Thanks for that link, and the commentary. I’ll be mulling that over for a little while, I suspect.
Thanks!
Wells Fargo is successfully convincing judges that forged arbitration agreements are legally binding
He used to get pretty involved, and it looked like it was probably going to give him an aneurysm. I don’t see him in the comments much but he occasionally makes an appearance.
Here you go:
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The idea is not based on any modicum of consumer protection at all.
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Cory posted a reply to someone here just four hours ago.
He’s here on the forums; he’s just not responding to the concerns expressed in this topic.
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I never said it was - I just tried to explain why it’s claimed to be a good thing. I think mandatory binding arbitration is a total sham and it’s completely anti-consumer. It plays on being some sort of big convenience for customers but in reality it’s really not that hard for an ordinary person to sue a company in small claims court and you don’t need an attorney to do this. It also has a minimal cost associated with it. Unlike mandatory arbitration, the proceedings are actually intended to be neutral. Consumerist had a few good articles on how to do this a while back:
Companies don’t like this. The burden is on the company that’s being sued to send a representative to court in the plaintiff’s county and if they don’t appear then the judgement defaults to the plaintiff.
Mandatory binding arbitration on the other hand may seem like a nice idea. The generous company foots the bill for the proceedings which are meant to make things fast and easy for you – no need to get a lawyer or have to further burden our already overtaxed court system with yet more litigation! If the judgement is in your favor, you win fabulous prizes! (Note: dripping sarcasm intended for the previous sentences.) In reality the deck is stacked so far in favor of the company that the consumer doesn’t really have much of a chance and if/when they lose there’s no recourse. Too bad and better luck next time.
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Since identity theft is not an agreement, and since identity theft is also not an agreement, doctorow can can call this out however he likes, and you concern trolls can blather as ineffectually as you like.
Nobody is claiming that identity theft constitutes an agreement.
Cory claims that Wells Fargo is claiming that, but every one of Cory’s cited sources denies it. It appears to be an invented claim. It is actively denied by every news source that Cory provides. If you want to call me a “concern troll” for being disturbed by active fabrication of news, then that’s on you.
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The idea is that the supposed agreement doesn’t cover the identity theft, and the identity theft doesn’t constitute an agreement, so you are literally trolling by splitting hairs toward evil ends. If that’s what you personally are doing. I don’t care enough to check your history; that’s between you and your compulsions.
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According to the sources that Cory himself cited, Wells Fargo’s claim is that the indisputably real arbitration agreements they made with their customers apply to disagreements over any accounts Wells Fargo has opened in their name, fraudulently or otherwise.
I make no assertions about the legal validity of that claim, or of arbitration agreements in general; I’m not qualified to do so (although as a layman, I feel that both are absurd and abusive). No, I’m only pointing out, as a statement of fact, that this is actually the claim Wells Fargo is actually making, as reported by the NYT piece that Cory himself cites as his only source for this story.
And this is the claim that Wells Fargo has apparently been successful at convincing some number of judges about; not the claim that “forged arbitration agreements are legally enforceable”, which both Cory and you keep repeating despite not having presented any evidence that Fargo ever actually made that claim, and actually having presented media reports which say that they didn’t.
I have said several times in this topic that Wells Fargo absolutely deserves to be deplored for the fraudulently opened accounts. I certainly will never do business with them, or recommend them to others. That’s not in question.
The question is whether it’s okay for us here to knowingly invent and publish falsehoods about people and companies if we don’t like them, in the hope of invoking further outrage against those people and companies. Personally, I say that knowingly publishing falsehoods in order to punish the people we don’t like is not okay. That’s GamerGate. That’s Breitbart. That shouldn’t be us. That’s all that I’m stating, and I’d been politely asking Cory to chime in to reassure us that that wasn’t his intention. (But he doesn’t seem to be interested in doing so, so I’ve stopped)
By contrast, you’re here to tell me that I’m “driving trollies”, and that I have “evil ends”, and that I’m subject to “compulsions”, even though you can’t be bothered to even go back and read what I’ve written. So I feel that any further discussion with you would likely be wasting both your time and mine, and I shall bow out of this exchange.
But please do feel free to add a final reply to this if you feel a need to ‘win’ this little argument of ours by getting the last word. Perhaps this time you can call me a servant of Satan, or impugn my fashion sense. That always goes over well.
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So, again, voluminous hairsplitting in the cause of evil. What do you think you are accomplishing?
Since you’ve asked so nicely…
You’ve declared that my plainly-stated desire for truth proves that I’m in the service of evil. You’ve said that twice so far, in fact. You have similarly declared that the difference between Fake News and Real News is “hairsplitting”. Also twice.
By declaring me evil for wanting truth (or at least not intentional fabrications), you’ve destroyed any credibility you might otherwise have possessed among people who feel that truth has any value, or that Fake News is a bad thing. I suspect you will find that the overwhelming majority of the community here is in that camp.
So what do I think I’m accomplishing? Well, I won this argument, and did it easily enough that you apparently didn’t even notice as you deftly slipped the dagger between your own ribs. Twice.
As I said before, I’m not interested in pursuing this conversation with you any further (waste of both our times, yadda yadda), but it seemed cruel not to point out that you’re bleeding, since you don’t appear to have noticed yet.
