Did you really read all the fine print at the bottom of the agreement you have with your credit card company? Did you read all the grey writing on your last statement? Do you read every bit of "junk mail" the credit card company sends you stuffed in your bill? I bet the answer to each question is no. I don't either, but I'm going to from now on. Even if it is in tiny letters and I have to look up the words. I probably won't understand it anyway, but I'm going to call and ask what it means. Why?

Somewhere in that mess of legal language is a clause that says when you use the card you have agreed to use arbitration as a means of settling any dispute. That doesn't sound so bad until you've been through what passes for arbitration with a credit card company. In my case somehow (identity theft or mistake in billing, it was never proved one way or the other) I ended up with a charge I didn't make. I complained and refused to pay. The credit card company did nothing to help me prove it wasn't something I bought. Instead, the credit card company answered back I could either pay the bill or they would take me to arbitration. And there I went, well actually I wasn't there. Skipping the details, I found that the arbitration was not consumer friendly. Saying I lost would be a misnomer as I never got a chance to fight. The credit card company won a "default judgement" against me and then took me to a real court to enforce it. Bottom line, I had to pay for something I never bought.

Lesson learned. Banks and other credit card companies make their money in the fine print. In this case, by railroading consumers with disputed charges on their credit cards into arbitration with the National Arbitration Forum. What the fine print says is you have given up your right to go to a judge and have your case heard. A lot of research later, I find one piece of information that says it all. In cases involving one large bank, consumers won in arbitration at the National Arbitration Forum less than 1% of the time. Not good odds.

Arbitration is nothing but another tool used by large banks and other credit card companies to force victims of credit-card fraud to pay "debts" they do not owe. By agreeing to arbitration, you give all the power to the credit card company. They can use it against you, as they did me, but the consumer can not even go to court, let alone use the courts to force the credit card company or bank to help you investigate the fraud.