
My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won - fischerq
https://fymhotsauce.rocks/blogs/news/my-uber-driver-robbed-me-so-i-took-uber-to-court-and-won
======
ivraatiems
I'm glad this worked out for the OP. However, I think he may have made a
couple mistakes that could have been avoided for a smoother process.

The big one is not retaining an attorney. No, he doesn't have to for small
claims court, but Uber clearly had its legal team looking at this. Now, I
understand that lawyers are expensive and carry their own issues - but if he'd
won the case with an attorney, he could potentially have secured attorney's
fees as well. Plus, a good way to make a company cave on an issue like this is
to say "direct all requests to my attorney; I'm not speaking to you on this
matter."

I realize getting a lawyer isn't always feasible, though, especially in small
claims, so I'll assume it just wasn't possible for this case (also, I'm not a
lawyer, this is just based on my understanding of the small claims process).
Still, giving Uber all the evidence in the case _after_ a suit had been filed
but _before_ any discovery had been ordered was a misstep. Small claims court
rarely has formal discovery - the process by which each side finds and turns
over evidence to the other side. The OP was - as far as I can tell - under no
obligation to give evidence to the Uber rep of any kind. He should not have;
they used it against him. What he should have done was say "we can discuss
this in court, or you can make me whole now and avoid that," and NOTHING else.

Edit: A line I really enjoyed from the piece: "They were a company that shows
blatant disrespect to authority, operating illegally in cities and using
technology to intentionally avoid law enforcement." Yep. That's Uber in a
nutshell. Well played.

~~~
jessriedel
I get that big companies are not your friend, but is it really necessary to
wage total war by using all possible legal advantages and issuing ultimatums?
"Here is the evidence I have that you're in the wrong" can sometimes hurt you
later in court, but it can avoid the entire mess by convincing the party that
they will likely lose, or yield a compromise.

~~~
ivraatiems
> I get that big companies are not your friend, but is it really necessary to
> wage total war by using all possible legal advantages and issuing
> ultimatums?

Initially, no. By the time you're in a court of law, yes. Once you file suit -
small claims or not - discussion time is over. If you make that decision
prematurely, that's not great, but there's no taking it back except by
dismissing the suit, which would have been a mistake.

------
qb45
_The detective in charge of my case sent me the police report. She had
contacted the official law enforcement department of Uber to get more
information. She gave Uber the date and time of the ride, as well as the
license plate of the vehicle and name of the driver.

The Uber department responded that they had no record of a trip from the
vehicle with that license plate on December 5th, 2016, just after 11 PM, and
the driver had not driven with them for 2 years._

Funny, I came here to rant that Uber shouldn't really be responsible for that
and the OP should have sued the driver instead, but if this is their response
then they totally deserved everything they got and more.

How is it even possible to get away with lying to the police like that? They
should be in serious trouble for this alone.

~~~
caf
Individuals lie to police. Corporations merely make unfortunate errors that
they are only too happy to correct now that it has been brought to our
attention, sir.

------
baby
Damn, one of my driver drove with my girlfriend's phone, we were waving to him
but he didn't stop. We managed to call him via the app and he said he would
send it back to us but never did. After that it was impossible to do
anything/contact him via Uber :/

~~~
devoply
I wonder what recourse you have with a real taxi. I am sure the company
contracting a taxi driver would consider firing a driver that steals your
stuff. Especially after a few complaints. The main problem seems to be Uber's
unresponsiveness to the whole issue. It would not be hard for them to set up
some sort of system to prevent fraud and theft and to punish drivers accused
of that sort of thing, and to kick them out of the system after a certain
number of complaints.

~~~
rodgerd
I left a DSLR in a taxi in Ballarat.

I live in New Zealand.

They couriered to me for free.

(I sent the driver a box of wine to say thanks).

~~~
linkmotif
I've had all kinds of positive similar experiences with people all over the
world. Most people aren't out to rob you.

