A New Digital Handshake

Guest: Amy Schmitz, JD, Professor of Law, University of Missouri School of Law Has this ever happened to you? You spend $15 on a bottle of hair product online that turns out to be a knock off of the real thing. You can't find any contact info on the website to log your complaint, so after about 20 minutes of angry searching for a way to reach someone at the company, you drop it and vow to be smarter about buying stuff from random websites. Maybe you worked harder to get a refund because your purchase was worth more than $15. Still, it's a huge hassle. Where customer service is concerned, the web is still pretty much the Wild West and sellers count on you not having the time or resources to follow through on a complaint. But we may be at a tipping point. Online purchasing is so ubiquitous that customers and regulators are beginning to call for dispute resolution standards.