And one more thing: If TDW wanted to amend the WebBroker agreement to include the Nasdaq agreement, they would have had to supply a notice to the effect of:
"Effective May 15th, 2001, if you don't sign the Nasdaq agreement, you won't have access to your online trading account." They would have to legally supply a copy of the Nasdaq agreement so that you could ponder it before the deadline.
TDW told me, "But, we posted a notice on the website that there was a Nasdaq agreement forthcoming?!"
Ah, but they didn't give me TIME to consider the agreement itself, they just posted it and simultaneously denied me access to my online account.
One legally has to have time to CONSIDER the ramifications of an agreement. That's what "Under Duress" means. It means that you don't feel compelled to sign the agreement, you have the necessary time to ponder its ramifications to you.
Even in marriage, the agreement can be easily nulled if the parties are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or if the parties didn't have sufficient time to ponder getting married. A lot of agreements call it a "cooling off period".
In addition, parties legally need time to seek a remedy to what might have an impact upon them. You can't be evicted from an apartment without notice, the Sherriff can't seize your assets without notice, and you can't be denied a service THAT YOU HAVE BEEN RECEIVING WITHOUT INTERRUPTION unless you are given notice. The exception to this might be where it can be proven that you were negligent in holding up your end of the bargain (say, if you had a margin account, TDW had "called" it, and you were refusing to pay up). Historical evidence can be used in court to show a "track record" of either good dealings or bad dealings.
Customers of TDW legally need time to seek other services elsewhere before they are denied service. They can't just be CUT OFF.
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