[Serious] Support the Arbitration Fairness Act today
There aren’t serious posts here all that often - and this is one of them. (If you want to go back to the funny stuff, click here.)
Today, when you sign up for most credit cards, cell phone plans, cable, a new built house- heck even when you agree to use some doctors for procedures (like my oral surgeon), you have to sign an agreement waiving your rights to sue them in court and instead use arbitration.
You’ll be told that arbitration is simply easier and less costly for everyone. A true win win.
And it’s true. It’s easier and less costly because you always lose. Can it get easier than that?
So please Burbed readers, take some time to read these links:
- The 10 most frequently used arbitrators decided against consumers 98.4% of the time. But typically, it’s only 62% of the time. Does this sound fair to you?
- Sometimes the company (like MBNA) refuse to show up to the hearings - yet they still win. Does this sound fair to you?
- Though Jodran Fogal is a 61-year-old conservative grandmother from Texas, she refused to cast any ballots for Republicans last election, due to their support of mandatory binding arbitration. That’s how mad she is. Read her sad sad tale about how her new house imploded, and how arbitration made things worse. (I loved the part about the builders laughing as they entered the hearing.)
Bottomline: Support the Arbitration Fairness Act today.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
We had a couple of clients who chose arbitration and it worked well for them. Basically I think when it comes to consumers I agree that the ‘big boys’ still have more power, however for smaller companies arbitration removes the need for very expensive legal action that can leave both parties losers - financially.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Ok - here’s the alternative. We keep going with class action suits, where a few lawyers represent thousands of clients. The attorneys get millions in fees while each client “wins” coupons or store credit or some other worthless compensation that most don’t claim anyway because they didn’t even know about the lawsuit in the first place.
August 29th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Nice use of a strawman there.
Go figure - it’s either class action lawsuits, or arbitration.
Is it that impossible that there are lawsuits that aren’t class action?
If my oral surgeon (who requires mandatory arbitration) ends up being negligent and I lose my jaw, would that really be a class action suit?
August 29th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Yeah . . . either class action lawsuits or binding arbitration, hmmmmm, and there’s no middle ground? Sounds like just more emotional-based Republican talking points designed to sway a non-critical public. The corporate intent is ALWAYS to deny access to courts and . . . OMG, juries! . . . to us commoners. Then all that’s left is their appointed judges or their pre-selected (and corporate paid) arbitrators.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:30 am
If you get an arbitration letter about a past due debt (like MBNA) you can send a letter refusing arbitration. You can find a sample letter are creditboards.com.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Spilled Beans…
Rut-roh, Wesley Clark spilled the beans on the white House’s effort to ‘mold’ the Middle East:
About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just …
August 30th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
In response to PHP Encoder: You are right. The “Big Boy” have the power. I worked as a secretary for a Union Local (United Steel Workers) in a rural Oklahoma town. We represented employees that work at ConocoPhillips and Continental Carbon. I can say that there were many arbitrations the Union won. However, there were also many times the company would refuse to live up to the decision. They would end up going to court asking that the decision be vacated. They had more money, and all the legal resources they needed to draw it out. In the mean time it was always the worker that suffered. The corporations know they have non-labor-friendly administration in place to help them screw us all.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:48 am
I am glad to find this forum !
http://srubibablo.com
Forgive that beside You was little ed!
June 4th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
[...] [...]