Declining Binding Arbitration of credit cards and banks (after sign up) Recently Chase was making a change to its user agreement and was automatically assuming your consent to abide by binding arbitration unless you opted out explicitly by sending them a snail mail with a self written/typed, freestyle letter. I now see some user agreement changes from other credit card providers/banks and it looks like they already have a binding arbitration clause. If I understand this correctly, this prevents me from filing lawsuits against those companies. Is there a way to specifically reach out to these card providers and opt-out of the binding arbitration? I realize this may have more to do with legal than money but it is pertinent in both areas.
Is there a way to specifically reach out to these card providers and opt-out of the binding arbitration? Sure, you can write and ask. But you've signed a binding contract to open an account (or accepted new terms for an existing account) that has a binding arbitration clause in it. Both parties have to agree to renegotiate a contract. Why would a bank renegotiate the contract with you? Or draft a custom contract just for you without arbitration? If you don't like their contract with arbitration terms, there's nothing in it for them; they'll simply say adhere to the contract, or close your account. Or they will close it. But, there can be exceptions; read the credit card agreement. Sometimes there are exceptions for members of the military that allow no arbitration clauses. And sometimes you can opt out of arbitration within the first 90 days of opening an account. And check your state laws, too, and the agreement for any state carve outs regarding binding arbitration.
The question does not say what reasons the other party gives for not paying, and so one cannot judge whether such reason is covered by the terms quoted in the question. In general a contract need not be highly specific if the intent is clear. However, any ambiguity will usually be resolved against the party who wrote the contract, so it is in that party's interest to be as clear and specific as possible. It is not clear from the quoted terms that they form a contract at all. No consideration is stated. Contractual provisions which deny all recourse are not always enforceable. They may be overruled by law or regulation, or by prior court decision or by an equitable decision. If there is a serious problem with the service provided, particularly in a consumer transaction, a court might reject a provision denying all refunds even if it is quite specific and clear. The question does not list the jurisdiction (country and, for federal countries, state or province). Laws on contracts and enforceable terms vary significantly in different jurisdictions. Without this a specific answer is not possible.
The companies agree to resolve the dispute with a neutral arbitrator. This is similar to a court action, but instead of a judge or panel of judges, there is an arbitrator or panel of arbitrators. The two parties to the dispute must agree to this in advance. For more information, you can consult the rather thorough Wikipedia article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitration
No. Arbitrating rather than litigating when not required to do so by contract is almost never considered to be a legally compensable harm as a result of pro-arbitration legal policies. The consumer would be required to continue arbitrating and couldn't change course at that point. In practice, this fact pattern is unlikely, because the consumer needs the relevant details from the contract to commence arbitration. Other examples of unavailable contracts are hard to compare. It is a fact intense analysis.
The Facebook forum doesn't prevent a contract from being formed. But, for a contract to be formed there must be an affirmative agreement, not silence (at least in cases that aren't between merchants). If they later decide to work together without reaching an agreement on the details, the draft contact could be considered, but the Facebook forum for its delivery and that fact that it wasn't expressly assented to might reduce its weight as part of the evidence in an attempt to determine what the terms of their oral or implied agreement to work together involved. It would be very unusual for a broker not to get a signed agreement in writing to pay his fees, although an oral or unsigned agreement to pay a broker is not necessarily barred by a statute of frauds. A finder of fact would be quite skeptical of a broker's claim to have an agreement in those circumstances and often the professional regulatory provisions related to brokerages would require that fee agreement must be signed and in writing even if contract law does not require that this be done.
First of all, this assumes that the debt consolidation firm would be willing to buy, and the CC company willing to sell. With a trial already scheduled, this might well not be the case. Secondly, when (if) the debt consolidation firm buys the debt, they buy the rights of the seller. In many states the trial could go forward, with the debt consolidation firm substituted as plaintiff. It is not automatic that a sale of the debt would postpone the legal case. Certainly if this happened once, it seems very unlikely that a second debt consolidation firm would buy the debt from the first. And as the comments by Moo and ohwilleke suggest, such a scheme would be fraudulent and criminal, if discovered. It might also constitute contempt of court for intentionally abusing the process of the court. Not a good or safe idea.
As noted in your update, Cal. Civ. Code section 1947.3 says (a) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), a landlord or a landlord's agent shall allow a tenant to pay rent and deposit of security by at least one form of payment that is neither cash nor electronic funds transfer. Paragraph 2 related to cases of recent bounced checks, and it sounds like you don't have that problem. From the personal finance angle, if you liked the convenience of the online service but don't trust the new ACH agent, your bank may have an "online bill pay" service where they can withdraw money at a designated time each month and send it. Chase has such a service, no charge, they do an electronic transfer if the payee accepts them and otherwise mail a paper check.
To start with, this is a highly technical issue upon which different jurisdictions may differ, and in which different rules may apply in different circumstances either by agreement or by statute. Also, similar situations are sometimes treated differently in this regard in bankruptcy and out of bankruptcy. The majority rule is that the lender may choose which remedies - such as collateral and guarantee rights, to enforce, and the lender may choose in which order to enforce them. For example, most jurisdictions allow a lender to collect from a guarantor even when collateral is available to the lender, in lieu of foreclosing on the collateral. Sometimes, however, special rules apply. For example, if the guarantor is a government agency (e.g. the Small Business Administration or the Veteran's Administration), often the lender is required to take all reasonable efforts to collect from the borrower and recover the amount owed from collateral, before the guarantee can be invoked. Similarly, sometimes the law distinguishes between an accommodation party who receives no consideration in a transaction who signs as a direct debtor, and one who signs in a guarantor capacity. Those jurisdictions may require a good faith effort to collect from direct debtors (often including attempts to foreclose upon collateral) before attempting to collect from guarantors who sign as such. There are also arrangements, such as credit default swaps or a situation when a consumer provides a credit card payment authorization which a creditor can use in the event of a default (or the large dollar amount equivalent of such an arrangement called a "letter of credit"), in which the line between what constitutes collateral and what constitutes a guarantee can be blurred.