A Wisconsin woman has filed a lawsuit in New York state court against a shady online retailer, Accessory Outlet, which had threatened her by saying, “You are playing games with the wrong people” after she attempted to cancel an order for a $40 iPhone case that did not arrive on time. 
 
 The woman, Cindy Cox, is being represented by the advocacy group Public Citizen, which recently won summary judgment and damages of over $300,000 earlier this year in a related case in Utah involving the French parent company of KlearGear, a similarly unscrupulous vendor. She is seeking declaratory judgment that the company’s self-imposed “debt” of $250 is invalid and that the company engaged in deceptive practices. 
 
 “Accessory Outlet is using unfair terms hidden in fine print, along with threatening emails, to bully a customer into keeping quiet about her bad experience with the company,” Scott Michelman, the Public Citizen attorney handling the case, said in a statement. “But terms that prevent a customer from speaking publicly about her transaction and from contacting her credit card company are unreasonable and unenforceable.” 
 
 According to the civil complaint filed Wednesday, Cox is a disabled veteran of the United States Navy and is a substitute teacher for special needs children in the Kenosha Unified School District. 
 
 Accessory Outlet did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. 
 
 “You agree not to file any complaint…” 
 
 The story begins on July 6, 2014, when Cox placed an order for $39.94 for an iPhone case. In so doing, she accepted to be bound by “all terms and conditions contained in [the site's] agreement,” which describes a refund policy and a privacy policy, but not the actual Terms of Sale that the company posts in a hard-to-find link at the bottom of the site. 
 
 Those terms include this provision: 
 
 You agree not to file any complaint, chargeback, claim, dispute, or make any public forum post, review, Better Business Bureau complaint, social media post, or any public statement regarding the order, our website, or any issue regarding your order, for any reason, within this 90 day period, or to threaten to do so within the 90 day period, or it is a breach of the terms of sale, creating liability for damages in the amount of $250, plus any additional fees, damages - both consequential and incidental, calculated on an ongoing basis. 
 
 On July 10, Cox received an e-mail from Accessory Outlet saying that her order had shipped and provided her with a tracking number. When Cox went to check the tracking number online, she discovered that the package was not being processed via the United States Postal Service. 
 
 Six days later, Cox e-mailed the company, asking that the order be canceled as it had not been received. Accessory Outlet informed her that the order could not be refunded as it had already shipped. When she checked the tracking number a second time and saw that the item had still not shipped, she informed the company that she would tell her credit card company to reverse the payment. 
 
 “Contact your lawyer, spend more time and money if you wish.” 
 
 Accessory Outlet responded with rhetorical force, saying that it would impose its aforementioned $250 penalty and would employ a collections agency to get its money. According to the complaint, the firm told her that “this will put a negative mark on your credit for 7 years and will also result in calls to your home and/or work." 
 
 “Further," the company told her, "additional fees for any correspondence with your card insurer will also be billed to you on an hourly basis and a flat rate $50 for the dispute or claim.” 
 
 Cox, undeterred, told the company not to threaten her and said that she would be contacting a lawyer and the Better Business Bureau. 
 
 Accessory Outlet responded the next day, July 17: “Contact your lawyer, spend more time and money if you wish. You will be billed and the amount we will bill you for will continue to rise with every email and every second we dedicate to correspondence of any kind pertaining to your breach of the terms of sale. Thank you.” 
 
 Cox discussed the transaction with her credit card company, but she opted to not dispute the charge on the off-chance that the item would finally arrive. She then informed Accessory Outlet that she had done so, to which it replied: 
 
 There is clear proof it was sent and left NY and we will have proof of delivery. The collections action is separate and based solely on breach of contract and will be done even though you paid for and received the merchandise due to your breach of the terms of sale. Read the agreement or have someone competent do so for you since your emails make it clear you did not read the agreement or do not understand the clauses contained therein. You also obviously do not know how to use the tracking or are ignoring it. Either way you will pay us $250 on top of the order total or have continuous calls to your home, cell, and/or work phones to collect the debt due. You are playing games with the wrong people and have made a very bad mistake given the legally binding contract we have in place. One we have successfully enforced on many individuals the same we will do with you. 
 
