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As an Englishman, the consumer rights situation (or, uh, lack thereof) in the US boggles me regularly. It's not just the complete absence of consumer regulators

As an Englishman, the consumer rights situation (or, uh, lack thereof) in the US boggles me regularly. It's not just the complete absence of consumer regulators ("we let the courts handle that") -- it's that even the courts have been neutered! The Supreme Court has basically ruled that consumer class action suits don't exist any more (https://www.fisherphillips.com/resources-alerts-supreme-court-dims-the-light-on-class https://www.fisherphillips.com/resources-alerts-supreme-cour...) -- everything can now be forced into binding arbitration. This survey is from FairShake, whose whole schtick is that they can represent you in an arbitration proceeding so efficiently that you can actually afford to participate. They got written up in the NYT the other month: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/business/arbitration-overload.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/business/arbitration-over... The only reason I found out about this at all is that FairShake are a customer of ours (their whole dispute-resolution process runs on https://anvil.works https://anvil.works), so I talked to them for our podcast (https://anvil.works/blog/podcast-fairshake https://anvil.works/blog/podcast-fairshake). Even with the profanities edited out, I'm pretty sure you can hear the incredulity in my voice.

kube-system 6y ago
It is worth noting that a lot of the function of consumer protection is also handled by state authorities, the feds aren't the only authority that people have to lean on. State attorney generals are usually elected so they tend to focus heavily on consumer protection issues.
- azinman2 6y ago
  CA has generally had good consumer protection laws for decades now.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    It is shocking how many Americans hate CA for it too.
    - azinman2 6y ago
      Because those who don't want it give lots of money to politicians who then train their audience that it's bad, 'job killing', and 'big government' even though it benefits them.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      I'm not sure consumer protections are the reason people dislike CA. CA just has an enormous number of laws. If you pass enough laws you're bound to have a few dumb/misguided ones along with a lot of good ones.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        I’ve personally spoke to people that hate CA because of their environmental protection laws (since it apparently makes polluting products unavailable in other states too), as well as business owners that don’t like the non compete bans and employee protections.
        kube-system 6y ago
        That's kind of my point -- those aren't consumer protection laws.
        novok 6y ago
        The hate for stupid laws in CA is stuff like CEQA which is ostensibly about protecting the environment, but really used as a blackmail tool for residents to block more environmentally friendly apartment buildings they don't like to protect their city subsidized parking and in the end causes housing to cost more than it should. Or the useless "anything could cause cancer" labels that get slapped on everything so everybody just ignores them. Or the classic prop 13 which helps fuel housing affordability. Or AB5 which will get rid of a lot of gig economy jobs outright and needed 100s of profession exceptions to not destroy even more people from getting employed.
- xphilter 6y ago
  But this is so limited. AGs can only take on a few cases per year, and they’re politically selected (what will get most press and least criticism). And the state law can be waived (or effectively waived through arbitration clause).
  - kube-system 6y ago
    AGs get a lot of stuff done without taking on a case, though. Many companies will straighten up after receiving a nastygram from an AG. Maybe not so much for megacorps, but those are usually the higher profile cases that you mention.
737maxtw 6y ago
You are correct that it has gotten worse since the arbitration decisions. Also, if you think its hard to resolve something when you're a customer, wait till you see how they treat you if you aren't! To wit: I spent months fighting with Comcast about a bill for an address that I never lived at, let alone during time in question. Sent them proof multiple times but they kept sending it to collections (and collections would claim I had to go through comcast). I still remember when I mentioned how many debt collection laws they were violating... then the retorts, then hearing the fight leave his voice when i explained i have never been a customer of comcast and thus cannot be bound by their arbitration agreement. Which brings up a huge reminder that these companies are only able to get away with these things because in most of the country if you want internet you will have to settle up with them sooner or later. Thats the other thing I got from the conversations: Comcast doesn't seem to be selling off the debt. (Probabpy for reasons listed above.) Every collection agency claimed that they were 'contracted to collect' but did not own the debt. As a result trying to prove it was identity theft was a kafkaesque nightmare that I never actually succeeded at. They only left me alone because I made it clear that I had sent them more than enough documents to prove it could not have been me, and every time they would call or send another letter I would tie up 1-2 hours of one or more phone reps time.
- konceptz 6y ago
  >and every time they would call or send another letter I would tie up 1-2 hours of one or more phone reps time. That's an extremely large personal investment, I'm sorry you ended up having to essentially value your own time like this.
  - murph-almighty 6y ago
    I'd imagine if you're at that point you're just Kitboga-ing it and trying to fuck with them to make them suffer dollar-wise for the time you've lost while doing something more productive or entertaining in the background. At least that's how I'd do it.
  - bleepblorp 6y ago
    Sadly, all too much of modern life has become about wasting your own time, and money, to mitigate screwups made by completely unaccountable third parties.
rmrfstar 6y ago
The US has a common law system, like the UK. However, arbitration panels cannot set precedent and do not issue opinions. That means the law is perpetually frozen in place. So, we really have a civil law system with none of the mechanisms that make those systems function properly. There are obviously bigger problems with arbitration, but this one is often overlooked.
- xphilter 6y ago
  Awesome point. I keep thinking about this and want to yell at all law professors in the country (who I think have more influence than they recognize): what the hell are you going to be teaching in 20 years? Only cases before AT&T v. Concepcion?
LiquidSky 6y ago
