A recent study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that even though most Americans have at least one financial product — checking accounts, credit cards, loans, investment accounts — that use forced arbitration clauses to strip the account-holder of their right to sue, very few of us know about these restrictions or understand what they mean. And as the list we’ve compiled shows, it’s not just banks that are playing the “get out of jail free” card with arbitration.

Arbitration clauses allow companies to force customers with legal disputes out of the courtroom and into the process of private, often confidential, binding arbitration. Some clauses go a step further and say that there will, in most cases, be no actual hearing. Instead, the entire process can take place over the phone or through the exchange of documents.

READ MORE: 103 Lawmakers Applaud CFPB Efforts To Reform Arbitration

The most troubling aspect of arbitration clauses is the fact they almost universally contain bans on class actions. So even if a company harms multiple customers in an identical way — say, through system-wide overcharges or by charging an entire class of customer a fee they did not owe — each single customer must enter into arbitration on their own. Research by the CFPB shows that very few individuals elect to go this route.

Arbitration rulings are final, even when the arbitrator made an error that would have changed the outcome. In some instances, the arbitrator doesn’t even give a reason for their decision — just a simple ruling in favor of one party.

Damages are also limited in arbitration, meaning wronged individuals will have a difficult time seeking legal representation, especially for cases that could be expensive to mount. Opponents of forced arbitration argue that class action bans effectively allow companies to break the law in situations where it would be too costly for a single consumer to prove otherwise.

So it’s worth noting that of the 87 companies we list below, every single one of them explicitly bans class actions.

The below lists are by no means comprehensive. This is just a round-up of some of the most prominent businesses using forced arbitration in the U.S.

Clicking on a company’s name in the lists below will, in most instances, take you to the relevant Consumer Clause Registry entry on ADR.org. For a handful of companies that are not currently in the ADR database, we’ve linked directly to relevant pages on their websites.

The CFPB is currently in the process of writing rules that could severely limit the use class action bans in financial products. Thus, this first list of companies are the ones that would be most directly affected by the proposed changes.

Of course, some members of Congress have recently introduced legislation that would prevent the CFPB from trying to enforce these rules, while others on Capitol Hill are urging the CFPB on… so the future of these rules is in question.

Company	Class Action Ban?
Ally Financial	Yes
American Express	Yes
Barclays	Yes
Citibank	Yes
Dell Financial	Yes
Discover Bank	Yes
Discover Student Loans	Yes
Experian	Yes
Green Dot	Yes
H&R Block	Yes
JPMorgan Chase	Yes
Nissan Motor Acceptance	Yes
PayPal	Yes
PNC Bank	Yes
Regions Bank	Yes
Santander	Yes
SunTrust	Yes
Synchrony Bank	Yes
TD Bank	Yes
Toyota Motor Credit	Yes
TransUnion	Yes
USAA	Yes
U.S. Bank	Yes
Wells Fargo	Yes

While financial services are the main target of the CFPB arbitration rules, it was actually a telephone company — AT&T — that struck the most decisive legal blow in arbitration’s favor.

In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion that forced arbitration clauses and class action bans were enforceable in consumer contracts, clearing the way for a slew of other companies to begin inserting these clauses into their terms of service. Thus, not a single major telecom or pay-TV provider has a user agreement that doesn’t include forced arbitration and a ban on class actions.

Company	Class Action Ban?
A+E Television Networks	Yes
Assurant	Yes
AT&T	Yes
CenturyLink	Yes
Charter	Yes
Comcast	Yes
Consumer Cellular	Yes
Cox	Yes
DirecTV	Yes
Dish Network	Yes
Frontier	Yes
Gogo	Yes
Google Fiber	Yes
Hulu	Yes
MetroPCS	Yes
Netflix	Yes
SiriusXm	Yes
Sprint	Yes
Time Warner Cable	Yes
T-Mobile	Yes
U.S. Cellular	Yes
Verizon	Yes
Viacom	Yes
ViaSat	Yes

If banks and cable companies can strip customers of their legal rights, so can retailers and online services, right?

Stream a video? There’s some arbitration for ya. Buy something from Amazon? More arbitration. Order a dang steak through the mail? Yup, that’s arbitration on a T-bone.

Company	Class Action Ban?
24 Hour Fitness	Yes
Aaron’s	Yes
Amazon	Yes
AOL	Yes
Booking.com	Yes
Care.com	Yes
CarMax	Yes
CVS	Yes
Dell	Yes
DraftKings	Yes
eBay	Yes
Expedia	Yes
FanDuel	Yes
Groupon	Yes
GrubHub	Yes
Hertz	Yes
The Honest Company	Yes
LegalZoom	Yes
Match.com	Yes
Microsoft	Yes
Nintendo	Yes
Omaha Steaks	Yes
Overstock.com	Yes
Raymour & Flanigan	Yes
Rent-A-Center	Yes
Snapchat	Yes
Sony Online Entertainment	Yes
Spokeo	Yes
Spotify	Yes
Starbucks	Yes
StubHub	Yes
Terminix	Yes
Ticketmaster	Yes
Walgreens	Yes
Yahoo! Sports Daily Fantasy	Yes

Had we made this list a year ago — or even a few months ago — it would have been much longer, with for-profit education giants like Corinthian Colleges Inc. and University of Phoenix forcing students into arbitration. However, CCI collapsed and Phoenix has ditched the arbitration clause in an effort to improve its image. Yet some of the biggest players in for-profit colleges remain:

Company	Class Action Ban?
Education Corp. of America	Yes
ITT Educational	Yes
Kaplan Higher Education	Yes
Kaplan Inc	Yes

 

 

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