DEVILISH DETAILS:Are Online Bankers Lawyered Up or Liquored Up?

Gosh, oh me oh my, but how things seem to be changing! As the new 400 page "Bankruptcy Reform Act" takes hold, the once user-friendly free online banking service I've grown accustomed to has decided to ask me to agree or disagree to a new set of terms, the likes of which I never thought I'd see. Just take a look see at this excerpt:

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Arbitration and Waiver of Jury Trial.

a. Arbitration Provisions.

By opening or maintaining the account, you agree that if a dispute of any kind arises under this Agreement or your use of ***** BankPC or relates to any of your accounts or any transactions involving your accounts, either you or we can choose to have that dispute resolved by binding arbitration. This arbitration provision limits your ability to litigate claims in court and your right to a jury trial. You should review this section carefully. You will not have the right to participate as a class representative or member of any class of claimants for any claim subject to arbitration. Arbitration is usually an informal proceeding in which disputes are decided by one or more neutral arbitrators who receive the evidence at a hearing and then issue a binding ruling in the form of an award. You and we understand that discovery and other procedures in arbitration may be more limited than discovery in court proceedings and that the ability to modify, vacate, or appeal an award by an arbitrator(s) is limited."

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Why, they were so nice, or so drunk, they even thought to say this above the scrollable terms of acceptance:

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PRIVACY STATEMENT


Access to ***** Bank PC requires your acceptance of the AGREEMENT AND DISCLOSURE STATEMENT FOR ***** Bank PC and the PRIVACY DISCLOSURE, both contained in the box below. These include a provision requiring arbitration of disputes and a waiver of your right to a jury trial, as well as disclosure of a way to opt out of information sharing between our affiliate companies."

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Let's take a peek at Amendment VII of The Bill of Rights, shall we?

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"Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
(and let's not forget Amendment VI either, okayzee wayzee?)

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Are these people insane?! Do they actually claim they have the right to ask me, as an American citizen, not simply a consumer, on his way to becoming a peasant like millions of others, to give up a fundamental constitutional right to a trial by jury simply to access my own bank account? YOU BETCHA THEY ARE! Well ~ we'll have none of that, yew ol' bloodsuckers yew...

I actually took the time to call, ask them to flag my recorded conversation, and told the bank exactly how I feel about their attempt to illegally turn the Bill of Rights into their personal toilet paper. I let the bank know that any thoughtful online user might choose to return to automated phone transactions, using a landline of course, for MY privacy rights as opposed to using a cellphone, go back to monthly paper statements ONLY, and increase my FACE TIME with the bank's tellers, thus costing them more money when they have to deal with me, and others of my ilk, you know: THE GREAT UNWASHED!

I further gave the bank a head's up on what's happening at The New York Times online site now that they've decided to charge for access to their OpEd columnists, rather than give registered visitors a week's access to their pages. The number of visits to the NYTimes has dropped dramatically, and that is normally followed by a drop in any company's online advertising revenue. Did my bank want to see an increase in their costs, just to take away a federal protection in order to cover their unconstitutional asses? Time will tell, kidz, time will tell.

I encourage all of you to resist this new and brazen erosion of your rights under our constitution, and when dealing with these assholes, always use (and demand that they use) US mail in order to make sure YOU have certain rights under federal law. And use a landline when talking to these drunken sellers. Do anything and everything the old-timey way, go all low tech on their ass, and see how things develop. These "people" should be ashamed of themselves. Is banking deregulation not enough for them? With insurance arms, and mutual fund arms, and lucrative partnerships with the credit card industry? I guess not. I guess it's back to "under the mattress" and the continued growth of a national gray market of bartering for more and more citizens ~ NOT consumers.

That's my rant and I'm stickin' to it!