>The Supreme Court has basically ruled that consumer class action suits don't exist any more (https://www.fisherphillips.com/resources-alerts-supreme-cour https://www.fisherphillips.com/resources-alerts-supreme-cour...) -- everything can now be forced into binding arbitration. And disputes with ISPs are nearly the ideal use case for class action suits: a large group of people being harmed, but the individual harms are relatively small, and individually pursuing a case is usually too costly or complicated to be worth it.
rlpb 6y ago
Another specific couple of aspects of the US situation boggle me: > The Supreme Court has basically ruled that consumer class action suits don't exist any more... The Supreme Court ruling only applies under the current law and does nothing to prevent the law being changed. But for some reason, Americans (as a whole; I realise HN is probably different) act as if this situation is final and it cannot be fixed by Congress. The other thing that boggles me is that it's as if a service isn't cancelled until the company providing it agrees it is cancelled, and that's something their retention departments will resist doing. Where I live, the service is cancelled* when I've given notice of cancellation, whether the company wants to accept it or not. So I don't need to care about whether they'll try to put me off cancelling or not, or if they have a script or not. After I've told them, it's done; as long as I keep a record then any subsequent bills aren't my concern. But for some reason that I cannot fathom, a company not "accepting" notice of cancellation seems to be a problem in the US. * subject to minimum terms or similar stipulations of course
- tstrimple 6y ago
  > But for some reason, Americans (as a whole; I realise HN is probably different) act as if this situation is final and it cannot be fixed by Congress. Yeah, I can't imagine why Americans don't have faith in the legislative process. https://www.newsweek.com/mitch-mcconnell-grim-reaper-395-house-bills-senate-wont-pass-1487401 https://www.newsweek.com/mitch-mcconnell-grim-reaper-395-hou...
- Fauntleroy 6y ago
  It's a bit too easy for large corporations to exercise control over Congress, so we (Americans) have little faith that they'll execute on pro-consumer legislation.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > But for some reason, Americans (as a whole; I realise HN is probably different) act as if this situation is final and it cannot be fixed by Congress. Because Congress has, essentially, been gridlocked for many years now. That is also the reason why the Supreme Court has gotten so utterly important over the same time frame, because real fundamental change in politics only happen in the courts these days.
paultopia 6y ago
U.S. law professor here. Yeah, it's really embarrassing. The bullshit story for why this is all the case is that it's priced into products and services---which are supposedly cheaper than they might otherwise be if companies had to fear massive liability and regulation. The real story for why this is the case is the combination of (a) fake contract law, in which we pretend people agreed to things that they in no way could have agreed to---including all those arbitration agreements that strip away class action rights, (b) a federal system that lets Congress preempt state economic regulations, including consumer protection regulations,[1] and (c) most fundamentally, the point that Mancur Olson identified in Logic of Collective Action: narrow special interests with intense preferences are lots better at getting their wills achieved than diffuse general interests; in the U.S. political lobbying is basically unrestrained; big industries like telecom have just utterly captured legislatures and regulators at every level. [1] This is my least favorite example, and a case that explains a lot about why airlines are so happy to crap all over the heads of their victims: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-462_p8k0.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-462_p8k0.pdf
- javajosh 6y ago
  Thanks for speaking openly! Can I ask you for your opinion? I have come to believe that the justice system itself is the root of the problem, namely that it is so expensive and slow that it doesn't provide justice. Trials used to take days, and now they take months or years. They used to cost hundreds, now tens of thousands, or more. It is only within such a moribund system that lobbying can be successful! If trials were fast and cheap, people might still try to lobby, but the feedback loop would be fast and accurate.
  - paultopia 6y ago
    Indirectly. This is kind of a complicated issue, so let me unpack it a bit. First, it's absolutely true that litigation is super-expensive. But from the company end, that doesn't necessarily make a real difference---arbitration is fairly expensive too (though not as expensive as litigation), they're not likely to realize huge savings from shoving consumers into all the arbitration agreements. Where costs really matter is from the consumer side, and it's intertwined with class actions. Arbitrations don't have class actions, real court does (in most states). So an arbitration clause is really a "no class actions" clause. And, because of litigation costs, a "no class actions" clause is really really effective at keeping consumers out of court at all. Why? Because a huge number of consumer claims are for really small rip-offs. For example, the phone company sneaks an extra 50 cents onto the bill of everyone every month for a fake tax that doesn't really exist, and in doing so dodges some rate regulation. No consumer in their right mind is going to incur the time and expense of suing (or arbitrating) individually for 50 cents a month. But the phone company, with millions and millions of customers, benefits hugely from this ripoff. With a class action system, some entrepreneurial lawyer can bring suit and win those millions back on behalf of the class of ripped-off consumers. Now, those class actions are pretty controversial, because the ripped-off consumers never really see any direct benefit from those lawsuits. They usually get some bullshit coupon in the mail, while the lawyer and one or two plaintiffs (the "named plaintiffs" or "class representatives") walk away with a big payday. But the point isn't to compensate the people who lost the 50 cents. The point is to hold out the threat of those stupid huge judgments against companies who would otherwise nickel-and-dime mass consumers to death. So when companies kill the class action, they know that they won't be held accountable in the courts for that kind of misconduct, and they can engage in small ripoffs with impunity. (Mostly less blatant than fake tax thing, because government regulators might pick up on that.)
throwaway894345 6y ago
ISPs are a bit of a special case in America, because they lobby effectively for favorable local regulation. In other industries, it suffices to threaten a bad Yelp review if it even takes that. The worst experiences I’ve had were with Hertz, Visa, and an ISP (the latter two are monopolies). We need better consumer protections and monopoly busting, but these are low on my list of improvements.

