No class action for unhappy Uber drivers: U.S. appeals court
Related personal story.<p>I had dealings with a national technology-based company over the past several years that involved fraud. Not on my part. It was obvious to me after some investigation that they had stolen several hundred dollars from me by causing charges on another account without asking my permission or clearly indicating that charges were being made. (I had to investigate to figure it out)<p>I was willing to let it slide and move on. Lesson learned. Then I saw a commercial for the company and realized: <i>they were doing the same thing to tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of other customers</i>.<p>It was really kind of mind-boggling when I thought about it. Who knows how much money was involved.<p>So I looked up a lawyer in a nearby large town who had experience and knowledge about class action suits in the technology arena.<p>We had a nice chat. I had accumulated a ton of paperwork to show what was going on.<p>He agreed. They were hurting a lot of people. On purpose. But he couldn&#x27;t take the case.<p>Was it lack of proof? Broken laws? What?<p>It was arbitration. If I understood him correctly, arbitration clauses are destroying class action lawsuits. So you can legally screw over tons of people, then insist arbitration with the few that care if you get caught. And you get screwed over? You&#x27;d better not say anything about it because then you&#x27;d be slandering the company. After all, they haven&#x27;t been found guilty of anything, right?<p>So how about regulatory agencies, I asked? Surely this violates some regulation that they operate under.<p>His view, if I understood him correctly, was that regulation was entirely political. It had nothing to do with them breaking any rules. It certain political contexts certain companies got the hammer. In certain other political contexts, they did not. In this particular case, he knew from the lay of the land that it was not worth pursuing.<p>I&#x27;m still taken back by our conversation. I had no idea that arbitration had effectively destroyed class action. I don&#x27;t remember this ever being reported anywhere.