I’m just a regular person making about $70K a year in a big city, and I’ve recently felt incredibly powerless dealing with private companies. For instance, my landlord’s auto-pay system had a glitch that excluded my pet rent and water bill. I ended up with over $1,000 in late fees. Despite hours on the phone, it turns out their system doesn’t really do auto-pay and requires a fixed amount instead of covering the full rent. It feels like a scam, and my options are to pay the fees or potentially spend a fortune on legal action.
Another frustrating experience was trying to cancel my pest control service. I had to endure a 40-minute call followed by 35 minutes of arguing, just to finally cancel. There’s no online cancellation option, and the process felt like a timeshare sales pitch.
Why do ordinary people seem so unprotected against these shady practices, and how can we change this? How does one person even start to address these issues?
The country was founded by slave owners. After that we had various “industry barons” like railroads, petroleum, automobiles, etc. Now we have multinational corporations (with larger budgets and more power than several countries) calling the shots in congress. It’s always been like this. Post-WWII provided a brief respite, but that limited run of the “American Dream” was temporary and no longer exists.
Part of the solution would be: worker cooperatives. We need a lot more of those. It won’t solve everything, but it’s a really good start.
Basically we got all our rights in the post war period. Baby boomers and their parents had an excellent time, got theirs, then pulled up the ladder behind them. Zoomers will probably fix this but it’ll be interesting to see if it sticks this time.
We need a kind of everybody union.
I had this conversation with lots of people if everyone saw a company is doing things or taking advantage of people imagine if on the exact same day, one million customers canceled their accounts. That kind of unity can give all the power needed to the regular people. But you can’t get people to cooperate or even to have enough self-discipline to go along with something that isn’t for their immediate and measurable benefit. And so the big players know they can abuse and exploit.
A more perfect union, that can establish justice and domestic tranquility. One that provides for the common defense, promotes the general welfare, and secures the blessing of liberty for ourselves and future generations.
Dang, if only we had written that down and made it legally enforceable
One big union? For all the industrial workers in the world? I wonder if anyone has thought of that before.
Too bad it never works.
We need a kind of everybody union.
In a democracy, that’s called a government.
U.S.A. is not a democracy, it’s an oligarchy. Has been for decades, but more so now than ever before. Corporations have begun to openly ignore law and have no fear of punishment. Because they own the government they write the laws and they decide what happens everywhere.
As I said in a different comment, it’s a painful thing to hear, but the sad simple truth is, the bad guys won.
Isn’t that ideally what the government is supposed to be? We can’t all individually fight for ourselves, so we vote for people to represent us and work to protect our interests. That is, if politicians actual represented their constituents and not the highest bidder.
Well yes except our government is bought and owned by those corporations. That’s why we are not represented by them.
There’s a simple way to put it, but it’s painful to hear: the bad guys won.
I have had this same thought many times! Vote with our wallets en masse. It’s kind of almost happening to fast food.
In Australia ACCC takes care of abusive businesses, surely there must be something like that? Even 3rd world countries like Brazil has something like it.
Nope. America is OWNED by rich people. It’s a corporation and they make the laws so all the laws are to help them have more power.
We have the Federal Trade Comission but it needs to have the balls to really protect us.
Even when they step up its usually a small fine the offender just writes off as the cost of doing business.
Corp breaks a law. Makes $100m profit. Gets $10m fine. All good for the books!!
True but Lina Khan’s been doing some great work in changing that agency’s track record.
Ill add a worker cooperative might be even better than a union because a union can easily be corrupt
Any group of people can become corrupt if it is filled with corrupt people.
The country was founded by slave owners.
Thanks for starting your argument with this, so I know I can ignore the rest.
So you don’t understand basic American history or what the word ignore means. Got it.
See also: blaming “capitalism” for literally everything
Vote. Seriously. Recent history around consumer protection has been very partisan and this is something that impacts us all
One party creates things like
- cfpb
- net neutrality
- ACA
- education assistance
The other party. Cancels, sues, interrupts. Project 2025 probably tries to entirely destroy
One party creates things like cfpb
Putting warning labels on predatory lending. Spending more time fighting various right-wing interests in the right-wing dominated courts than doing any actual regulating. Does nothing to deliver actual money to the people who need it - all they can do is regulate the extent to which a private loan is shitty and extortionary.
net neutrality
Tries to regulate the ISP monopoly rather than breaking it up. Doesn’t actually guarantee internet access to anyone. Doesn’t extend high speed internet or establish public internet access points. Also constantly under fire in the right-wing dominated courts, such that they can’t effectively deliver on their function.