kube-system 6y ago

It is worth noting that a lot of the function of consumer protection is also handled by state authorities, the feds aren't the only authority that people have to lean on. State attorney generals are usually elected so they tend to focus heavily on consumer protection issues.

azinman2 6y ago
CA has generally had good consumer protection laws for decades now.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  It is shocking how many Americans hate CA for it too.
  - azinman2 6y ago
    Because those who don't want it give lots of money to politicians who then train their audience that it's bad, 'job killing', and 'big government' even though it benefits them.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    I'm not sure consumer protections are the reason people dislike CA. CA just has an enormous number of laws. If you pass enough laws you're bound to have a few dumb/misguided ones along with a lot of good ones.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      I’ve personally spoke to people that hate CA because of their environmental protection laws (since it apparently makes polluting products unavailable in other states too), as well as business owners that don’t like the non compete bans and employee protections.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        That's kind of my point -- those aren't consumer protection laws.
      - novok 6y ago
        The hate for stupid laws in CA is stuff like CEQA which is ostensibly about protecting the environment, but really used as a blackmail tool for residents to block more environmentally friendly apartment buildings they don't like to protect their city subsidized parking and in the end causes housing to cost more than it should. Or the useless "anything could cause cancer" labels that get slapped on everything so everybody just ignores them. Or the classic prop 13 which helps fuel housing affordability. Or AB5 which will get rid of a lot of gig economy jobs outright and needed 100s of profession exceptions to not destroy even more people from getting employed.
xphilter 6y ago
But this is so limited. AGs can only take on a few cases per year, and they’re politically selected (what will get most press and least criticism). And the state law can be waived (or effectively waived through arbitration clause).
- kube-system 6y ago
  AGs get a lot of stuff done without taking on a case, though. Many companies will straighten up after receiving a nastygram from an AG. Maybe not so much for megacorps, but those are usually the higher profile cases that you mention.

