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People Who Most Often Resist Scams Do These Three Things

9/30/2019

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by Bridget Small
Consumer Education Specialist, Federal Trade Commission


To everyone who hangs up on unwanted calls, learns about the latest scams, and checks with friends about suspicious offers: good news!

People who did all those things were less likely to lose money to a scam than people who didn’t, according to Exposed to Scams: What Separates Victims from Non-Victims?, a report from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust, and the Stanford Center on Longevity. The groups surveyed more than 1,400 people who had reported a scam and found several differences between people who did and didn’t lose money.

The people who avoided scams:

  • 1) Didn’t engage with a scam offer. Nearly half the people surveyed said they had ignored emails, thrown away mailers, and deleted friend requests. They had also hung up on bogus tax and debt collection calls, and imposter phishing scams.
  • 2) Learned about scams and scammers’ tactics. People who knew more about specific scams and scammers’ tactics were more likely to reject an offer and avoid losing money. News stories were the top way to get information about frauds and scams for the majority of people surveyed.
  • 3) Talked to someone. The people who had someone to talk with about the offers were less likely to lose money. Some people who were caught up in scams were helped by store cashiers, bank tellers, or wire transfer employees who talked them out of sending money. Sometimes sharing what you know can help protect someone you know from a scam.
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The Truth About Forced Arbitration -- the real story emerges from data from the arbitration companies themselves

9/10/2019

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Forced arbitration is a rigged system designed by corporations in which injured workers and consumers have no meaningful chance of finding justice.

Forced arbitration requires Americans to “agree” to surrender fundamental constitutional rights – often without ever realizing they’ve done so.

When corporations harm workers and consumers by cheating, stealing, or even breaking the law, cases that should be heard by a judge or jury are instead funneled into a secret system controlled by the wrongdoers in which there is no right to go to court, no right to a jury, no right to a written record, no right to discovery, no transparency, no legal precedents to follow, no opportunity for group actions when it would be too difficult or costly to file a claim alone, no guarantee of an adjudicator with legal expertise, no transparency, and no meaningful judicial review. Without such checks and balances, the deck is stacked heavily against workers, patients, and consumers, and systemic misconduct is allowed to continue in secret.


Forced arbitration’s proponents counter that the process is faster, fairer, and better for workers and consumers than going to court. However, this comprehensive analysis of the self-reported data provided by the arbitration organizations makes clear that forced arbitration is not an alternative judicial process, but instead eliminates claims, immunizes corporations, and allows abuse, discrimination, fraud, and essentially all other corporate wrongdoing to go unchecked.

Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than they are to win a monetary award in forced arbitration.

Click on the image to get a copy of the full report or download it here.



forced-arbitration-2019-final.pdf
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Another good story explaining why YOU should submit your comments on the CFPB's new debt collection rules by 18 September

9/9/2019

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How Collectors Trick Consumers into Reviving Dead Debts
Source: The Washington Post
 
Debt collectors are not allowed to sue on old debts that have expired. These debts are so old that there is often little or no proof showing who owes the debt and how much is owed. The most common complaint about debt collectors is that they harass consumers for debts that the consumers do not owe. And debt collectors are finding new ways to exploit loopholes and trick consumers into reviving zombie debts.
 
Oklahoma social worker and mother of five Terrie Raymer was one victim of the collections industry's new tricks. A debt collector garnished 19 cents from Raymer's paycheck and later sued her, claiming that the 19 cent garnishment had brought the debt back to life.
 
Another collector fooled consumers with zombie debts by offering them new credit cards, but then enrolling them into a repayment program for their old debts without their permission.
 
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a new rule that would loosen the standards for debt collectors who sue on old debts by allowing them to argue they did not know the debt was expired. Read More.

 
YOU can help stop zombie debt collection

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has extended the comment period for its (terrible) proposed rule on debt collection to
 September 18, 2019. 

 
You can submit your comment through NACA's convenient portal to tell the CFPB that consumers need better protection from unfair zombie debt collection.

NACA is also collecting signatures on a petition that will be submitted to the CFPB. Sign and share the petition so we can show the CFPB that consumers want better protection from abusive debt collection tactics. 

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Wells Fargo tries to send Innocent Pastor to Jail, Then Insists Pastor Should be Forced to Arbitrate Claims Against Wells Fargo

9/2/2019

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  If there was ever a case that showed exactly how forced arbitration encourages and promotes corporate misconduct and arrogance, this is it.  A pastor wrongly accused of theft because of Wells Fargo's screwup simply asks for an explanation and for Wells to pay his legal fees, fees he was forced to incur solely because of Wells and its screwup.

Wells tells him to go fly a kite, "apologizing" but refusing to cover his legal bills.  And now Wells is trying to hide the case behind the stone wall of forced arbitration, where the judge of the case (the private arbitrator) is literally on Wells Fargo's payroll.

Starting in the 1970s, a series of radical decisions by the US Supreme Court tossed out the 70 years of precedent barring forced arbitration in employment and consumer cases. Since then, we've seen the entire civil justice system in America has essentially been gutted by these forced arbitration clauses in consumer and employment cases. Corporations use these clauses to cover up when they lie, cheat and steal, and arbitration protects outrageous criminal conduct by corporations by keeping others harmed in the same ways of having any ability to even know that others are fighting the same fight.

Forced arbitration is the end of any concept of Equal Justice Under Law in America, and its use is a huge part of the reason that while most Americans are struggling to keep up, the richest of the rich are becoming even richer without bounds.




Wells Fargo pushes wrongly accused N.J. pastor toward arbitration

         A New Jersey pastor who was falsely arrested because of errors made by Wells Fargo employees may be forced to resolve legal claims against the bank in arbitration, renewing questions about banks' use of the process.
 . . .

Edwards deposited four checks in an ATM one afternoon in April 2018. Later, a photo of Edwards depositing his checks was falsely linked to a series of fraudulent checks deposited in the same machine on the same day. The photo of Edwards was posted on a New Jersey State Police Facebook page, prompting one of his parishioners to point him to the page, telling him he had a twin. The actual owner of the account into which the fraudulent checks were deposited was a 20-year-old woman.

The bank later admitted it was at fault and offered an apology. Edwards asked the bank to explain what happened and pay his legal fees; the bank refused.

...
For his part, Edwards is angry the bank is now trying to take the case to arbitration.
“It's a frustrating sense of not being able to get justice and having it all postponed,” Edwards said in an interview. “They threatened my reputation and put me through a great deal of angst and anxiety about the threat and the uncertainty of where this all was headed. So I would like some compensation for that. I would like an explanation for how they could have allowed this to happen. And then there’s the fact that they made a mistake initially and they seemed to just double down when they were asked about the mistake. There should have been ample reason to call into question their initial discernment that I was the person who cashed the fraudulent checks.”

Edwards also said he worries that this could happen to someone who doesn't have the means to hire a lawyer or who has a criminal record.

“In my experience dealing with the state police, I was pressured to confess to something I did not do,” Edwards said. “I can easily imagine how someone would cave in to that, if they did not have my advantages.”
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John Gear Law Office LLC and Salem Consumer Law.  John Gear Law Office is in Suite 208B of the Security Building in downtown Salem at 161 High St. SE, across from the Elsinore Theater, a half-block south of Marion County Courthouse, just south of State Street. There is abundant, free 3-hour on-street parking throughout downtown Salem, and three multi-story parking ramps that offer free customer parking in downtown Salem too.

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