Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Revolt Spurred Via the Internet
sas-dot writes "UK's newspaper Independent outlines the brewing consumer revolt being fomented on the web. 'Consumer militancy' is becoming ever more common, as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business. Businesses from banks to soccer clubs have been the target of these groups, in each case facing the fury of consumers who feel they have been wronged. For example, 'A mass revolt has left the high street banks facing thousands of claims from customers seeking to claw back some of the £4.75bn levied annually on charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques. More than one million forms demanding refunds have been downloaded from a number of consumer websites. The banks are settling out of court, often paying £1,000 a time.' Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"
I'm actually surprised at the apathy shown towards the Bank of America fiasco of exploiting loopholes in the law to allow them to open accounts and credit cards for illegal aliens!!
I figured there would have been a much larger rush of people to move their accounts away from them.
I guess aiding and abetting law breakers just isn't enough to get the typical US citizen's ire up....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yes, yes they will. See the current bruhaha over Bank of America and their giving credit cards to illegal aliens as well as allowing unapproved documents to be used to open accounts.
Even, gasp!, Michelle Malkin is getting into scrum and accusing the Bush administration of ignoring and condoning the actions of Bank of America.
One need only do searches for things like "lawsuit Match.com" to see that (maybe) consumers will be getting the upper hand. Until businesses bribe, er, lobby, Congress to protect them that is.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
We are the people. Individually we are weak. Together we rule the world.
Those who oppress us cannot do so unless we help them. Those who go against our-selves rampant, shall suffer the only possible consequence.
As humanity learns to speak with one another, breaking down barriers of distance, language, and culture, the existing governmental powers are going to have a very interesting dillema on their hands. One people, one world, one government.
-GiH
The preceding has been your dose of political idealism for the day. Overdosiong on political idealism may lead to conspiracy theories, or dellusions of power. Use only as recomneded.
The banks have it coming, they really do. Unfortunately, when this happened to me, HTTP was brand new and only geeks used it, and I was still a student.
I had to pay a deposit to my landlord for a new place I was going to rent. Unfortunately, due to a foul up which was entirely my fault, this put me something like £1 overdrawn (a trivial amount in anyone's book). So the bank sent me a letter that they were going to charge me (IIRC) £25 for unarranged borrowing and a further £3 per day for each day overdrawn! Then they took the £25 out just before my first pay day, making me overdrawn AGAIN, causing them to charge me £25 again for unarranged borrowing as a direct consequence of them charging me for the previous problem! You'd think before they charged you they would check that the charge wouldn't cause you to go overdrawn again and be charged again.
Of course they refused to refund it. Natwest - bastards. They used to like also withdrawing the funds on a cheque written the day it hit the payee's bank, but not add the funds on a cheque you were paying in for 3 to 5 days.
If my current bank tries that trick, I will move my account elsewhere - including my mortgage. I'll make sure it ends up costing them more than it does me.
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yes, we should also put in some stronger laws that make it impossible to share music.
Also, we should put governors in all cars so they can't go over 65MPH.
Oh, and all computers should report to government agencies to help prevent crime.
Here's on for you:
In new Mexico there are farms the pay over 10 bucks an hour, and have benefits, and they can't find anyone to do the work. Picking is a very hard, and supprisingly skilled labor. Most peopel would rather take there 5 dollar an hour fast food job rather then pick.
It used to be, migrant workers came to the US, picked, got paid, took the money back home with them and the end of the season.
While here they would, of course, spend money.
remember, this is to do a job NO LOCAL CITIZEN WILL DO.
Of course, you could pay 100 dollars an hour, but all that will do is make it so everyone needs to get a 75% pay raise which would make 100 bucks not very valuable.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Honestly, this kind of networking is what has happened before as have mass runs on stores and banks of the type described. The only difference is in how the groups are organizing and the speed with which it is happening. And Amen I say. The public does not exist to serve the state or business. Those fat bastards exist to serve us!