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Individual Client or Customer fining or charging a Company a penalty fee
What's the primary factor keeping a consumer from handing out fees as liberally as corporations or small businesses do? Power. Can an individual, or more appropriately, what keeps an individual from being able to charge, fine or penalize a Business? If it could be accomplished, but at a high cost, let's assume it's based on principal and not monetary gain. And have a legal entitlement to money back?  No.  You are of course welcome to send your doctor a letter stating that you would like $50 to make up for your two hour wait last time around, but there's no legal obligation for him to pay up, unless he signed a contract stating that he would do so. Corporations also cannot simply send you a fine or fee and expect you to pay it; you must have either agreed to pay it in the past, or now agree to pay it in exchange for something. In these cases, the corporations have the power: you have to agree to their rules to play ball.   However, consumers do have a significant power as well, in well-competed markets: the power to do business with someone else.  You don't like the restocking fee?  Buy from Amazon, which offers free shipping on returns.  You don't like paying a no-show fee from the doctor?  Find a doctor without one (or with a more forgiving fee), or with a low enough caseload that you don't have to make appointments early.  Your ability to fine them exists as your ability to not continue to patronize them. In some markets, though, consumers don't have a lot of power - for example, cable television (or other utilities). The FCC has a list of Customer Service Standards, which cable companies are required to meet, and many states have additional rules requiring penalties for missed or late appointments tougher than that.   And, in the case of the doctor, if your doctor is late - find one that is.  Or, try sending him a bill.  It does, apparently, work from time to time - particularly if the doctor wants to keep your business.