It makes me think of Nura, a young Australian company that sells the Nuraphone, a pair of headphones that calibrate the shape of the sound by measuring how well you ear the frequency spectrum. They use a microphone designed for measuring stuffs on distant planets to gather data about your ear canal then (i suppose) send this data to be processed on their server by a machine learning algorithm (I suppose). I'm fine with that.

But what's truly awful is when they deactivated my headphones remotely. Why would they implement such a thing ? Because they have recently launched a plan were you can rent the headphones and replace them with newer versions of their products. So this explains why this feature was implemented in the first place.

However what happened to me is that I bought my pair from eBay one year before this renting plant was launched. The product was sold on kickstarter for 1/4th of the price, so I just thought someone was trying to make some profit with a price 20$ dollars lower than Nura's post-kickstarter price to give people an incentive to buy it. Of course it was stolen.

It was stolen by buying it with a stolen bank card's info. This was made possible because Nura had not implemented payment securities such as 3DS on their website (you receive a confirmation code via text on your phone). I'm not sure this applies in this case (since 3DS was not activated), but when such a thing applies, because the vendor has signed agreements with the electronic payment provider, which in turn is tied in the same way to the bank, the bank withdraw funds from the payment provider and the payment provider asks the vendor to reimburse the funds: in other words a theft of banking info on the customer side is turned into a theft of goods on the vendor side by banking agreements.

I suppose Nura has been heavily impacted by such thefts, but I don't see what they gain by disabling these stolen headphones. It's pure retaliation that brings them nothing except the legitimate anger of those who have already bought the product from the thiefs. On my side I'm pretty upset about this whole case becasue 1°) my job is to ensure 3DS is activated on web payment (among other things), 2°) it's written black on white in all Australian state-provided information about selling products on the web I could put my hands on: small and new shops that sell high-tech high-value products are the number one target of such scams and they should enable payment protections like 3DS.

Also their terms are really shady in that they link their terms of sale (which I never agreed to) to their terms of use:

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Fraud prevention extends to the use of nura Services, Products and nura accounts and if they are subject to suspected fraudulent activity, nura reserves the right to make contact using details provided, and lock both nura accounts and hardware.
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And just look at these beauties from their terms of use:

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7. USER PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES

You agree that you will abide by these Terms, and will not :
[...]
• sell, copy, modify, distribute, display, transmit, publish, create derivative works from, or otherwise make unauthorized use of nura content, materials or Services.
[...]


9. TERMINATION

We reserve the right, without notice and in our sole discretion, to suspend, limit, withdraw or terminate your right to access or use our Services for any reasons which includes but is not limited to any breach by you of these terms of use, or for any security, technical, maintenance, legal, operational or regulatory reasons . Subject to Your Consumer Rights described in section 10, we are not responsible for any loss or harm related to your inability to access or use our  Services. If you wish to terminate your nura account, please contact us at [email protected] . All rights granted by you in favor of us will survive termination of these terms of use.
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And this appeared in the terms of use, just after they decided to block my device (as well as any "stolen" device I suppose).

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17. DISPUTE RESOLUTION; BINDING ARBITRATION
[...]
Agreement to Arbitrate Disputes. Any claim, dispute or controversy of any kind, regardless of the type of claim or legal theory or remedy (“Claim”) by either you or us against the other arising from, relating to or in any way concerning the Terms or the Services will, at the demand of either party, be resolved by confidential binding arbitration. This agreement to arbitrate also includes: (i) Claims relating to the enforceability or interpretation of any of these arbitration provisions; (ii) Claims by you, and also Claims made on your behalf or connected with you, such as an employee, representative, agent, predecessor, successor, heir, assignee, or trustee in bankruptcy; (iii) Claims that relate directly to us, and/or to our parent, affiliates, successors, assignees, employees, and agents; and (iv) Claims asserted as part of a class action, private attorney general or other representative action, it being expressly understood and agreed to that the arbitration of such claims must proceed on an individual (non-class and non-representative) basis and the arbitrator may award relief only on an individual (non-class and non-representative) basis. YOU AND WE AGREE THAT NO CLASS ACTION, CONSOLIDATED ACTION, PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL OR OTHER REPRESENTATIVE CLAIMS MAY BE PURSUED IN ARBITRATION, NOR MAY SUCH ACTIONS BE PURSUED IN COURT. BY ACCEPTING THESE TERMS, YOU AGREE TO WAIVE THE RIGHT TO INITIATE OR PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION, REPRESENTATIVE ACTION, PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ACTION OR CONSOLIDATED ARBITRATION IN ANY MATTER ENCOMPASSED BY THIS ARBITRATION PROVISION.
[...]
WAIVER OF JURY TRIAL. IF FOR ANY REASON A CLAIM PROCEEDS IN COURT RATHER THAN THROUGH ARBITRATION, YOU AND WE AGREE THAT THERE WILL NOT BE A JURY TRIAL. YOU AND WE UNCONDITIONALLY WAIVE ANY RIGHT TO TRIAL BY JURY IN ANY DISPUTE THAT IN ANY WAY RELATES TO OR ARISES OUT OF THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICES. IN THE EVENT OF LITIGATION, THIS PARAGRAPH MAY BE FILED TO SHOW A WRITTEN CONSENT TO A TRIAL BY THE COURT. This paragraph in no way invalidates the agreement to arbitrate disputes.
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