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AT&T Uses Forced Arbitration To Overcharge Customers, Senators Say (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Five Democratic US senators allege that AT&T's use of forced arbitration clauses has helped the company charge higher prices than the ones it advertises to customers. The senators pointed to a CBS News investigation that described "more than 4,000 complaints against AT&T and [subsidiary] DirecTV related to deals, promotions and overcharging in the past two years." But customers have little recourse because they are forced to settle disputes with AT&T in arbitration, according to Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Edward Markey (D-Mass.). "Forced arbitration provisions in telecommunications contracts erode Americans' ability to seek justice in the courts by forcing them into a privatized system that is inherently biased in favor of providers and which offers virtually no way to challenge a biased outcome," the senators wrote in a letter yesterday to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. "Forced arbitration requires consumers to sign away their constitutional right to hold providers accountable in court just to access modern-day essentials like mobile phone, Internet, and pay-TV services." Forced arbitration provisions such as AT&T's also "include a class action waiver; language which strips consumers of the right to band together with other consumers to challenge a provider's widespread wrongdoing," they wrote.
..is stupid to allow.
anyone knows that. only americans don't.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
There are many common contract clauses that courts have found to be unenforceable. Arbitration-only and class-action-blocking clauses both seem like prime candidates to be found unenforceable.
Is there any case law along those lines?
They alter the deal all the time, and you pray they don't alter it further.
I'm sure that arbitration can be abused. However, until the US fixes its damned court system, companies have no choice but to insist on this.
Personal example: I used to run a small company that produced a niche ERP system. Our Swiss attorney told us: Whatever you do, never sell to a customer in the US." We made one exception. We sold the system to a small organization that was just determined it was what they needed. A few months later, for reasons we were not privy to, the company fired someone who was a major user of the system. So she goes to a lawyer, to sue us, because she lost her job. I mean, really, WTF?
The tort system is a lottery, and both lawyers and plaintiffs use it as one - hoping to strike it rich off the back of someone else. The lawyers are the ones to tell their clients "no, you don't have a case, go get a life". A lawyer who takes a frivolous case to court should be fined, and required to personally pay the other side's legal expenses.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Broadband internet, cable tv, and cellular service are not essential services. First world problems.
Seems appropriate. The United States is a first-world country, why wouldn't it have first-world problems? And yes, broadband Internet and cell phones are essentials in the modern world; cable TV not so much. Try working a professional job without them. Go ahead, tell the interviewer you don't have a cell phone or Internet in your home and see how they react. Just tell them when you'll be home to receive a call and that the rest of your correspondence will be by mail.
As society increases its capabilities and comes to rely on them, modern technology and equipment become essential for living and participating in society. But I'm guessing you already knew that.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)