Overheard a sales call at Denny's that made me rethink our vendor contracts
I was grabbing breakfast after my night shift at a Denny's near the hospital last Thursday and I couldn't help but overhear two guys talking at the next booth. One of them was pitching some kind of B2B software subscription, and he straight up said to the other guy, "Look, just lock them into a 3 year term, the cancellation clause is buried on page 17 and nobody reads that far." I nearly choked on my coffee. It got me thinking about how many of my own service contracts probably have that same kind of hidden trap baked in. I went back to my office and pulled out our vendor agreements from three different providers we use for janitorial and IT support. Sure enough, two of them had early termination fees that would cost us almost $1,200 each if we tried to get out before the 2 year mark. Has anyone else gone through their service contracts and found nasty surprises like that? I want to know what red flags I should look for before I sign anything else.