Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Michael Corkery have done it again, with a horrific example of how nursing homes can neglect patients and then cover up their misdeeds with forced arbitration. Absolutely intense illustration of the intensity of the damage these fine print contracts cause. If millions of people read this story, it will be enormously helpful.
http://nyti.ms/20NhGeE
Paul Bland, executive director of Public Justice, flags a new article by two NY Times reporters who have latched onto the story of the century: how corporations are using arbitration clauses to make crime pay.
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If it's not, I sure would hate to see the one that is even more deceptive.
If you have a candidate that you think tops this, please send it to me. There's a special place in hell for businesses that target seniors this way. Don’t Let Congress Run Out the Clock on 13.5 Million Workers Among military forces, there is a strategy called "Double Tap" -- you hit the enemy with a short burst of fire or a small bomb, and then sit back and wait until rescue forces arrive at the site of the first attack, which is when you really unload on them. Well scammers have figured out a similar way to prey on elders who have been ripped off once -- offering phony "rescue" services -- they figure out when a consumer has been ripped off (maybe they work with the person who ripped off the consumer) and then they move in, offering to help you recover from the first rip-off. But the second one is even worse! Below is a bulletin from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the most useful federal agency going, and one targeted for destruction by a number of people in Congress (for, you guessed it, being the most useful federal agency, standing up for real people in America, and making a number of banks and other shady businesses unhappy). If you think you have been ripped off and ESPECIALLY if someone tries to approach you about recovering from scams, consult a real, licensed consumer attorney. You can find attorneys who ONLY represent consumers and who NEVER represent businesses against a consumer by searching the website for the National Association of Consumer Advocates. Older Consumers Targeted By Fraudsters Not Once, But Twice! Here is more about NACA attorneys For Consumers What a surprise -- one of the only Supreme Court justices to have ever represented real people instead of just corporations actually understands what the radical gutting of the Constitution and your 7th Amendment right to a jury trial is doing to America.
In Oregon, it is legal for a dealer to sell you a car with the financing not approved. So there is often language in used-car sale contracts that says that you agree to bring the car back if the dealer cannot find a lender who will agree buy the loan that the dealer negotiated with you. This is where the bad ones cheat you -- you drive off the lot and then you sink money into the car, and then they call you and tell you that your financing failed, and you have to bring the car back. Often, the dealer CAN find financing on the terms negotiated, but they won't end up making as much money as they hoped to -- so they decide to try the yo-yo scam on you (or "bushing"). (This is one reason not to put much money into a used car until the deal is "final final" -- one way dealers abuse consumers is that they will not give you any credit for the new accessories you put onto the car, and lots of times they have already sold your trade in. It's illegal, but it happens all the time. It makes you very vulnerable.) Under Oregon law, if the dealer calls you and says your financing failed, they have to tell you that you have a right to get everything you put down on the car back (cash and trade-in), and when you go to take their car back, they have to actually have the keys to your trade-in and any cash you gave them sitting right on the table so that you can walk away completely and not do another deal with them. NEVER agree to pay more than you already negotiated for a car or to accept a higher interest rate. The dealer can always carry your loan without selling it to a financing company -- and it's always better to get out of a deal where the financing fails than to make it worse by agreeing to pay more. (If your credit is so poor that no lender will take the original deal, how does it get better if you agree to pay more?) A dealer who tries to talk you into a different car or for paying more than you already agreed to pay is a cheat. And don't think for a second you can outsmart a cheat at their own game. Once they are out to cheat you, your best bet is get away from them. If you buy a used car on contingent financing and then you get a call or text saying that you have to bring the car back:
OAR 137-020-0020 (3)(z):
The Federal Trade Commission just announced significant enhancements to IdentityTheft.gov – the federal government’s free, one-stop resource to report identity theft and recover from it. New features on the site allow victims to: · Get a personal recovery plan that walks them through each step · Update their personal plan and track their progress · Print pre-filled letters & forms to send to credit bureaus, businesses, and debt collectors No matter what the specific identity theft situation is, IdentityTheft.gov can help. And, the entire site is available in Spanish at RobodeIdentidad.gov. To help make sure that identity theft victims know about this free resource, you can: · Link to IdentityTheft.gov and RobodeIdentidad.gov from your website. · Update your identity theft print publications to include IdentityTheft.gov and RobdeIdentidad.gov. · Send a press release to your media networks about IdentityTheft.gov. · Distribute free identity theft materials in English and Spanish at your events. Order them free here. · Share on social media IdentityTheft.gov as the one-stop resource for victims of identity theft · Talk about IdentityTheft.gov in your presentations and seminars about identity theft. Insult To Injury: America's Vanishing Worker Protections
