Posts tagged as:

arbitration

Arbitration reform cannot come soon enough

June 16, 2009

In case you missed it, NPR has a really great story on why we need arbitration reform.
The piece starts out with the story of Jamie Leigh Jones a 20-year-old Halliburton/KBR employee in 2005, who was in Iraq for only four days before she was brutally gang raped by fellow employees. No criminal action was ever [...]

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Forced Arbitration: You Can’t Sue Us For Discrimination

April 30, 2009

Why you should support the Arbitration Fairness Act. Forced Arbitration: You Can’t Sue Us For Discrimination | Consumerist

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Today Is Arbitration Fairness Day!

April 29, 2009

Call your representatives and tell them mandatory binding arbitration sucks! Today Is Arbitration Fairness Day! | Consumer Law & Policy Blog

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Mandatory Binding Arbitration: The Worst Choose Your Own Adventure Ever

February 10, 2009

This is one of the best-executed blog posts, ever, about arbitration or anything else. Mandatory Binding Arbitration: The Worst Choose Your Own Adventure Ever | Consumerist

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Minnesota courts to stop handling debt collection lawsuits?

January 15, 2009

Possibly, along with other “low-importance” cases like shoplifting, traffic violations, trespassing, and small claims, if the legislature delivers the 10% cut to court funding that it has suggested it will. Minnesota courts have been short-staffed and under-funded for years, and further cuts could mean that the judicial system starts to shut down some services.
While I [...]

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More on how arbitration screws consumers from Elizabeth Warren

June 11, 2008

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

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Banks vs. Consumers (Guess Who Wins)

June 7, 2008

“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]

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Arbitration news roundup

June 5, 2008

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 [...]

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ABC News: National Arbitration Forum is selling justice

May 29, 2008

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. [...]

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Consumers in California lose 99% of the time

May 29, 2008

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 [...]

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National Arbitration Forum thinks courts should just rubber stamp arbitration awards

May 29, 2008

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 [...]

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Mandatory binding arbitration sucks (say 81% of Americans)

May 27, 2008

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 [...]

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Credit card arbitration: banks are conspiring against you

May 1, 2008

That the major credit card issuing banks are conspiring against consumers to force them into mandatory arbitration should come as no surprise to anybody. Why wouldn’t they force people into a system so stacked in favor of the credit card companies that the companies win all but 0.16% of the time. (For the math [...]

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce fudges the issue on arbitration

April 6, 2008

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 [...]

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Arbitration clauses: no car without one.

February 4, 2008

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 [...]

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HSBC will not give you their credit card agreement until after you apply for the card

November 25, 2007

I called HSBC Bank this evening because I wanted to see a copy of their credit card agreement. I said I was interested in applying for a credit card, but I would like to see a copy of the credit card agreement before I applied. They told me I could not have a copy of [...]

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Arbitration fairness: “Party at Ralph’s” vs. “Party at Joan’s”

November 17, 2007

Noam Chomsky used to recommend the Wall Street Journal because, he said, business readers couldn’t afford biased news and commentary. No more, it seems. The recent WSJ editorial “Party at Ralph’s” (PDF link) contains little but inaccurate, biased garbage.
I was there, “standing up for the little guy by sipping cabernet at a Dupont Circle manse [...]

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Off to D.C. for the NCLC 2007 Conference

November 6, 2007

I will be in Washington, D.C., for the National Consumer Law Center 2007 Conference from tomorrow afternoon through the weekend. If my posting frequency falls off, that’s why. But I will try to keep the posts coming, especially about topics that come up at the conference.

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Arbitration hearings roundup

October 28, 2007

Last Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law held its second hearing on H.R. 3010 (PDF link), Rep. Hank Johnson’s Arbitration Fairness Act. A number of consumer blogs have posted reactions. Rather rehash them all, here are links to some of the best content:

Paul Bland at CL&P Blog gives a fairly [...]

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Mandatory vs. elective arbitration

October 17, 2007

National Arbitration Forum recently posted a news item from Twin Cities Business Magazine to its blog in which several lawyers made glowing recommendations of arbitration. Readers should make a careful distinction between elective arbitration–where two parties decide to arbitrate rather than litigate a dispute–and mandatory arbitration, where one or both parties has no choice but [...]

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