Consumer Confidential: Government May Soon Begin Putting an End to Forced Arbitration Clauses
If you’ve got a credit card, you’ve been forced to kiss away your constitutional right to sue the card issuer. But it’s looking increasingly likely that this is about to change. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is examining so-called arbitration clauses in terms and conditions for financial products. Earlier the month, the head of the bureau, Richard Cordray, sent the strongest signal yet that the regulatory whip soon will...
Consumer Confidential: Supreme Court’s Arbitration Ruling Is Another Blow to Consumer Rights
The U.S. Supreme Court made it clear earlier this month that, regardless of what the Constitution says about a consumer’s right to sue, businesses are absolutely entitled to block people from banding together and taking a dispute to court. It was the court’s latest ruling in favor of arbitration, rather than class-action lawsuits, as a preferred method for resolving issues between companies and their customers — which is exactly how...
Consumer Confidential: Credit Card Issuers Shouldn’t Bully Customers Into Arbitration Clauses
Credit card companies say you can’t sue them and you can’t join other customers in suing them, and if you don’t like it, tough. Federal regulators finally have reached the obvious conclusion: That’s not fair. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released a study showing that so-called arbitration clauses in credit card service contracts frequently prevent consumers from having a grievance adequately addressed. “These...
