A Wisconsin woman has filed a lawsuit in New York state court against a shady online retailer, Accessory Outlet , which had threatened her by saying, “You are playing games with the wrong people” after she attempted to cancel an order for a $40 iPhone case that did not arrive on time.

The woman, Cindy Cox, is being represented by the advocacy group Public Citizen, which recently won summary judgment and damages of over $300,000 earlier this year in a related case in Utah involving the French parent company of KlearGear, a similarly unscrupulous vendor. She is seeking declaratory judgment that the company’s self-imposed “debt” of $250 is invalid and that the company engaged in deceptive practices.

“Accessory Outlet is using unfair terms hidden in fine print, along with threatening emails, to bully a customer into keeping quiet about her bad experience with the company,” Scott Michelman, the Public Citizen attorney handling the case, said in a statement. “But terms that prevent a customer from speaking publicly about her transaction and from contacting her credit card company are unreasonable and unenforceable.”

According to the civil complaint filed Wednesday, Cox is a disabled veteran of the United States Navy and is a substitute teacher for special needs children in the Kenosha Unified School District.

Accessory Outlet did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

“You agree not to file any complaint…”

The story begins on July 6, 2014, when Cox placed an order for $39.94 for an iPhone case. In so doing, she accepted to be bound by “all terms and conditions contained in [the site's] agreement,” which describes a refund policy and a privacy policy, but not the actual Terms of Sale that the company posts in a hard-to-find link at the bottom of the site.

Those terms include this provision:

You agree not to file any complaint, chargeback, claim, dispute, or make any public forum post, review, Better Business Bureau complaint, social media post, or any public statement regarding the order, our website, or any issue regarding your order, for any reason, within this 90 day period, or to threaten to do so within the 90 day period, or it is a breach of the terms of sale, creating liability for damages in the amount of $250, plus any additional fees, damages - both consequential and incidental, calculated on an ongoing basis.

On July 10, Cox received an e-mail from Accessory Outlet saying that her order had shipped and provided her with a tracking number. When Cox went to check the tracking number online, she discovered that the package was not being processed via the United States Postal Service.

Six days later, Cox e-mailed the company, asking that the order be canceled as it had not been received. Accessory Outlet informed her that the order could not be refunded as it had already shipped. When she checked the tracking number a second time and saw that the item had still not shipped, she informed the company that she would tell her credit card company to reverse the payment.

“Contact your lawyer, spend more time and money if you wish.”

Accessory Outlet responded with rhetorical force, saying that it would impose its aforementioned $250 penalty and would employ a collections agency to get its money. According to the complaint, the firm told her that “this will put a negative mark on your credit for 7 years and will also result in calls to your home and/or work."

“Further," the company told her, "additional fees for any correspondence with your card insurer will also be billed to you on an hourly basis and a flat rate $50 for the dispute or claim.”

Cox, undeterred, told the company not to threaten her and said that she would be contacting a lawyer and the Better Business Bureau.

Accessory Outlet responded the next day, July 17: “Contact your lawyer, spend more time and money if you wish. You will be billed and the amount we will bill you for will continue to rise with every email and every second we dedicate to correspondence of any kind pertaining to your breach of the terms of sale. Thank you.”

Cox discussed the transaction with her credit card company, but she opted to not dispute the charge on the off-chance that the item would finally arrive. She then informed Accessory Outlet that she had done so, to which it replied:

There is clear proof it was sent and left NY and we will have proof of delivery. The collections action is separate and based solely on breach of contract and will be done even though you paid for and received the merchandise due to your breach of the terms of sale. Read the agreement or have someone competent do so for you since your emails make it clear you did not read the agreement or do not understand the clauses contained therein. You also obviously do not know how to use the tracking or are ignoring it. Either way you will pay us $250 on top of the order total or have continuous calls to your home, cell, and/or work phones to collect the debt due. You are playing games with the wrong people and have made a very bad mistake given the legally binding contract we have in place. One we have successfully enforced on many individuals the same we will do with you.

On July 19, Cox finally received her iPhone case, but “it was warped and would not snap closed.”