------
skinnymuch
Wow what a crazy story. The twist half way through after the first court case
was cool.

Trying not to spoil anything for someone who hasn't read or finished reading
the article.

But first it sucks how much time was spent by everyone in the story especially
the victim. It also sucks that if you have to go to court again because
something comes up that shows the defense, Uber, in this case, did something
clearly wrong that wasn't known the first time, you seemingly can't increase
the amount you're suing for. So all the expenses of going back to court again,
etc, come out of your pocket. That's lame.

But at least you won in the end^. I'll be weary of Uber from now on and my
belongings. I can't completly stop using Uber because of friends who don't
care. Finally, who knows how other companies would handle this. Probably
better, but, I don't know.

^ not a spoiler like a commentor noted because the title and URL both say he
won

~~~
BoorishBears
... my bi-monthly reminder not to say anything tounge-in-cheek on HN, lest
people trip overthemselves to remind you how you said something tounge-in-
cheek and downvote you

~~~
bryanlarsen
That's also in the title, so isn't a spoiler.

------
tbrake
I don't get the "should have heard the car drive away and chased him" angle
they twice tried.

He should be at fault for not being as fast as a car? Most people aren't going
to be able to run at >10mph for very long, forget about anything more.

And even then, suppose he had caught up to the car and the driver didn't want
to stop.

Just slimy.

~~~
waqf
That's not what they were trying to argue. They were trying to argue that the
video of the car leaving as soon as he got out (and him continuing to walk
away) proved that he was expecting the car to leave as soon as he got out,
therefore he was lying to the court about having intentionally left a backpack
in the car.

~~~
tyingq
Could be some middle ground. That video doesn't really help his case to me. He
knows the car is in the middle of the street, and not parked. The driver does
start rolling while the passenger is clearly very close to the car. Even if
you assume he didn't notice the car leaving, it seems to speak to the drivers
intent. If the driver was intending to steal something, why risk pulling away
when the owner of the bag is so close?

It's plausible to me that the driver didn't hear, or didn't pay full attention
to the request to wait, and just pulled away...and that the bag was taken by a
later passenger.

I would have been happy to get the money, and probably would have skipped the
blog post.

~~~
codedokode
This doesn't explain why the driver didn't return any calls. And in this case
Uber could give data about that passenger to the police.

~~~
azakai
The driver might have realized (too late) what happened, if the driver noticed
the second passenger left with a backpack they didn't come in with. Then
gotten scared and decided to avoid calls and lie about things.

~~~
pkolaczk
It shouldn't be possible to avoid police investigation just by avoiding calls.
UBER should give all the details to the police and then the police should do
their job and call the driver and the next passenger. Where I live (Poland),
not responding timely to the police/court calls/mails would get you into big
trouble and in the best case would end up in a fee and in the worst case you
could be brought to the hearing by force.

------
module0000
This guy took the high road - once he had the license plate and an address,
this could have taken a very different turn. If you're into someone for
$4,000, it's a coin flip whether they invest effort into getting it back, or
invest another $4,000 for someone else to get _you_ back. If you are going to
steal from someone, always keep that in the back of your mind... you don't
know what type of person you're stealing from. Maybe it's an easy mark, or
maybe it's a vindictive psychopath that would love an excuse to pull your
teeth out in his basement over the next 30 days. "Risk vs Reward" and all
that...

~~~
escapetech
> This could have taken a very different turn.

Until something similar happens to them, people often take for granted living
in a society where the legal process is relatively accessible to those needing
it.

------
iplaw
Ultimately, Uber did not want to establish a precedent for liability. What
they should have done is settled for $4,000 and forced the victim to sign an
NDA, ensuring that this little conflict remained private.