 On July 19, Cox finally received her iPhone case, but “it was warped and would not snap closed.” ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Tony and Jan Jenkinson were charged £100 for describing the hotel as a "rotten stinking hovel" 
 
 A couple say they have been "fined" £100 by a Blackpool hotel for leaving critical comments on travel review website Trip Advisor. 
 
 Tony and Jan Jenkinson posted the negative comment after being unimpressed with the one night they spent at the Broadway Hotel. 
 
 The couple, from Whitehaven, later found £100 charged to their credit card. The hotel said its policy was to charge for "bad" reviews. 
 
 Trading Standards are investigating. 
 
 Officials believe the hotel may have breached unfair trading practice regulations. 
 
 The manager of the hotel, on Burlington Road West, was unavailable when contacted by the BBC. 
 
 'Freedom of speech?' 
 
 The hotel policy, contained in a booking document, reads: "Despite the fact that repeat customers and couples love our hotel, your friends and family may not. 
 
 "For every bad review left on any website, the group organiser will be charged a maximum £100 per review." 
 
 Mr and Mrs Jenkinson were on their way to visit family in Oxford when they decided to split up their journey. 
 
 Image caption The negative review was left on the Trip Advisor website 
 
 They said they only chose the hotel because it had a car park and paid £36 for the double room. 
 
 Retired van driver Mr Jenkinson, 63, said the details of the charge were in the booking documents, but his wife did not have her glasses on and signed it without reading the small print. 
 
 Mr Jenkinson said he intended to fight the charge, adding: "Annoyed isn't strong enough for how I feel about this, what happened to freedom of speech? 
 
 "Everybody we have spoken to says they (the hotel) are not allowed to do this." 
 
 John Greenbank, north trading standards area manager, said it was a "novel" way to prevent bad reviews. 
 
 'Get service right' 
 
 He said: "I have worked for trading standards for many years and have never seen anything like this. 
 
 "The hotel management clearly thinks they have come up with a novel way to prevent bad reviews, however we believe this could be deemed an unfair trading practice." 
 
 The couple have sought a refund via their credit card company. 
 
 Councillor John McCreesh, cabinet member for trading standards, said: "Customers need to be free to be honest about the service they're getting. 
 
 "Other customers depend upon it. Hotel owners should focus on getting their service right rather than shutting down aggrieved customers with threats and fines. 
 
 "People should have the right to vent their disappointment if a hotel stay did not meet their expectations and should not be prevented from having their say."
– You think fining people $500 for a crummy hotel review is bad? OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com will take $250 from your pocket if you even threaten to leave a less-than-stellar review. Customers "agree not to file any complaint, chargeback, claim, dispute, or make ... any public statement regarding the order," or threaten to do so, within a 90-day period after their order, or they'll be fined the $250 "plus any additional fees [and] damages," according to the site's terms of sale, spotted by Consumerist. That's right: Tell the website you'll post about a late order on Facebook—even if you don't actually do it—and you're out hundreds of dollars. One Wisconsin customer, however, is fighting the fine. Cindy Cox was fined after informing the retailer she'd be requesting a chargeback when an iPhone case she ordered didn't seem to have shipped after the retailer said it had. When she refused to pay the fine, the retailer sent it to a collections agency and allegedly informed her, "This will put a negative mark on your credit for seven years and will also result in calls to your home and/or work." The site allegedly added, per Ars Technica, "You are playing games with the wrong people." Cox wasn't deterred. She filed a suit, which notes the "terms are unenforceable, both because they are unconscionable as a matter of law and because [the plaintiff] never agreed to them." Consumerist adds that, as far as it can tell, at no point during the purchase process are the site's terms even mentioned. (Click to read about a customer who was fined $3,500 three years after complaining online about an order that never arrived.)