ACA
The best thing about the ACA is the extension of who qualifies for Medicaid. Everything else is a band-aid on a band-aid. Just open up Medicaid as the Public Option and you’d have done more good for more people in the long run.
education assistance
Doesn’t limit the total cost of education. Can’t even extend loans at the Prime Rate, because some private middle man always needs to get a cut. Doesn’t improve access to education by setting up new public schools or vocational programs. Doesn’t increase teacher pay, reduce student housing costs, or mitigate the cost of living while pursuing an education.
Blah blah, the Republicans Are Worse. But the Democrats only ever seem capable of operating through the private sector via subsidies and civil penalties. Where is the actual public infrastructure? What does the public sector actually own and operate? What is being delivered at cost rather than as a profit-center for a third party?
I once got screwed by my mortgage provider and was helpless. I submitted a complaint to the CFPB and they contacted my mortgage provider and made them make things right. That directly translated to significant money back in my pocket.
I once got screwed by my mortgage provider
This is the root of the problem. You shouldn’t need to borrow money from a private third party in order to have a home.
All of these are really important policy changes that have positively impacted our society. How do you spark change to the effect of all these? I recently reached out to the Federal trade commission on one company that has some extremely predatory practices but don’t think that’ll do anything. What other methods can I use? Email congressman or something?
After two hours of calls to try to resolve mobile data failing to work with a particular company who said I’ll have to factory reset my device, I said I would have to do it later, but would probably end up contacting the FCC. After I hung up, mobile data was magically working in less than two minutes.
It’s sad that this is the best option for y’all.
Good question and good examples. With things like forced arbitration in user agreements I’d love to know more on how to turn things around on this.
I spoke to a lawyer about something similar to this recently and he basically just laughed at me. Told me there is no way it’s worth it, would cost tens of thousands of dollars to fight it in court and would basically have no gain to me personally at all. Overturning such a small amount no matter how wrong or immoral it is would be extremely costly on both sides but they have way more money to throw at the issue than I do which I totally agree with honestly. So you can do something that’s totally immoral, just as long as you have tons of money behind you to pay for it
And this right here is one of the fundamental injustices of the American legal system. It’s completely fucked that some conglomerate can basically railroad an individual into poverty from a bullshit lawsuit and that private individuals without deep pockets essentially have zero recourse in the legal arena.
Yeah I am seeing this more and more. You even see it business to business. We need regulation, monopoly busting, and progressive taxation.
I don’t know if you’ve been following what Lina Khan’s been doing with the FTC but there’s some incredibly antitrust work which she’s been putting into play. They’ve been really going after monopolization and Biden’s been putting forth rules to make breaking subscriptions easier, which would help with OPs particular problem: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/15/us/us-government-unsubscribe-memberships.html.
I finally was able to cancel a Telus home security service after they tried to put me in a 3 yr contract. I finally was able to cancel. I sent the equipment back and then they started charging me other monthly fees as if I had renewed. I didn’t even have their equipment anymore.
another 45 minutes on the phone and they say it is finally cancelled. But who knows. I’ll probably have to call again when they take the amount from my bank account despite removing my bank info from their site.
A company with 19.2M users. Imagine how many people are robbed “by mistake.” This is not a mistake but part of their internal procedures.
Cancelling a service even when contract is over is made difficult on purpose.
This is why you never use autopay
only use it on accounts you can easily cancel.
In a word. Lobbyists.
It turns out if you throw enough money at people then you can make them do anything you want.
Yep. Welcome to the hell that is corporate capitalism.
There’s a lot of replies here about why US citizens are in the situation they are but not how to fix it, which was the question you asked. You have two political parties in a first past the post system with largely similar corporate focussed policies, people primarily vote against a party rather than for one that represents them. If you really want to change things you’ll need to overhaul your voting system to break up your two party system and encourage competition from parties that actually represent what people want.
Unfortunately there is no safe and easy way to do this; it means the two parties in power giving up that power which they will not do willingly. You’ll need large scale consistent and actually disruptive protests, ie not just meeting up for a day then returning to life as nornal, but the US has a history of responding to protests the same way they do everything; with violence.
So more practically, you can contact your representative at the appropriate level of government and hope they don’t completely ignore you this time.
One of the things more and more companies are doing is
Ignoring the Laws.
They have learned to ignore what they are required to do or what they are allowed to do . Knowing few will sue and those who win will get no more than they were due.
The companies have learned there is no downside for being criminal… So they have become criminals.
The US is incredibly bad at reining in capitalism. It also only has two parties that are both heavily influenced by lobbyists.
To fix it, not sure, calling politicians and showing up to stuff will help but it’s always going to be an uphill battle. Anyway, just vote, if you get the option to choose then vote for a third party as long as you’re not in a swing state.
