Congress Investigates Carriers' Debt Collections

Julie188 writes "'Tis the season for the government to crack down on abusive practices by your secretly evil national wireless carrier. Next up: a congressional committee will be looking into a debt collection practice that prevents customers from filing lawsuits. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) will be examining a contract clause that forces customers to waive their right to sue and instead agree to forced arbitration. He is hot on the tails of the carriers after a similar investigation of credit card companies lead to nine banks removing the forced arbitration clause from their contracts. This follows the week's earlier news that the FCC was going to try to come up with new rules to prevent wireless bill shock."

Comments

If you need an honest man

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I think Dennis Kucinich is someone that can be trusted to look after the people instead of pandering to business.

Re:If you need an honest man

[dkleinsc]

He's no communist, and he's definitely not a kook. He's my congressman, and I've spoken with him at several public events. The thing is, he has throughout his career taken stands that upset the rich and powerful, so they often do their best to portray him as a kook.

For instance, the most famous episode from early in his political career (as mayor of Cleveland) was refusing to sell Cleveland's municipal power company to the private company that controls most of Ohio's electricity market. The electric company's pals at the banks then threatened the city with default rather than rolling over the debt as they had been doing for decades. Dennis stood his ground, the banks made good on their threat, and Kucinich lost his reelection bid. But in the long run he saved residents and businesses in Cleveland millions of dollars in electric bills.

His more recent exploits include:
  * Refusing to support the Patriot Act.
  * Refusing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He consistantly votes against appropriations for those wars, and has been doing so since before they started.
  * Introducing articles of impeachment against both George W Bush and Dick Cheney.
  * Acting as one of the leaders of the backbencher holdouts for a public option in the health care reform bill. Unfortunately, Obama was able to convince him that HCR without a public option was better than no HCR, so he eventually voted for it.

The Democratic leadership doesn't give a damn what he does, though, because he's not good at getting oodles of lobbyist dollars (gee, I wonder why). So when he was running for President in 2008, the questions he got during debates were about whether he'd seen a UFO, not about his plans for reforming health care without mandating that everyone buy insurance.

Hmm this word you keep using...

[jeffmeden]

Tis the season for the government to crack down on abusive practices by your secretly evil national wireless carrier

That is the worst kept secret EVER. They are all evil, every last one of them, and if you don't know this by now then you must not have ever had a cellphone before.

Just ban "forced arbitration"

[jonwil]

They should ban forced arbitration clauses in any one-sided contract including credit cards, telecommunications service, cable service and utility service.

Re:Just ban "forced arbitration"

[TheGratefulNet]

and employment contracts!

those are even worse and we all have a lot more to lose on those.

want to work for another company? is it related to what you do now? there is probably a 'no compete' clause that is actually illegal in your state and yet still prominently listed in your contract.

cell phones affect 'the masses' and the worst that happens is you lose your phone and get upset. its a problem but its not 'americas biggest problem' right now. not saying employment is, either, but its FAR more life damaging if your company wants to put the screws to you than some stupid cell phone toy gadget. you NEED your job (or a job) to live. no one NEEDS cellphones, those are toys for the rich (even though every single commercial tries to convince you that 'everyone needs a cellphone'). I lived decades and decades without carry a portable phone. its NOT needed!

but jobs, those are needed.

forced arb. in employment contracts are far more evil an than any cellphone co.

and nothing is being done about the state of employment contracts.

arbitration is evil but why is congress only attacking the cellphone part of the problem?

Arbitration == Corporate Justice

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Arbitration is essentially a system of parallel, private courts run by corporations, for corporations and for the express purpose of denying justice and avoiding the laws of the land. It's an absolutely corrupt system and should not be allowed to exist in any form whatsoever. Allowing seemingly innocuous instances of this practice has lead to private companies forcing rape victims to give up their rights. Corporation employees can abuse people in any way they please and can rely on their own private courts to avoid any reprecussions. Judges support this creeping privatisation of the judiciary as they are rewarded with handsome salaries as the private magistrates of these twisted courts.

Around the time of the Jamie Leigh Jones rape arbitration scandal, I remember speaking with someone in management about arbitration--I live in Ireland. He claimed that the trend in business--magazines, conferences and so on--was pushing arbitration heavily. As the "modern" way of doing business. The conversation sent a chill down my spine. The laws of my country and the people in it were being put in dire jeopardy, our legal protections being replaced right under our noses by this latest innovation in American savagery. At least I live in the EU; I can only imagine what must be occurring in Latin America or indeed the US itself.

Arbitration is lawlessness. It is rule by the powerful over the weak. It's not even a form of order, as arbitration courts have no strict rules, no obligation to consider precedent, no means of appeal, and are not even obliged to publish their rulings, let alone have an open court. The North Koreans have a more enlightened legal system--and again that is not hyperbole. Any society that accepts the rule of such courts has abandoned all pretence of justice and equality and has turned the clock back a thousand years before even the Magna Carta. And no other society should follow them down the path to ruin.

Re:Arbitration == Corporate Justice

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

And, you fail to point out, it is *completely voluntary*.

So is any con game. Victims are willingly tricked into deals designed to hurt them. But that's not enough to make it legal, let alone ethical.