Instead, in usual Uber fashion, the legal and HR team worked their magic and
created a lose-lose-lose situation for themselves:

1\. They established precedent for liability;

2\. They obstructed justice, which could be used as fodder in subsequent
lawsuits; and

3\. They did nothing to prevent this story from being broadcasted far and
wide.

~~~
gpm
I don't believe ruling before a magistrate judge in small claims court create
precedent in a legal sense, though if you just mean it will inspire others to
do the same, agreed.

------
startupdiscuss
For me, the most heartbreaking aspect of this story is the sheer amount of
time and effort that had to be squandered.

You could probably have designed an app, coded a site, or written a small
novel with that time.

~~~
danielvinson
IANAL, but he should have revised his damages for the second case to account
for his expenses, including time. He probably could have won closer to $6000
without a problem.

The author comes off as deeply uninformed about how legal proceedings in the
U.S. work, for example talking about how he had to refute arguments in court
and such, which is just not how things work at all at that level. Some basic
Googleing would have taught him all he needed to know about defending himself
in small claims court without stress.

~~~
erroneousfunk
You can't usually get your own time costs back. Even suing for real actual
legal fees (that you can document, such as payments to lawyers) is tricky and
usually demands that an existing contract is in place to enforce this, or that
the suit is frivolous, and a judge has to rule on the frivolity.

You can't just go to small claims court and say "I make $50/hr, and I've spent
20 hours on this, so I also demand an extra $1000"

~~~
danielvinson
This heavily depends on the judge, which court, and where. All of my cases
which have been heard by a court I've been awarded money for my time.

------
codedokode
So in the end Uber got away with obstructing justice and the driver got away
with theft. It is surprising that police cannot find the thief even knowing
his identity.

~~~
lathiat
That's the most ridiculous part;

in theory you could have discovery to actually get the drivers details and
then take the driver to small claims.

in practice even for $4000 you're stretching it being worth it in many
jurisdictions.

------
Bahamut
This is sad to hear, and while I don't use Uber anymore, I did have one great
experience - my phone slipped out of my pocket into the car as I was getting
out, and the car drove off as I got out and did not carry anything there. I
was able to contact the last driver by logging into the app from a hotel
employee's phone and arrange a pickup not too long later.

I gave her a generous cash tip and many thanks for doing the right thing, as I
was far away from my home in the Bay Area (was in Savannah for a race).

------
dmitrygr
A fun read. Glad the author prevailed. Not surprised at uber's action, sadly.
Claiming they do not control the drivers' actions is their norm.

~~~
netsharc
Is it really a fun read? I skimmed through the first few paragraphs and it
seemed he mentioned dota, his dad, his old job, how his flight was...

~~~
PacketPaul
I agree. It was like listening to my six year old tell me what happened. Every
story begins when he woke.

------
water42
before uber, I don't think I've ever rooted for a company to fail

~~~
chronic7ul
Travis is walking away as a multi-million dollar man. This is whether you root
for Uber or not.

~~~
StreamBright
I do not care about Travis that much as I care about the next victims of this
rip-off machine what uber became in the recent years.

------
frostymarvelous
On a night out drinking, a friend invited their uber driver to join them as
they had a great connection (this is Africa so its not really strange). At the
end of the night, said friend forgot all his devices in the ride and after
trying to reach the driver for days and failing, we reported the issue to
uber. Uber called the driver and he denied he'd seen the devices. Uber
basically gave us the finger and told us they could do nothing.

~~~
kbart
Sorry to hear, but this sounds like you friend's fault. How does he really
knows that driver took these devices? Maybe he lost them somewhere else (he
was intoxicated, after all) or maybe the next passenger took them? If this has
happened in a bus, would you blame a bus driver too?

~~~
frostymarvelous
There were 4 of them out that night. And the driver closed for the day to hang
with them.

After he dropped them, they realized the devices were still in the car, and
immediately tried to reach him. And he never picked up.

Well, he never pursued the issue further and left it at that.

I've had some rather good experiences e.g. where the driver called me, and
brought back the stuff to me after he was done at the end of the day and
refused to take any money as a reward.

I guess it all depends on the person.

------
hosh
I wonder -- with a company culture on the lookout for loopholes and exploits
in order to enter markets, do they tend to see that by default in the behavior
of others? This guy got accused of deliberately leaving his bag in the car.
There was also that incident with the rape, and the executive who brought back
confidential files to discuss whether that was a fraud.

It is as if, "I think you are trying to commit fraud here ... because that is
what I can imagine trying to pull off myself."

------
gravypod
_" I just didn’t buy that a company could just get away with that business
model. Hire anyone with a car, facilitate everything, and have no
responsibility for what happens in the cars."_

If I got food sick from something I ordered off GrubHub could I sue them?

