Law Commons^™

The Fine Print, Ramona L. Lampley

Faculty Articles

A recent study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), the federal agency tasked with “empowering consumers to take control over their economic lives,” found that more than 50 percent of the market for consumer credit cards had arbitration agreements, and almost 100 percent of storefront payday lending contracts require its customers to take their disputes to binding arbitration. The same study found that most consumers do not know their credit cards have a binding arbitration agreement and that it is not a primary concern for consumers in deciding which credit cards to obtain.

However, almost all arbitration agreements in …