This report summarizes the results of Public Citizen’s eight-month examination of the use of binding mandatory arbitration by the credit card industry. Due to widespread anecdotal evidence of abuse, we articularly focused on credit card giant MBNA’s reliance on one arbitration company, the National Arbitration Forum (NAF). This report shows that binding mandatory arbitration is a rigged game in which justice is dealt from a deck stacked against consumers.
Consumers are railroaded into arbitration even if their identity was stolen or they never agreed to take disputes to arbitration. In several cases we uncovered, NAF, which routinely handles MBNA’s “collection” arbitrations, ignored repeated consumer protests that identity theft was the source of the alleged debt.
In fact, we found that NAF is today the credit card industry’s go to dispenser of swift decisions against its customers. The Forum and other arbitration providers obsessively enshroud their work in secrecy. Yet the state of California in 2003 opened a small window into this seedy world by requiring arbitration providers to furnish some limited data on their own corporate Web sites on each consumer arbitration case they handle. Even this information is obscured by the arbitration firms, which post the records in a manner that makes it difficult to see patterns and analyze results.
Contents
Introduction
- How Consumers Are Trapped by the Fine Print
How Credit Card Companies – and the National Arbitration Forum –
Pursue Consumers with BMA
What’s Wrong with BMA?
Troy Cornock: Identity Theft Claims Fall on Deaf Ears
Chapter I: Data Show BMA Is Stacked Against Consumers
- Data from Alabama Case Show Overwhelming Anti-Consumer Record of NAF
Use of NAF Yields Poor Results for Consumers
Public Efforts by NAF to Defend Arbitration
The National Arbitration Forum: Its Origins and History
Looking Closely: A Case Study of an Arbitrator-Turned Judge
Anastasiya Komorova: Lack of MBNA Account Does Not Appear to Matter
Chapter II: BMA Rife with Problems for Consumers
- Arbitration Proceedings Are Secret
Arbitrators Have Financial Incentives to Favor Firms that Hire Them
Arbitration Often Costs Consumers More Than Court
Arbitration Lacks Civil Courts’ Safeguards to Ensure Fairness
Judge Rules Arbitration Awards Are a Denial of Due Process
Antitrust Allegations Leveled Against Credit Card Industry over Arbitration
Agreements
Beth Plowman: Identity Theft in Nigeria Follows her Home
Chapter III: Congressional Action on BMA and Credit Cards
- Javier Beltran: Lack of MBNA Account Does Not Dissuade NAF
Chapter IV: What Consumers Can Do to Fight BMA and Protect Themselves
- Use Credit Cards with Care
Examine All Consumer Contracts for Arbitration Clauses
Put Up a Fight
Appendix A: A Brief History of the Move to BMA
Appendix B: Statistical Analysis
Appendix C: Legislation Pending in Congress
Download
PDF Ebook How Credit Card Companies Ensnare Consumers