737maxtw 6y ago

You are correct that it has gotten worse since the arbitration decisions. Also, if you think its hard to resolve something when you're a customer, wait till you see how they treat you if you aren't! To wit: I spent months fighting with Comcast about a bill for an address that I never lived at, let alone during time in question. Sent them proof multiple times but they kept sending it to collections (and collections would claim I had to go through comcast). I still remember when I mentioned how many debt collection laws they were violating... then the retorts, then hearing the fight leave his voice when i explained i have never been a customer of comcast and thus cannot be bound by their arbitration agreement. Which brings up a huge reminder that these companies are only able to get away with these things because in most of the country if you want internet you will have to settle up with them sooner or later. Thats the other thing I got from the conversations: Comcast doesn't seem to be selling off the debt. (Probabpy for reasons listed above.) Every collection agency claimed that they were 'contracted to collect' but did not own the debt. As a result trying to prove it was identity theft was a kafkaesque nightmare that I never actually succeeded at. They only left me alone because I made it clear that I had sent them more than enough documents to prove it could not have been me, and every time they would call or send another letter I would tie up 1-2 hours of one or more phone reps time.

konceptz 6y ago
>and every time they would call or send another letter I would tie up 1-2 hours of one or more phone reps time. That's an extremely large personal investment, I'm sorry you ended up having to essentially value your own time like this.
- murph-almighty 6y ago
  I'd imagine if you're at that point you're just Kitboga-ing it and trying to fuck with them to make them suffer dollar-wise for the time you've lost while doing something more productive or entertaining in the background. At least that's how I'd do it.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Sadly, all too much of modern life has become about wasting your own time, and money, to mitigate screwups made by completely unaccountable third parties.

rmrfstar 6y ago

The US has a common law system, like the UK. However, arbitration panels cannot set precedent and do not issue opinions. That means the law is perpetually frozen in place. So, we really have a civil law system with none of the mechanisms that make those systems function properly. There are obviously bigger problems with arbitration, but this one is often overlooked.

xphilter 6y ago
Awesome point. I keep thinking about this and want to yell at all law professors in the country (who I think have more influence than they recognize): what the hell are you going to be teaching in 20 years? Only cases before AT&T v. Concepcion?

LiquidSky 6y ago

>The Supreme Court has basically ruled that consumer class action suits don't exist any more (https://www.fisherphillips.com/resources-alerts-supreme-cour https://www.fisherphillips.com/resources-alerts-supreme-cour...) -- everything can now be forced into binding arbitration. And disputes with ISPs are nearly the ideal use case for class action suits: a large group of people being harmed, but the individual harms are relatively small, and individually pursuing a case is usually too costly or complicated to be worth it.

rlpb 6y ago

Another specific couple of aspects of the US situation boggle me: > The Supreme Court has basically ruled that consumer class action suits don't exist any more... The Supreme Court ruling only applies under the current law and does nothing to prevent the law being changed. But for some reason, Americans (as a whole; I realise HN is probably different) act as if this situation is final and it cannot be fixed by Congress. The other thing that boggles me is that it's as if a service isn't cancelled until the company providing it agrees it is cancelled, and that's something their retention departments will resist doing. Where I live, the service is cancelled* when I've given notice of cancellation, whether the company wants to accept it or not. So I don't need to care about whether they'll try to put me off cancelling or not, or if they have a script or not. After I've told them, it's done; as long as I keep a record then any subsequent bills aren't my concern. But for some reason that I cannot fathom, a company not "accepting" notice of cancellation seems to be a problem in the US. * subject to minimum terms or similar stipulations of course

