryandrake a day ago | parent [-]

This is the truth! I've had to do more credit card chargebacks and chase down more companies that owed me money or otherwise failed to live up to their side of a transaction, in the past 24 months than the total of the past 24 years. I think companies have realized that the current regulatory environment allows them to simply do whatever they want, commit fraud, take people's money and disappear, fail to provide service, and they know the onus is on the already tired and busy Average Joe to hold them all accountable. There is no more government willingness to go after companies anymore.

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ethagnawl a day ago | parent | next [-]

This also tracks with my recent experiences. It's possible it's a coincidence but I'm currently trying to get big, dumb, expensive errors made by Ikea and Costco sorted. I've been dealing with both of these companies for decades and never had issues with either.

As the post mentioned, I suspect it's going to get worse and harder to recoup losses as these companies remove more humans from the loop on all sides of their operations.

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suburban_strike a day ago | parent | prev [-]

That's an apt description of it.

My own abstract is: there's been a collective understanding that the only terms a dominant party needs to adhere to are the ones that can be enforced by the little guy. If a rule can't be enforced by the little guy, the big guy can and will violate it with impunity.

It defies all fiduciary sense as well. Rather than let me go and pay the severance I'm owed, I've caught (with hard evidence, lawfully obtained) three different managers pretexting or executing steps toward my constructive dismissal. The most insulting part is that they think I'm too stupid to notice, or too weak to fight back. Now they're inviting EEOC investigations, DoD audits and worse as I complain and share a decade's worth of unrelated dirt to everyone with a public reporting hotline.

They could just settle and make me go away, but I'd sooner expect they'd send a hitman after me than concede a single dollar. It feels almost personal.

	▲	ryandrake a day ago \| parent [-]
		They're out there trying to make "laissez-faire" "caveat emptor" be the overriding principles of commerce in the USA.