Interesting legal implications here. I'll throw my hat into the ring.
GetReal: Couldn't LostHiWay simply print out the confirmation/delivery mail, put his John Hancock on it, and fax it to Staples? That would provide the necessary signature on the necessary documentation, wouldn't it? The mail would have the agreed-upon price listed, as well as the ship date, and Staples' own records would verify such. Or, if Staples fails to maintain a record of transactions/confirmations/deliveries, wouldn't LHW's case be that much easier to prove with the aforementioned mail? If it's the legal signiature that's creating the discrepancy between digital and RL ordering, then simply signing and faxing a confirmation mail that both parties have matching copies of would close that gap.
However...
JZero:
<< If I can show a judge screen shots, e-mailed invoices, etc >>
The question is how does one prove that the digital evidence is real? Example: I could take a screenshot of any point in this thread, alter a person's reply to say that he/she fornicated with mutilated donkey carcasses, then change the date to read 1 year ago. How could you prove that it was fake, if the file itself claims not to've been saved or modified for a year? With your own screenshot, which would have today's date on it and therefore would be suspect of having been modified simply _because_ of the recent date on it?
We could turn to the ISPs involved for some sort of corroboration, but I highly doubt they keep records on every packet that goes through their routers, and if they did, finding the relevant ones might take months... or years.
The physical disks in the HDDs in each machine could be examined magnetically, to determine the true dates of save/alteration on each file. But that'd be prohibitively expensive, unless the settlement held the potential for several thousand, tens of thousands, or millions of dollars, such as if the person who's reply I altered sued me for defamation of character.
Proof is a hard thing to come by in a digital world, where anything and everything can be edited to nearly any extent.
That leaves only the parties involved in the dispute to provide evidence. Which takes us right back to LHW's problem. If Staples is unable, or refuses, to produce evidence that would bolster their case, such as the records I mentioned should be in Staples database, then LHW should have an easy victory on his/her hands. If Staples provides evidence suspect of having been doctored, again, the favor would fall on LHW. And if both parties provide the same evidence... LHW should, again, be the victor.
IOW, unless Staples can provide conclusive evidence that they informed LHW of the price change before shipping the product at the agreed-upon price, what they're doing amounts to CC fraud, that being charging a CC number without the owner's consent and/or awareness. Applying a retroactive price hike is blatantly illegal.
"Oh, by the way, we decided to increase our prices, and you now owe us $XXX for what we sold you/the services we performed last X."
No. It doesn't work that way, and I think even GetReal's legal expertise will agree with that. A contract is a contract, whether written, verbal, or digital. And, really, if this issue went so far as to be taken to a courtroom, no judge in the world would side with the vendor in this kind of dispute. If a judge set a precedence of allowing a vendor or company to apply retroactive price increases... who would buy anything? From anyone? The companies that conducted themselves that way would fold inside a year, _IF_ the entire nation didn't descend into anarchy first.
Hm... or maybe I've just had too much coffee today. *shrug*
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