The real solution is still voting reform to get more diverse opinion so if that’s on the ballot vote for it and try to get other people to do the same. The UK missed a major opportunity for voter reform.
This can happen over a couple of generations by removing winner take all representatives for a state and cause a hung parliament. Coalition talks will then be more likely to include concessions on the two state systems to get a governing coalition.
You can look at the UK as being the same only one generation ahead if things go well.
I agree with one correction.
Vote even in non swing states.
There are far too many registered voters who don’t vote.
Texas could be blue every year if half the dem no shows just voted.
Also even less vote outside of the presidential election.
It also only has two parties that are both heavily influenced by lobbyists.
And yet, one party keeps enacting consumer and worker protection laws, with the other party taking them away. HMMM CURIOUS oh well I’m sure they’re both equally bad
Yeah, Democrats are way better at making legislation that benefits an average person. They’re also respect the parliamentary conventions and the democratic process.
moving away from something like FPTP (what the majority of america uses) and to something like IRV (maine uses this iirc, and most euro countries also do) can vastly improve things.
As for american elections the states themselves have a lot of control over their own voting process, and even some of the federal process. So just voting locally for voter reform can be quite impactful.
Exactly, state elections with referendums on voting reform are absolutely crucial to move the needle.
There’s a major thing happening right now in the US where states are agreeing to pledge their vote to the winner of the popular vote as soon as the pledged electors get past 270 which is a big win in my opinion. It’s still doesn’t help with the two parties situation but any democratic improvement is a win.
yeah, it’s a good starting point and a big mover potential, though to be clear the supreme court ruled that electorates pledging doesn’t mean they have to legally follow that statement. They can be unfaithful electors, it’s just likely to get them ousted next election cycle.
It was part of the concession ruling that they can be made to pledge, it’s just that they can’t be forced to vote in one particular way.
Did not the same international business conglomerates and the same billionaires donate to both major political parties?
Why would regular people need protection? They don’t have shareholders! 🤷🏻♂️
I swear shit has gotten exponentially worse since I was young. For example, last year I suffered a brain injury, I have about a month of missing memory. During that month, my homeowners association sent notice that they were being sold to another management company and the autopay I’d been using for 5 years would be cancelled. I missed this notice due to being in the hospital with brain damage and so never got new payment switched over.
I’m used to companies being gracious and working with their customers. Instead I had a lawyer sicked on me and the paperwork to forclose my house was started. I wound up having to pay all their legal fees and penalties which was an order of magnitude more than the actuall missed payments.
This was the most painful one recently but this is par for the course. Someone else said it in this thread but it’s become a real dog eat dog world, something that used to be a folksy saying has now become a harsh reality.
Yeah I’ve been feeling like there’s just not enough blood from this stone that they keep squeezing
Why do ordinary people seem so unprotected against these shady practices
Assuming you are in the USA, it’s fundamentally because our politics is fueled by private money. The “haves” spend lots of money to make rules that protect and enrich themselves at the expense of the “have nots”. The rich get richer, and the rest of us get a larger share of the burden.
The rich then spend more of their money convincing everyone else that some minority group of their fellow “have nots” are to blame and let us fight amongst ourselves. They starve us but leave us with just enough left to lose so that the price of doing something about it is too high (quitting, losing health insurance, getting arrested at a protest, etc) for most of us to bear.
how can we change this?
Get money out of politics. Get the public to stop blaming their fellow have nots and demand change from the haves.
How does one person even start to address these issues?
Have empathy for and help your neighbors if you can, especially when they take the risks required to push for actual change. Talk to people. Organize. Support/start unions or a mutual aid organization. Go to local government meetings and make your voice heard. Run for local office.
Its easy for a small group of wealthy organizations to tilt specific elections or politics in their favor. It’s much harder them to do that in 1,000+ small communities across the nation.
well said. money in politics has some pretty awful downstream effects. who’d have ever thunk it…
Excellent points and to add to that support local journalism, the smaller the better. The media is really the fourth branch of government when it comes to checks and balances. If media integrity was restored, they could use there influence to hold Congress accountable to the people.
That latter issue is actually being worked on, law wise, right now.
Which is an excellent answer to the question, “how do we fix it?” Vote for fucking Democrats!! Democrat administrations enact consumer protections!
Explain how!
The FTC is working on a bill or something to make “one click cancel” required.
Capitalism. The answer for most societal problems we face.
because private companies were never meant to big this big and powerful.
They have so much power because they lobby and control the government, part of the problem is dems being generally unappealing and trying to focus more on less significant social issues rather than doing things like, taking away the rights that big corpos never should’ve had in the first place.
It’s a give and take game, the less regulations you have, the more companies you have and the more capital you have moving through you, the more you have the less regulations you have and the less capital you have moving through you.