~~~
notheguyouthink
I'm curious how far this line goes, too. If I go to Subway and a worker stabs
me, does Subway owe me millions? I'm really confused how Uber is responsible
here.. it just seems, odd, to me.

Now, if Uber as a company promoted _(in one way or another)_ reckless speeding
for the sake of fast drop-offs, and I get hit by an Uber driver, yes I think
Uber is at fault _(and the driver)_. However, why does it sound like Uber is
responsible for everything "during work hours"?

~~~
Chronos
If Subway tells the cops "I won't say who it was", and they say "he hasn't
worked at Subway for two years anyway" (this being a bald-faced lie), AND the
medical bills from the stabbing set you back millions of dollars... damn
right, Subway owes you millions. They're making themselves complicit in the
crime by obstructing justice, and making it clear that Subway was OK with the
stabbing.

~~~
notheguyouthink
Oh I agree completely, but you're adding to what I said. There are many here
saying Subway is at fault no matter what.

Eg, if they didn't do anything wrong, the person just randomly stabbed me,
many here think Subway owes me millions. What do you think?

I disagree, it seems bizarre to me because Subway can't possible know what
crimes all employees might commit and somehow fight to prevent that. Right?

.. actually let me ask you this:

In what scenario should Subway _not_ be held liable? So many here blame Subway
in my scenario, when they were not even involved.. so what does a company have
to do to prevent being sued by employees random, un-predictable actions?

------
dba7dba
Note to self, "leave doors/trunks open UNTIL I am positive all my luggages are
out of the car."

~~~
wutbrodo
Given that the driver did this intentionally, is there anything preventing the
driver from taking off with an open trunk? Hell, from the video footage in
this article, even an open door wouldn't have done much. He could easily drive
a block in a residential area with an open door and then pull over and quickly
close the door.

~~~
0xfeba
Nope. Take off strong enough and the doors close shut, some trunks too.

~~~
wutbrodo
Yea, I was giving the strongest form of the argument but this would probably
work too. In the video, the guy took off pretty slowly to minimize sound so I
didn't mention this possibility.

------
cakedoggie
I tried reading this, when does the guy get to the point? I am not sure what
Dota, or his dad, or his hot sauce or his awesome flight has to do with any of
this?

Ok, go about 2 pages down, and you can skip the incredibly detailed discussion
of his exiting the car.

This seems more like the driver thought he had all his bags, the door was
closed, a simple mistake. But no, the driver was a master thief, spying him
using stuff in his bag and racing off (at an incredibly slow pace according to
the video).

Good on the guy for following up with this, and it is an interesting story.

> They were a company that shows blatant disrespect to authority, operating
> illegally in cities and using technology to intentionally avoid law
> enforcement.

This is true, and well known. And if you knowingly use Uber, you understand
this.

------
jellicle
You know, if Uber employees started going to jail when they lied to the
government, the culture would probably change pretty fast.

------
theprop
Awesome work!! Great story about how _awful_ the legal system is given the
amount of effort and work you had to go through. You deserved a lot more than
just that $4k.

I personally feel bad that it's only after reading this that I'm going to stop
using Uber as well...despite all of the terrible stuff that's going on over
there, I was willing to strike up to "growing pains" or "bad apples", since I
_wrongly_ believed they were 100% committed to their users. That's clearly not
the case so there's no more Uber for me.

------
sivex
Not a single comment on here about using insurance. I know that a backpack
with a laptop can be stolen out of someone else's car and cut-rate renters
insurance will cover it. I don't really think Uber was the correct person to
foot this bill, I think this is the same as someone grabbing your purse from
you when walking down the street. You either have decent insurance or you're
SOL

~~~
vkou
If Comcast sent a contractor over to your house, to hook up cable, and the
tech stole your TV, is Comcast liable for this?

