Legal
Five clauses to read before signing any contract
Most consumer contracts are long and most of the risk sits in a small, predictable set of places.
Term and termination comes first: how long it runs, whether it renews by itself, how much notice cancelling needs, and what cancelling costs. Automatic renewal with a narrow cancellation window is the most common unpleasant surprise in consumer agreements.
Then the full price. Not the advertised figure but every fee the agreement permits — setup, monthly, late, early termination — and whether any of them can be changed during the term and on what notice.
Third, dispute resolution. Many agreements require arbitration rather than court and waive the right to join a class action. That is lawful in most consumer contracts and it meaningfully changes what you can do if things go wrong, so it is worth knowing before rather than after.
Fourth, what happens on default, including whether the other side can accelerate the whole balance. Fifth, which state's law governs and where disputes must be heard; a clause putting that somewhere distant is a real cost even when every other term is fair.
What to do next. Read those five clauses before anything else, and ask for the change in writing if one of them is unacceptable.
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