Employees are able to override the pin entering requirement. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop this from happening if you happen to get targeted. (Speaking from experience)
It’s better than nothing that AT&T finally allows pins at all, but one thing that’s insane about it is every time you log in on the web there’s a checkbox to never ask for your pin again. It’s exactly where you’d expect a checkbox for something like “remember me”, except it opens up a huge security hole in your account if you accidentally check it.
Pins obviously have other issues that make no sense, like the incredibly low complexity allowed that would never be acceptable for a password. But even aside from that I guess AT&T also want everyone to turn their pin off? I hope they do lose a lawsuit and actually have to start giving a shit about pin swapping and make things more secure by default.
Exactly. I have a pin on my account after identity thieves opened a bunch of AT&T and Verizon accounts under my name (thanks Equifax!). Since this happened I’ve been in the AT&T stores when I bought an unlocked phone on two occasions. The employees at the store weren’t able to do a thing until I spoke with a special call center on the phone and did verifications.
One time there was something wrong on their end and no one could do anything until the system to verify my pin was back up.
Let us not forget that they can also "short" the stock and elect to call underwriter "greenshoe" in scenarios where the stock falls in price. They can make money in so many different ways
Docs were finished, a "closing dinner" was had, a handshake was made on the deal, and then AirBnb backed out. If an investor pulled that on a YC company I'm sure they would be blackballed rather quickly.
One thing we can all learn from AirBnB: if any group of people you hire for any reason, even on a contract basis, do one bad thing on the Internet one time, haters on the Internet will never let you live it down. Hire carefully.
I make deals and negotiate all the time and I've negotiated thousands of times.
It's a very good sign when you have a verbal agreement but you're a fool if you think that's a finished deal.
It's the quick and the dead - if people are serious about a deal then they need to move quickly, wrap it up and sign it.
If you are selling something (yourself, your company, shares in your company), you should ALWAYS continue negotiations and keep talking to interested parties until one of them signs.
The tardy buyers/investors/employers who think they can stretch it out and take their time miss out, that's all - and it's important to understand that the mistake is theirs for not signing, it is not the seller being unethical. And if you are the sort of person who says "I made a verbal deal and my word is my bond.", then you might get played by people who will take advantage of that and not sign, perhaps hoping for more information, more favorable conditions, a better deal to come along. They won't hesitate to drop the verbal deal if it suits them.
Every negotiation has a number of properties and variables. One of the absolutely key properties is the time profile. If you do any negotiating then you need to understand how to play the time profile. You can say to buyers "I'm offering something good here but only for X period of time." Or "I'm happy to agree to these terms but only for two weeks and everything is back on the table after that." Or "Great that we have a verbal deal, you need to understand I'll be talking to others until I have a signature so if you are interested then you'd better move quick." Or "If you pay the agreed amount on time then I'll give you a guarantee on our services, pay it late, no guarantee", or "OK happy to go with this investment deal, but I want the cash to hit the account by the 8th August and the deal is off if it's late."
Time profile is one of the most interesting and valuable aspects of any negotiation and can completely change the true value of the deal.
If you like it then you'd better put a ring on it.
A verbal contract is just as legally binding as a written contract. It's just that most people don't have authorized audio/video recordings of these kinds of interactions.
Technically speaking, a recorded verbal contract isn't simply spoken word - it is a matter of record. It's just that the record is an audio file instead of a piece of paper.
About 11 years ago I did a short stint as a customer support bloke for a telco here in Australia. Recorded verbal contracts were the new fashion, and made life easier for switching phone companies. But every 'verbal' recording started with boilerplate stating that this was a recorded conversation, and constituted a contract. The content was specific points, like in a paper document. It was not a casual conversation. Things may have changed here in the meantime, but that's the way it was then.
I also think that a unilateral audio recording wouldn't stand in a lot of places, given that it's illegal in some places to record a private conversation without informing the other party.
Wow, thanks for the link. That's really interesting. Most of those seemed like pretty obvious safety stops, except for the $500 in goods maximum. That one sort of renders verbal contracts useless in nearly all cases, unless I'm misunderstanding.
Unless there's a contract signed at the start that says "no verbal agreement in this process counts as a contract".
Note, that's 100% true (clarifications may stand, IANAL), but I wouldn't be surprised if the VC took steps to ensure no deal was done until the paper was signed.
> A verbal contract is just as legally binding as a written contract.
This is the general principle in Common Law taught to law students in Contracts 100, but it really depends on the subject of contract and jurisdiction.
For example, many jurisdictions have legislation requiring all real property sales to be in writing. Many others require certain financial instruments or transactions to be in writing. And so on.
So while a verbal agreement may raise questions of honour and sometimes equity ("equity" as in the body of law, not the moral concept), it can often be considered non-contractual.
>> if people are serious about a deal then they need to move quickly, wrap it up and sign it.
exactly, you see this with recruitment.. when a company meets the right candidate they move very fast...
Anytime I did interviews, I had a 24 hr deadline for me to mentally strike out a option. Everytime I got a job, I was contacted almost within an 1-2 hr of doing the interview.
Any delays means they other party has other good options, same applies IMO here as well..
So in this case unless they sign on the dotted line pronto and give a cheque, things are still up in the air
I sense the founders used the VC as leverage. They had a closing dinner the night before and shook on it. The VC was reasonable to expect the paperwork to be finalised the next day.
YC changing their mind at the very next day sounds very convenient...
I imagine that everyone's recollections differ. I'd hate to speculate.
Edit: I seem to have touched a nerve, but I don't know what it is. Can someone explain what I said that caused annoyance? I have the usual embarrassing secret obsession with made up internet points.
(There was a radio programme this week that demonstrated the process of giving someone a false memory. I would post a link but First Great Western (the train I'm on) blocks a bunch of BBC website.)
I think it's generally understood that signed documents describing the terms in detail is what matters. In my mind, integrity is a) not lying about what's in the docs b) sticking to the letter and spirit of signed docs. Until docs are signed, there is no deal