If you check into a hotel, and the bellboy steals your luggage, is the hotel
liable for it?

If you hired a roofing company to fix your roof, they subcontracted it to
another firm, which came and set your house on fire, are the roofers also not
liable? Especially after they spend a few months trying to prevent you and the
police from getting in touch with the subcontractors?

This smells of criminal conspiracy.

------
hoodoof
Can I say that I had the inverse experience where an Uber driver drove off
with something that I left in the trunk of the car.

He went to considerable effort over multiple calls over a few days of
coordinating and attempts for me to get it back, until eventually I got it
back intact.

It was a first class customer service experience.

~~~
ctvo
I'm glad it worked out for you.

It enforces the point of the article: your experience with Uber is entirely
influenced by your driver.

If you happen to have a bad one (like the author), Uber takes no
responsibility (contractor contractor contractor!), and your only recourse is
considerable time and effort taking them to court.

------
linkmotif
What I don’t understand about Uber after all these months/years of them being
horrible to customers is: Why?

#1 rule of capitalism is to coddle your customers as much as possible at every
possible expense while still remaining profitable. Why does Uber act so 2nd
World?

------
Pxtl
11 paragraphs of self-promotion before getting to the meat.

~~~
rustid
I wanted to give people knowledge of what I went through so they would be able
to avoid what happened to me.

~~~
netsharc
I'm about to go to bed so I only skimmed through the first 10-11 paragraphs,
but how is your dad calling you, and what you used to do before, and how comfy
your flight was, relevant to the story? Maybe it was, and hey, it's your
story, but my thought was "Damn, he got off on a tangent, on a tangent!"

~~~
aembleton
The comfiness of the flight is the reason for taking the photo that was then
used in court.

Yes, it is relevant.

~~~
watmough
"I'll allow it."

------
jszymborski
Any anecdotal stories about losing items in traditional Taxis? The first clerk
didn't think that ever worked out, wondering about that claim...

~~~
smsm42
You would probably get zilch. People think filing a suit against Uber is bad
because they big and have lawyers and stuff. But at least there's a large
target. Try suing a private cabman, when you discover owner of the license and
the driver are completely different people, and nobody wants to talk to you,
and their terms of service, which you have never seen but implicitly accepted,
say they are not responsible for anything. And unlike Uber they are not
concerned at all about the bad press, and if you sue them them might obstruct
and delay you every way possible (or the driver might just disappear and the
owner disclaim any responsibility because they just own a medallion and have
no idea about what the driver does when), and even if you win they could just
refuse to pay up and you'd have to figure out how to get money out of them,
while living on the other end of the country.

At least Uber is a big target that can be found, forced to disclose the data
that you know they always have, and if you win, you have reasonable assurance
you get the money.

~~~
gjjrfcbugxbhf
I thought traditional Taxis assumed liability.

~~~
smsm42
Who exactly assumes it? Driver? Whoever hired him? Whoever owns the medallion?
I think it'd be non-trivial to even figure out who to sue, let alone win it.

------
olegkikin
You should've added like $50K of punitive damages. The fact that they lied to
the police and got away with it is crazy. You didn't even break even,
considering how much time and research you spent.

------
AngeloAnolin
This.

"Ultimately I am sad that the company that is trying to reform the taxi
industry is so corrupt."

------
dsfyu404ed
I don't fault the driver. He's just following the normal standards of conduct
for business transactions in Massachusetts.

I say this as someone who had the misfortune of growing up there.

