Nickled and Dimed to Death

Everyday Americans are about to be nickled and dimed to death, and no one seems to care.

Would you mind if AT&T over-charged you by $1.75 every month on your cell phone bill?

Or if your cable provider added an unidentified fee of $3.00 to every cable subscriber's bill without telling you?

How about if your employer started secretly deducting $5 bucks out of every Alabama fan's paycheck, just because your boss is an Auburn fan?

Or how about if your mortgage company or credit card issuer adds an extra day of interest to your debt every year?

Guess what? It doesn't matter if you mind or not, because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that your best weapon against corporate thievery like that - a class action - can be taken away from you in the fine print of every contract you sign, so long as it hides behind the skirt of an arbitration clause.

Is the Better Business Bureau Operating a Pay to Play Scam?

I recently handled an arbitration for a homeowner who was horribly mistreated by a local service company. As a result of their mishandling the cleaning of her house after a water leak in her kitchen, all of the flooring and drywall in the home had to be replaced. The company refused to pay for the damage they caused, so we filed a claim with the Better Business Bureau ("BBB") to arbitrate the dispute, just as her contract with the company required.

The good news? The arbitration was free. The bad news? The arbitration resulted in her getting only a fraction of her damages paid by this company. I guess you get what you pay for.

In fact, that seems to be the way the BBB does business these days, according to this disturbing report from ABC News.

Would You Like a Class Action Ban With That Arbitration Clause?

Next Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in a very dangerous case for consumers: AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. If a majority of the Supremes accept AT&T's argument, consumer class actions may be effectively wiped out as a way to combat corporate deception against individuals.

A decision in favor of AT&T would be as damaging to the rights of individual Americans as if the Court upheld a ban on individual ownership of guns. For all the folks who believe that individual gun ownership is an essential protection against an out of control government, know that the class action mechanism is an equally essential protection against the tyranny of an out of control corporate oligarchy. Without it, consumers and employees simply have no weapons with which to fight back.

Your job or your rights.

Paul Bland, one of the real warriors in the ongoing battle against the forces that are trying to eliminate the equalizing effects of the 7th Amendment's right to trial by jury by sending every dispute to arbitration, is once again sounding an alarm regarding the force-feeding of arbitration clauses to employees. Bland, a Staff Attorney with Public Justice (formerly Trial Lawyers for Public Justice), writes about trading your constitutional rights for a job on Today's Workplace, a blog with a worker-friendly perspective. In the post, he makes a beautiful point (one among many, actually) about the Hobson's choice facing many employees who are told they can either give up their right to have disputes with their employer heard in court by a jury, or give up their job. Bland writes: