There's this post by Max Kennerly that has me particularly worried about the security of consumer affairs. Most especially is the fact that Ford Motor Company is reportedly taking more aggressive steps to lobby for "secret" mandatory waiver clauses in all of its contracts.
This is secret "carnie two-step" to swindle Ford's customers out of important rights. The greatest concern is that Ford is using another entity, The National Chamber Litigation Center, to handle "dirty work."
I never favor automatic opt-out clauses in consumer contracts, and this information about Ford discourages me. Since a majority of consumers who purchase any vehicle rarely read the contract and documents they're signing, the presence of these opt-out clauses should come as no surprise. That is, until the time for reckoning, when the consumer finds out he/she has few options.
Finally, since we're talking about class action litigation, one should note that often the class action lawsuit has more bite on the company's behavior. Theoretically (and the other side argues the opposite), class action lawsuits help to deter certain behavior by companies, because the relatively small-value amount now becomes something "with teeth." Want proof? Check out the $200 million award against Wells Fargo for overdraft fees.
As the Mr. Kennerly notes:
The Chamber of Commerce wants to bend the rules for large corporations so that those large corporations can adopt practices that harm millions of consumers in small amounts, amounts small enough that it's simply not worth it to each individual consumer to bring a lawsuit, like when Wells Fargo fraudulently manipulated the order of debit transactions to increase the overdraft fees charged. (Small businesses generally don't try this nonsense: their customers aren't as captive, reputation is more important, and the money just isn't there if you've only got a few hundred or thousand regular customers.)
That's why class actions are so important — they tip the scales a back towards the consumers, making viable claims out of these cases involving a multitude of small harms — and why the Chamber of Commerce is fighting so hard to get rid of them.