I'm only being sarcastic about not faulting the driver. Unless you're trying
to grow your customer base or know the person you screw them. It's just how
things are done.

------
sjg007
Uber and Lyft are here to stay and if not them then someone else. Cabs suck.

------
king_panic
did anyone else notice this blog post is on site that sells hot sauce?

~~~
VA3FXP
Actually because I use NoScript, nothing at all shows up when I visit that
URL.

Empty white page.

Defective site design.

~~~
jmcdiesel
"I block HTML and your site doesnt load for me, defective site!"

I know JS isnt HTML, but at this point, it basically is. Complaining that a
site is broken because you choose to break it is just astounding.

~~~
parshimers
That's not why the site is broken if you're using uBlock/NoScript. It's broken
because it loads everything (even the text of the site) from 3rd party domains
and scripts.

~~~
jwilk
The text is there. You can see it if you disable CSS.

------
ElijahLynn
This reads a lot like The Rosie Project, which is a great read!

------
uptown
What kind of snacks did you eat on the plane?

------
redwyvern
Deleting Uber

------
paulcole
>Before my hot sauce set a record on Kickstarter

I would've liked to know more about this relevant detail.

~~~
jamie_ca
$64k in 2014, $13k in 2016. Pretty sure that's just his inner salesman
speaking.

------
freeplatform
I get that the court process is the main part of the story, but I still can't
believe that you left $4k worth of equipment in the car with a stranger. I
guess I'm just much more paranoid. Also, that's how I view taxi drivers as
well as Uber/Lyft drivers. Sure there are some protections like background
checks and tracking, but at the end of the day it is a stranger we don't know,
and anything could happen, so we probably should at least be a bit hesitant.

~~~
rustid
I won't make that mistake again. If I were giving someone a ride I would have
helped them with their bags and not thought about taking them. I assumed
people shared that quality.

------
hsod
Interesting story, but I think it was a bit unfair to Uber. I'm glad this guy
was made whole, but I'm not sure Uber's reluctance to paying you 4000 dollars
because a driver stole your backpack qualifies as corruption.

From what I can tell, the worst thing Uber did was not be sufficiently
cooperative with the police investigation. This part of the narrative is
extremely muddled and unclear, so it's hard to take a strong position on their
behavior here.

~~~
zer00eyz
FTA: What Uber told the police.

"The Uber department responded that they had no record of a trip from the
vehicle with that license plate on December 5th, 2016, just after 11 PM, and
the driver had not driven with them for 2 years."

"Sufficiently cooperative" (per you) and outright lying are two very different
things.

FTA:

"Why would Uber not have the information on the driver for the police? Uber
asserted that they don’t have the ability to look up the drive information of
my trip with the information provided (license plate, car make and model, name
of driver, time and date of trip, and pickup and drop off location of trip) as
it was a violation of privacy. "

Uhhh... what? It violates privacy? Your either complying with the police or
you aren't. "There was no warrant" would have been an OK answer, but that
wasn't what they said.

They aren't being muddled or unclear here, they are literally avoiding giving
answers that would make them look bad. Maybe if they had been more honest and
responsive the items could have been recovered rather than the blame falling
on Uber.

~~~
spike021
>"The Uber department responded that they had no record of a trip from the
vehicle with that license plate [...]"

This kind of thing worries me a bit.

This past week I've taken two Lyfts where the license plate provided in the
app didn't match what the driver was actually using. One of my drivers claimed
they had just gotten a new car, but that's a bit odd to me since when I bought
a new car it took several weeks to get my license plate.

So there should be ample time for a good driver to ensure their record is up
to date.

~~~
MichaelGG
Did you report the driver? The one time that happened to me, I asked the
driver and showed me that he had both cars registered in Uber and had selected
the wrong one.

