Does Anyone Read This Stuff? A Note From Credit Card Hell To The National Lawyers' Guild

I'm like the rest of the world-every day brings a new handful of credit card offers in the mail.

Unlike the rest of the world, 4-1/2 years ago me and the Dragon Lady started a project of paying off our credit cards and getting out of credit card hell and I am pleased to report that for us, July 17 was Liberation Day. It was awfully close to Bastille Day and the connection is obvious.

We paid off nearly $30,000 in accumulated debt at 100 cents on the dollar, and like reformed drunks everywhere, we've said never again. We're on the wagon for good.

We didn't have a lot of fun, and we've little to show for it except things like the memory of the $750 bowling ball plastic carburetor I had to buy for the Voyager, which is now resting comfortably in the belly of a tramp steamer hauling scrap to Nagoya. To my colleagues in Japan, I must remind them that that cargo of metal is cursed. No good can come of it and the best outcome would be if the freighter stumbled across a wayward mine from War Two and sank.

All of this is a lengthy preface to my theme.

Every so often you'll get a credit card offer that's cobranded with your alma mater, save the whales, Harley motorcycles, whatever.

The offer in question came from FIA Card Services, formerly known as MBNA in the name of the National Lawyers' Guild, a left leaning organization that I had a brief flirtation with in law school.

It was signed by Marjorie Cohn, president of that august body of fellow travelers. So far, so good.

Perhaps what Marjorie don't realize is the extent of the abuse of civil rights and due process that FIA practices, along with their lapdogs in the National Arbitration Forum and their captive pitbull "law" firms.

To make a long story short, they use mandatory arbitration that undercuts the due process we think we're all entitled to, it's a shabby and shameful ripoff, and the people behind it should be ashamed of themselves and turn in their law licenses because they didn't learn anything about fundamental fairness and transparency.