rant ive been seeing this more and more lately

Rant:

I’ve been seeing this more and more lately: misuse of the phrase ‘reserve the right’.

It means that you’re choosing to exercise a right which you already had, which is presumably not necessary to even notify the other party of–because it is your right. This is not the case in the above; nowhere in law does it say that a retailer has the right to charge me $5.00 basically whenever they feel like it.

What they can do is specify the terms of sale beforehand, which the customer is free to accept or reject. Again, it is not a right of the vendor to charge whatever they feel like whenever they want for whatever they want; these are terms that both parties must find mutually agreeable before proceeding.

This may seem like a trivial distinction, but it speaks volumes about their corporate culture. It was so irritatingly pretentious to me that I decided not to complete the transaction. As if I really need one more reason not to give patronage to that awful corporation.