This U.S. Regulator Wants to End Mandatory Arbitration for Consumers

[jpak]

Source: Fortune

A U.S. consumer watchdog on Thursday proposed new rules to block credit card companies, banks, and other companies from forcing customers to waive their rights to join class action lawsuits and only settle disputes through arbitration.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed barring financial firms from including fine print in contracts that mandates arbitration in the event of a dispute over products ranging from checking accounts to credit cards. The agency said the clauses prevent consumers who have been wronged from receiving justice and compensation through the courts.

U.S. businesses are expected to oppose the proposal and sue if it becomes final. They say arbitration is more efficient and helps avoid costly litigation, which they said rarely benefits the people filing suit.

“Signing up for a credit card or opening a bank account can often mean signing away your right to take the company to court if things go wrong,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray in a statement, adding “many banks and financial companies avoid accountability.”

<more>

Read more: http://fortune.com/2016/05/05/consumers-mandatory-arbitration/

[rpannier]

1. Rarely benefits the people filing the suit

Yeah...
That's their concern
I'm reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal sure

[safeinOhio]

2. I want to exercise my

7th Amendment rights.

[meow2u3]

4. Same here

Someone needs to challenge this consumer mandatory arbitration to court on the grounds that it violates consumers' 1st Amendment right to sue--in court--and their 7th Amendment right to a trial by jury in such lawsuits. IANAL, but I think mandatory binding arbitration clauses that affect consumers is in-your-face unconstitutional, unless such business that impose them have greased the palms of RW judges and Justices.

[strategery blunder]

11. The SCOTUS has willfully and knowingly abrogated the 7th amendment.

The AT&T and Amex class action cases being the two most well-known examples. Those two cases in combination rendered the 7th Amendment utterly toothless.

Granted both cases were decided when Scalia was still corrupting the court, so there may yet be a good test case to revisit those misbegotten "decisions."

[mwooldri]

3. They want to sue? Sure...

... let's go to mandatory binding (and final) arbitration first. After all if it is so good why not settle the dispute that way?

[Snarkoleptic]

5. But court is soooo unpleasant and corporations are tender little fellas.

n/t

[bemildred]

6. Good, it's a dishonest corporate racket. nt

[lonestarnot]

7. Pencilers penciling people out of everything they can pencil.

[Gormy Cuss]

8. Good. Mandatory arbitration clauses benefit companies at the cost to consumers.

Voluntary arbitration, fine. Being responsive to valid consumer complaints thus avoiding law suits, even better for consumers.

[beardown]

9. Just add law that says consumer gets to pick arbitrator.

Goose, gander, cooked.

[Redness]

10. Who Watches the Watchdog?

Let's not be selectively cynical. Business is always going to pretend arbitrators are impartial and exaggerate court costs, but it's not as if lawyers are saints. They constitute a special interest in their own right, and they do indeed capture a huge chunk of the settlement as a result of their ability to navigate the needlessly complex and esoteric legal system. It's inconceivable that that doesn't increase prices.

[Vincardog]

12. Start by taking it out of TTP

[House of Roberts]

13. If a corporation can mandate arbitration

without fearing loss of your business, they have too much of a monopoly.

[Odin2005]

14. I keep seeing ads attacking the CFPB as "corrupt" sponsored by Dem Congresswoman...

...Heidi Heitkamp (DINO-ND). I wonder how much money the banksters are paying her to go after the CFPB.

[Ilsa]

15. My understanding is that the republicans are

going after the leadership format of thse CFPB, claiming the director isn't accountable (but is, but only to the president), so they (GOP) can replace directorship with a Board of banking cronies.

Another tactic is they are beginning a claim that the CFPB has access to personal identifying credit information and may not be safeguarding it properly.

They'll use whatever they can to take control of this agency so they cab weaken it.