Federal Workplace Law Fails To Protect Employees Left Out Of Workers' Comp Every year, several hundred thousand people across the United States are sued by companies they have never done business with and may never have heard of. These firms are called debt buyers and although they have never loaned anyone a penny, millions of Americans owe them money. Debt buyers purchase vast portfolios of bad debts—mostly delinquent credit cards—from lenders who have written them off as a loss. They pay just pennies on the dollar but can go after alleged debtors for the full face value of every debt plus interest at rates that routinely exceed 25 percent. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a pretty fair new booklet that's easy to read and understand; it can't give you the answers for your particular situation, but it can help you know the right questions you need answers to before you decide how to sign up for your pension. A heavy-hitter SF Bay-area attorney who works more for the defense than the plaintiffs' side notes the pervasive bias for the defendants and the cost to the civil justice system of the US Supreme Court's decision to abandon the Constitution and the 7th Amendment, which allows defendants to privatize and starve the justice system through the use of private forced arbitration. Forced arbitration of consumer and employment cases robs the system of legitimacy and promotes abuses by corporate defendants, who are encouraged by being allowed to operate under a shield of pre-emptive cover for wrongdoing. And it destroys the foundation of the common law, the basis for the American civil justice. Are you seeing a significant drop in the amount of jury trial work that's coming your way at the firm? No. We're not seeing a slowdown. We're recognizing a long, 10-year problem of a lack of civil jury trials in anything but product liability and personal injury cases. And that's not a slowdown. That's just the way it's been for a while. NPR's "The Take Away" show looks under the rock at the debt collectors in the ooze beneath12/23/2015 COMING SOON: MARION County CourtCare
Help launch a BRAND-NEW CourtCare program in Marion County! DONATE NOW and COURTCARE WILL DOUBLE IT Fundraising for Marion County CourtCare has officially launched with a year-end campaign. The CourtCare Steering Committee and anonymous donors have put together a boost for the campaign. For every dollar you donate to CourtCare by the end of 2015, the Steering Committee and Friends have agreed to match you, dollar for dollar! But what IS CourtCare? Like the Multnomah County program, Marion County CourtCare will establish a safe and professional child care service for litigants to use at no cost during the time they spend at the courthouse. This will benefit:
"Court Care provides a service for single parents to come to court without exposing their children to the 'criminal atmosphere.' " - Marion County Deputy Public Defender "Any time a layperson is going to court, it's stressful. Being required to take children to court because they do not have child care unnecessarily adds to that parent’s stress level. Anyone who is parent can relate." -- another Salem family law attorney Your donation is tax-deductible if you itemize. Click here to donate with a card or by PayPal, or make send a check payable to the Oregon Law Foundation - Marion County CourtCare to the Oregon State Bar, PO Box 231935, Tigard, Oregon 97281. For more information and to share your support, contact Erin Dawson (ErinNDawson@gmail.com). Spread the word and help Marion County CourtCare start the campaign on a great note! People are slowly starting to realize what happens when Corporations capture the US Supreme Court majority and populate it with radical extremist lawyers who have never represented a human person and who care only about the well-being of their corporate masters. The George W Bush appointees have a radically un-American view of the Constitution and have vested corporations -- fictitious people made of money -- with civil liberties greater than those the Court gives real, flesh and blood Americans.
This is what happens when people don't vote -- corporations and the hacks that they promote for the courts are only too happy to take over the political process and see courts produce absurd decisions that enrich vampire debt collectors squeezing elders for zombie debts, in total disregard for the 7th Amendment. Great news about a recent change in Oregon’s car insurance laws. This change can make a huge difference in what happens if you are in a collision involving an uninsured driver, starting January 2nd.
The new law finally lets you, as a person with an Oregon auto insurance policy, collect on all the coverage you have been paying for. Starting January 2nd, you may get the full amount of uninsured motorist coverage (and underinsured coverage) if you are injured by an at-fault, uninsured driver. But it's NOT automatic! You have to renew your auto insurance policy for the change to help you!. The new "stacking" law goes into effect on 2 January 2016, but it applies only to auto insurance policies issued on or renewed after that date. So what that means: if your six-month policy doesn’t renew until April or May, but you get in an accident with an uninsured motorist in before that regular renewal, you will not get any benefit of this new "stacked" coverage. This can mean tens of thousands of dollars that you don't get to help you recover. Bottom line: To get the benefit of stacking, so that you get all the coverage you have been paying for, * you must call or email your auto insurance company and * tell your agent that you want your auto policy reissued as of 2 January 2016! Your agent should be able to help you quickly, including by letting you know if this early reissue/renewal has any downside for you (such as negative affect on other insurance, such as umbrella coverage, or disqualification for continuous coverage discounts). I would be happy to speak with you if you need more details about this. As a consumer attorney, I am part of several groups that helped bring about this important positive change in the law, and I want to alert you of the need to get in touch with your auto insurance agent so you can order the renewal/reissue before 2016 starts. Great LA Times exposé is here. Open a checking account at Wells Fargo Bank and you'll have to sign an agreement that says you can't sue the company — that any disputes have to go to a private arbitrator, not to court. Tell Congress: Ban Forced Arbitration Congress Should Restore Consumer Rights by Passing the Arbitration Fairness Act. In early November, the New York Times published a three-part investigative series about the corporate bullying tactic of forced arbitration, spreading the word about what happens when we lose when we “click here to agree.” Now it’s time to do something about it! There are proposed bills in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate that would eliminate corporations’ ability to steal our constitutional rights in employment, consumer, civil rights and antitrust cases. But Congress has stalled in making these bills become law, and more consumers are losing their constitutional rights. Hat tip to Nonprofit Quarterly Outstanding editorial in response to the Times's own exposé of the systemic abuse of Americans by corporate persons: Even more disturbing, the shift away from the civil justice system has gone beyond disputes about money. Nursing homes, obstetrics practices and private schools increasingly use forced-arbitration clauses to shield themselves from being taken to court over alleged discrimination, elder abuse, fraud, hate crimes, medical malpractice and wrongful death. Hat tip to Pacific Standard magazine: Moreover, records show that the council hasn’t always had complete information about all the violations and fines at nursing homes owned by or affiliated with applicants it reviewed. That’s because the Department of Health, which prepares character-and-competence recommendations for the council, doesn’t report them all. |
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