Overheard a sales call at Denny's that made me rethink our vendor contracts

I was grabbing breakfast after my night shift at a Denny's near the hospital last Thursday and I couldn't help but overhear two guys talking at the next booth. One of them was pitching some kind of B2B software subscription, and he straight up said to the other guy, "Look, just lock them into a 3 year term, the cancellation clause is buried on page 17 and nobody reads that far." I nearly choked on my coffee. It got me thinking about how many of my own service contracts probably have that same kind of hidden trap baked in. I went back to my office and pulled out our vendor agreements from three different providers we use for janitorial and IT support. Sure enough, two of them had early termination fees that would cost us almost $1,200 each if we tried to get out before the 2 year mark. Has anyone else gone through their service contracts and found nasty surprises like that? I want to know what red flags I should look for before I sign anything else.

3 comments

3 Comments

keith2742h agoOG Member

Page 17 burial is a classic vendor trick.

keith2742h agoOG Member

I mean, is it really that big of a deal though? Sure, you see vendors do that all the time with smaller listings, but it's not like it's some master plan to trick everyone. Maybe it's just me but I feel like burying a contract on page 17 would be way more work than it's worth for most people. If you're buying from a real seller, they're not going to go through all that trouble just to hide a couple of pages. Plus, if you actually read the whole thing before you sign, you'd catch whatever they're trying to pull anyway. Idk, feels like a lot of fuss over something that's pretty standard in any deal.

logan_wood1h ago

@keith274 Page 17 is where vendor dreams go to die, apparently.