tstrimple 6y ago
> But for some reason, Americans (as a whole; I realise HN is probably different) act as if this situation is final and it cannot be fixed by Congress. Yeah, I can't imagine why Americans don't have faith in the legislative process. https://www.newsweek.com/mitch-mcconnell-grim-reaper-395-house-bills-senate-wont-pass-1487401 https://www.newsweek.com/mitch-mcconnell-grim-reaper-395-hou...
Fauntleroy 6y ago
It's a bit too easy for large corporations to exercise control over Congress, so we (Americans) have little faith that they'll execute on pro-consumer legislation.
mschuster91 6y ago
> But for some reason, Americans (as a whole; I realise HN is probably different) act as if this situation is final and it cannot be fixed by Congress. Because Congress has, essentially, been gridlocked for many years now. That is also the reason why the Supreme Court has gotten so utterly important over the same time frame, because real fundamental change in politics only happen in the courts these days.

paultopia 6y ago

U.S. law professor here. Yeah, it's really embarrassing. The bullshit story for why this is all the case is that it's priced into products and services---which are supposedly cheaper than they might otherwise be if companies had to fear massive liability and regulation. The real story for why this is the case is the combination of (a) fake contract law, in which we pretend people agreed to things that they in no way could have agreed to---including all those arbitration agreements that strip away class action rights, (b) a federal system that lets Congress preempt state economic regulations, including consumer protection regulations,[1] and (c) most fundamentally, the point that Mancur Olson identified in Logic of Collective Action: narrow special interests with intense preferences are lots better at getting their wills achieved than diffuse general interests; in the U.S. political lobbying is basically unrestrained; big industries like telecom have just utterly captured legislatures and regulators at every level. [1] This is my least favorite example, and a case that explains a lot about why airlines are so happy to crap all over the heads of their victims: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-462_p8k0.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-462_p8k0.pdf

javajosh 6y ago
Thanks for speaking openly! Can I ask you for your opinion? I have come to believe that the justice system itself is the root of the problem, namely that it is so expensive and slow that it doesn't provide justice. Trials used to take days, and now they take months or years. They used to cost hundreds, now tens of thousands, or more. It is only within such a moribund system that lobbying can be successful! If trials were fast and cheap, people might still try to lobby, but the feedback loop would be fast and accurate.
- paultopia 6y ago
  Indirectly. This is kind of a complicated issue, so let me unpack it a bit. First, it's absolutely true that litigation is super-expensive. But from the company end, that doesn't necessarily make a real difference---arbitration is fairly expensive too (though not as expensive as litigation), they're not likely to realize huge savings from shoving consumers into all the arbitration agreements. Where costs really matter is from the consumer side, and it's intertwined with class actions. Arbitrations don't have class actions, real court does (in most states). So an arbitration clause is really a "no class actions" clause. And, because of litigation costs, a "no class actions" clause is really really effective at keeping consumers out of court at all. Why? Because a huge number of consumer claims are for really small rip-offs. For example, the phone company sneaks an extra 50 cents onto the bill of everyone every month for a fake tax that doesn't really exist, and in doing so dodges some rate regulation. No consumer in their right mind is going to incur the time and expense of suing (or arbitrating) individually for 50 cents a month. But the phone company, with millions and millions of customers, benefits hugely from this ripoff. With a class action system, some entrepreneurial lawyer can bring suit and win those millions back on behalf of the class of ripped-off consumers. Now, those class actions are pretty controversial, because the ripped-off consumers never really see any direct benefit from those lawsuits. They usually get some bullshit coupon in the mail, while the lawyer and one or two plaintiffs (the "named plaintiffs" or "class representatives") walk away with a big payday. But the point isn't to compensate the people who lost the 50 cents. The point is to hold out the threat of those stupid huge judgments against companies who would otherwise nickel-and-dime mass consumers to death. So when companies kill the class action, they know that they won't be held accountable in the courts for that kind of misconduct, and they can engage in small ripoffs with impunity. (Mostly less blatant than fake tax thing, because government regulators might pick up on that.)

throwaway894345 6y ago

ISPs are a bit of a special case in America, because they lobby effectively for favorable local regulation. In other industries, it suffices to threaten a bad Yelp review if it even takes that. The worst experiences I’ve had were with Hertz, Visa, and an ISP (the latter two are monopolies). We need better consumer protections and monopoly busting, but these are low on my list of improvements.