DECKER

As best I could tell, by checking the box I would be agreeing not to sue Virgin Mobile if confronted by any number of unpleasant scenarios, including but not limited to: the grenade-like explosion of the phone while in my wife’s hand, the inadvertent release of our personal information to hackers from Uzbekistan or damages incurred should any one of the jumbo jets owned by Virgin founder Richard Branson fall out the big blue sky and onto my small tan house.

Given the first and third scenarios seemed unlikely (although I do recall something about Branson and a hot air balloon crash in 1987), this demand for forced arbitration seemed uncharacteristically heavy-handed for a barefoot billionaire who flashes his pearly whites and the peace sign from the cover of his latest book, “Finding my Virginity: The New Autobiography.”

I looked for the box that said, “No thanks, just sell me the phone.”

There wasn’t one. No check mark. No phone. No dice.

When dealing with the

telecom and financial sectors these days, forced arbitration is an unavoidable albatross.

Consumers encounter such clauses when applying for a credit card or securing a car loan. The language is tucked into the fine print of retirement accounts and nonbargained employment contracts.

“I like to say that forced arbitration is unfair and everywhere,” said Christine Hines, legislative director of the Washington-based National Association of Consumer Advocates.

As U.S. citizens, we know to raise a ruckus when we feel our First or Second Amendment rights have been trod upon. We don’t raise an eyebrow when we’re ordered, by a for-profit business, to waive our right to the courts, as provided in the Seventh Amendment.

“Technically, that’s what it’s doing,” Hines said of forced arbitration clauses. “It’s eliminating the consumer’s right to go to court.”

Few consumers read a contract’s fine print. Even fewer make the effort to understand it. With misplaced faith and naivete, we surrender our rights one mouse-click at a time.

We need to wise up, as Wells Fargo customers did when

they discovered their bank was creating millions of fake accounts, in their names and without their consent, to meet unrealistic sales targets. As that scandal unfolded during the past year, attorneys for the bank argued that aggrieved customers couldn’t sue because they had signed agreements requiring arbitration.

After admitting that a data breach had affected 143 million people, credit reporting agency Equifax drew the ire of consumers who noticed similar wording in its offer of free credit monitoring. The company later erased the clause.

A federal agency known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been working for years to study these contractual sleights of hand in which consumers, often unknowingly, agree to settle disputes through arbitration or individually in small claims court.

In July, the agency issued a rule that banks could no longer use arbitration clauses to prevent customers from banding together to file class-action lawsuits.

“Arbitration clauses in contracts for products like bank accounts and credit cards make it nearly impossible for people to take companies to

court when things go wrong,” said Richard Cordray, the agency’s director and a former Ohio attorney general, in announcing the rule. “These clauses allow companies to avoid accountability by blocking group lawsuits and forcing people to go it alone or give up.”

The rule was heralded as a small victory for consumers, which meant only one thing in Washington.

Faster than they could deposit a campaign check, U.S. representatives voted 231-190 to block the rule. The Senate has yet to vote.

“You have a very powerful industry,” Hines said. “You’re talking about Wall Street, you’re talking about very big banks, but not just banks, payday lenders ... the entire financial sector for the most part is against this rule.

“There is increased awareness, but that’s not the fix,” she said.

The fix is this. Our elected officials need to remember who they work for, and that our contract with them is not binding. In the voting booth, we’re always free to check another box.