~~~
spike021
Honestly no because I wasn't sure what the process is for that.

~~~
zer00eyz
Well you start by taking photos!

First and foremost for your own safety.

Second just send them to CS. If something terrible ever happens and it shows
up on the 11pm news, at least you can say "I tried" and the company can't run
and hide from its bad policy

------
valuearb
Really poorly written. Spends far too long in getting to the event, and really
confusing about the court proceedings.

~~~
teen
The guy makes hot sauce, what do you expect? I thought it was a pretty good
read. Although I'm familiar with FYM from Dota 2. (Love Team NP)

------
mrob
Misleading title. Robbery is theft by force or threat of force. Although the
author says he was "robbed", he alleges theft by driving off with his bag, no
violence involved.

~~~
robert12345
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/robbing](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/robbing)

to remove valuables without right from (a place)

Does not need to be violent to be a robbery

~~~
greensoap
The legal definition is different than the dictionary definition.

In California for example, “Robbery is the felonious taking of personal
property in the possession of another, from his person or immediate presence,
and against his will, accomplished by means of force or fear."

I know of no case holding that driving off with a person's property is
"force."

This probably would fall under theft in a criminal proceeding in Cal.:

Every person who shall feloniously steal, take, carry, lead, or drive away the
personal property of another, or who shall fraudulently appropriate property
which has been entrusted to him or her, or who shall knowingly and designedly,
by any false or fraudulent representation or pretense, defraud any other
person of money, labor or real or personal property, or who causes or procures
others to report falsely of his or her wealth or mercantile character and by
thus imposing upon any person, obtains credit and thereby fraudulently gets or
obtains possession of money, or property or obtains the labor or service of
another, is guilty of theft. In determining the value of the property
obtained, for the purposes of this section, the reasonable and fair market
value shall be the test, and in determining the value of services received the
contract price shall be the test. If there be no contract price, the
reasonable and going wage for the service rendered shall govern. For the
purposes of this section, any false or fraudulent representation or pretense
made shall be treated as continuing, so as to cover any money, property or
service received as a result thereof, and the complaint, information or
indictment may charge that the crime was committed on any date during the
particular period in question. The hiring of any additional employee or
employees without advising each of them of every labor claim due and unpaid
and every judgment that the employer has been unable to meet shall be prima
facie evidence of intent to defraud.

~~~
chc
OK, so we've established that the legal definition is different from the
dictionary definition. Now we just need to figure out if the OP is a blog post
or a legal filing and we'll know which definition we should use.

------
pilsetnieks
> I ended up going to an Apple store as they had just made everything in their
> laptops Type-C, but in typical Apple fashion they were $90 and that just
> seemed outrageous. Not too far away a Microsoft store had a charger for only
> $30, so I bought that instead.

Was this nugget really necessary? And, by the way, a laptop charger for $90 is
a reasonable price; if anything, I'd be more outraged about a $30 phone
charger.

~~~
Dryken
no 90$ for an item that doesn't even 15$ to make is not a reasonable price !

~~~
valuearb
Only if you care about the quality of the charger that can easily smoke your
$2000 laptop.

~~~
burkaman
Do you think the Microsoft store is selling chargers that will set your laptop
on fire?

~~~
valuearb
I can believe they aren't up to Apple's standards for their laptops.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I don't have a USB-C Mac, but but Apple's $80 MagSafe chargers aren't actually
very good. They don't have basic strain relief sleeves on the cables, so they
get kinked at the ends and fray/melt/stop working after a year or two of
regular use.

This has been a problem for more than 10 years and Apple's never done anything
about it. I can only imagine it's because they think the strain relief is
ugly, which is one of those random bits of belligerent incompetence that's
really frustrating as a Mac fan.

~~~
valuearb
I've only had a half dozen MagSafe chargers, and never had one fail.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I've had at least four, and never had one not fail.

It may depend on the conditions you use them in; keeping it on your desk most
of the time is probably better than carrying it around and using it in coffee
shops and so forth. But that's a standard use case for laptops; there's no
excuse for not being able to survive that.

