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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/plogan56 on 2024-10-12 18:21:15+00:00.
Ok for context, my cousin goes to this private school that gives out these laptops at the beginning of the school year, these laptops hold the vast majority of their schoolwork and as such have custom software to limit their usage to said schoolwork; because of all these factors, everyone who received one was instructed to pay a $200 security deposit that would not be returned if they damaged/lost theirs.
Onto the story, when the end of their school year came closer and people started returning their laptops, the school started claiming BS damages on the laptops and kept the deposits. Obviously, this didn't sit well with alot of the students and parents who knew good and well there was no damage to speak of and so they began to claim they simply "lost" them and let the school keep the deposit since they weren't getting it back in the first place. As more and more students did this, my cousin included, the school went full dictator mode and claimed to prevent students from grafuatiing if they did not return their laptops, which again went against the signed agreement/contract, and whoo-boy did that set off the powder keg.
Several parents got their lawyaers and filed a case aginst the school for breach of contract and even the media got involved covering the corrupt school's policy, students refused to attend the class for the final weeks, parents were protesting in front of the school lawn, even some faculty and staff quit it was a whole thing.
In the end my cousin told me it ended up settled out of court because they couldn't take the bad PR anymore and part of it was the return of the deposit for the laptop's return; however, she wasn't giving hers back and asked me to jailbreak the software so it worked like a normal one and i did(mostly just had to save her personal data then wipe the software from it).
Ik some of you will comment "it's just $200 dollars, they didn't need lawyers if they were already paying for private school anyway" and to you i say would you be okay being blatantly cheated out of extra money when you're already paying for a service? Because seriously, what did they expect to happen, that's several thousands of dollars spread out among several students(idk the exact number maybe 300) of course they wouldn't just sit back and let you cheat them.