Archive for the ‘Mandatory Binding Arbitration Sucks’ Category

Brad Perri is a Minnesota bankruptcy lawyer who will be guest blogging at Caveat Emptor from September 29th through October 10th.
Welcome to another installment in Profiles in Bankruptcy!
Today’s vignette finds us in a grocery store on the prairie where a young man has invested himself in becoming a grocer.
Unfortunately, this young man doesn’t quite have [...]

The Olympus TP-7 Telephone Recording Device (clever name, eh?) is probably the easiest way to record phone calls (from an abusive debt collector, for example) that I have seen. You stick it in your ear, plug it into a recorder, hold your phone normally up against your ear with the earbud in it, and it [...]

Some of the “tricks and traps” in AFFIL’s Common Credit Cards Tricks and Traps (PDF link) are impossible to avoid. Or nearly so at least. I can’t think of a credit card agreement that does not include a mandatory binding arbitration clause, for example.
But some cards are better than others. When you are looking for [...]

More on how arbitration screws consumers from Elizabeth Warren. Have You Already Lost? | TPMCafé

“The business of resolving credit-card disputes is booming. But critics say the dominant firm favors creditors that are trying to collect from unsophisticated debtors” Banks vs. Consumers (Guess Who Wins) [BusinessWeek]

Last week was quite a week for arbitration. Here was all the arbitration news that popped up here on Caveat Emptor:

Mandatory binding arbitration sucks (say 81% of Americans). Taking a look at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce study on mandatory binding arbitration.
National Arbitration Forum thinks courts should just rubber stamp arbitration awards. NAF on getting [...]

Maybe the tide is starting to change. ABC News’ Good Morning America show’s piece on what a scam mandatory arbitration is for credit cards is great.
Among its highlights are a women who was harassed and sued for some one else’s debt, and a judge who was black balled for deciding in the consumer’s favor once. [...]

ABC News did a great piece on debt collection, arbitration, and especially the National Arbitration Forum, where consumers in California lose 99% of the time. A former NAF arbitrator says on camera that she was forced to quit for ruling in favor of a consumer one time. Stick around for the great commentary at the [...]

National Arbitration Forum basically offers a rubber stamp to debt collectors already, and they argue that courts should turn their awards into court judgments without looking too closely.
Are courts unreasonably tossing out arbitration awards? Nope. NAF is just advocating for its clients, the debt collectors, who have no proof of the debts on which they [...]

81% of Americans polled in a recent study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce disapproved of mandatory binding arbitration. This is the corporation-friendly, tie-your-hands arbitration that is written into most of the consumer contracts we sign every day for credit cards, cell phones, etc.
So maybe it is time for Congress to get going and [...]

I learned a curious fact in the course of an arbitration proceeding with the National Arbitration Forum. Once either party obtains a stay of the arbitration, the opposing party has 15 days to file an objection. After that 15 days is up, apparently only the party that requested the stay can lift it.
In other words, [...]

We have not mentioned the Arbitration Fairness Act in some time, but the AFA is still pending before Congress, and Big Business is still trying to stop it.
What is the issue? Mandatory binding arbitration. Nobody thinks arbitration is a problem when two parties agree to it. The problem is that many businesses (your credit card [...]

The NYTimes has a piece on the 5th Annual Conference of the American Securitization Forum held in Las Vegas. These are the guys who played a major role in bring us the current foreclosure mess. Well while the rest of the country and the world for that matter mucks its way out of the mess [...]

Mother Jones has a great piece on trying to buy a car without an mandatory arbitration clause. It can’t be done from a dealer, which means no new cars.
Try the same thing with cell phones. I asked at Sprint, they said no. (I couldn’t shop around as my wife’s employer will basically only support a [...]

According to Consumerist, Comcast is now making it easy for customers to opt out of mandatory binding arbitration. This is great news, and a consumer-friendly move from Comcast, which lately is best known for throttling its customers’ bandwidth.
I am a Comcast customer (somewhat by necessity), and completed the online form in roughly five seconds. Click [...]