In any case, all the best to you. And maybe try not to drip on the carpet.
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Facts matter. It’s one of the key ways to tell the difference between people we can trust and those we can’t trust. Cory routinely fudges the facts, and he does not correct his headlines or articles when proven wrong. Defending falsehoods is bad.
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Just no end to the justification for concern trolling, is there? And no, it’s not a question.
I see some nit-picking of this but I couldn’t help but think something was wrong with the criticism of Cory’s rhetoric.
The people who are having their signatures forged are already customers who really have signed real documents to open real accounts.
You see what I mean? Having your signature forged to create new accounts is therefore a consequence of having opened a real account.
So, by having your signature forged on a fraudulent application, an effect of having opened an account with the bank, you have effectively had your right to sue erased. If the governmental body responsible for oversight hasn’t stepped in to prosecute the bank, and they have not, the effect is you have lost your right to sue for having your signature forged to open a false account.
The action of really signing the real account agreement, tmaking it impossible to sue for the opening of false accounts is bad and is also a thing. But the tacit implication by the governmental body responsible for prosecuting the banks when they break the law is 'Your forged signatures are legally binding".
There’s a desire to be very specific with the law here and it is being expressed just so, from within the context of the specially relevant sections of the law.
But from the perspective of those defrauded in this manner, it’s pretty much as Cory says. The effective message to those people is “This institution has done no wrong by forging your signature,” and it does come through rather loud and clear when you’re not focusing solely on the legal language structure which may very well be the best attempt at describing some of reality in a project spanning thousands of years but BOY OH FUCKING BOY it could still use some work.
LOL, this is very badly formulated and I’m willing to attempt to hone it down to an actual meaningful statement if anyone would care to help but I’m tired and cranky and insomniac right now. 
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From what I’ve read, the issue appears to be that Wells Fargo is claiming that when a customer signs an arbitration agreement with the bank, that covers everything; not just a single account creation, it governs all interactions between that customer and the bank in all matters. The customer has agreed that as a customer of the bank, they’ve given up the right to sue and must instead go through arbitration.
Remember that Wells Fargo has already been hit with big fees over the fraudulent creation of accounts (not remotely big enough, IMHO, but big by the standards of you or I). Everyone agrees they’ve done wrong by opening those accounts without approval from the customers. All we’re talking about here is about whether an arbitration agreement that truly was signed by the customer once applies to everything they do with the bank, or only to actions taken at the same time at which the arbitration agreement was signed. And to be honest, we can’t really know that without actually reading the text of the agreement, which nobody has yet provided; for all we know, these agreements could say almost anything. (But that the judges have apparently been convinced by WF’s logic probably lets us guess at what they say)
(And once again, I’m not saying that I think Wells Fargo’s claims have any merit, or that arbitration agreements are a thing that should even exist. I’m just trying to pick through the available facts, as provided by the media, to arrive at something that doesn’t make anybody in the story sound like a complete idiot or mustache-twirling cartoon villain.)
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I think the difference is in the implication.
“Banks can make up agreements and unilaterally bind you to them.” vs. “The agreement you signed can bite you in the ass when the bank tries to apply it to all your interactions with them, including unforeseen matters.”
It’s the Daily Mail school of journalism: identify an issue that’s real at the core and then extend a helping hand to your readership and make it easier for them to feel what they presumably want to feel anyway.
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Then why bother forging signatures? Why bother even going through the motions of creating more accounts? Why are the people who ordered the actions and those who performed them not being prosecuted for forgery and fraud?
If the bank just steals money right out from the original account, aren’t they protected by the same legal mechanism for theft as well as fraud and forgery? If a customer is murdered on bank property by a bank employee over a technical dispute concerning that customers account, should the feds just throw up their hands and mutter “Binding contractual agreement”?
What is the significance of the forging of documents?
Are the customers the only entity that can seek justice?
Where does the legally binding language within the forged documents come into play? Are the forged documents legally binding? Does a lack of prosecution of fraud and forgery of the bank by the feds constitute a tacit statement that it is possible to sign away your legal rights? Is it also a statement that signatures can transmogrify an illegal action into a slightly naughty one?
Sure, the legal bullshit of the original contracts is one pylon, but there seem to have been so many others built. 
Anyway I’m still awake. Better try for an hour or two before a social function tonight.
Au revoir! And I will attempt to be more lucid and make more sense tomorrow, I know this is not the best, most awakest and lucid I could be.
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The speculation (and assertion) is again…
If WF’s normal business procedure for opening additional accounts requires that the customer sign/acknowledge the arbitration agreement and someone fraudulently opens an additional account without getting their signature/acknowledgment then there exists a reasonable argument for calling that a “forged” document.
Or to put it another way, a lie by omission is still a lie.
There, feel better? We’ve both restated our views
Corey has always said if you want a response back to something you’ve said to him you need to send it in an email.
I guess another important question is why the hell anyone other than tycoons would bank at anything other than a local credit union. Here in Minneapolis the city is exploring ways to stop doing business with Wells and moving to a credit union, not only because of Wells’s thieving ways, but also for the business they do with energy companies. None of us are under any requirement to continue to do business with any of these predators.
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