Lots of folks are shocked when credit cards hit them with big fees, default rates and lower credit limits.
All of the bad stuff a credit card can do you is in the contract you’re given — and accept — when you sign up for the card.
But a report in the NYU Journal of Law and Business shows how little attention we pay to the contracts we sign.
Researchers asked students at DePaul University to take part in a study and provided them with a three-page consent form.
The second paragraph was a long-winded explanation of informed consent, but buried three quarters of the way through this paragraph, was a sentence suggesting that participants should not sign this consent form as its terms were clearly not in their best interests.
The consent form committed participants to giving electric shocks to other participants, said they would be forced to do push ups, and would be virtually imprisoned in the lab until they were allowed to leave.
How many students signed the paperwork?
Eighty-seven out of 91, or 95.6%.
And how long did the average student spend reading the form before they signed?
An average of 2 seconds.
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