A person dressed up as "Monopoly Man" Rich Uncle Pennybags from Hasbro’s Monopoly board game attended Equifax CEO Richard Smith's Senate hearing on Wednesday and promptly went viral after showing up in video of the proceedings.
Amanda Werner of the groups Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform sat behind Smith twirling her costume mustache and adjusting her monocle to draw attention in a unique way to the perils of forced arbitration by banks and other financial institutions like Equifax.
"Make no mistake: Arbitration is a rigged game, one that the bank nearly always wins," Werner said in a statement at RulesatRisk.org, a website dedicated to overturning the Congressional Review Act. "Shockingly, the average consumer forced to arbitrate with Wells Fargo was ordered to pay the bank nearly $11,000."
Werner also attended the Wells Fargo testimony on Tuesday and handed out “Get out of jail free” cards to banking committee members, hearing attendees, and the offices of all 100 senators.
Forced arbitration clauses are often slipped into contracts with banks and other organizations like Equifax so that when disputes arise, lawsuits can be avoided. In this way, critics contend, financial institutions can use their power and influence to escape accountability and continue to defraud customers, according to RulesatRisk.org.
Equifax had included a forced arbitration clause in the free credit monitoring service it offered customers affected by the data breach that exposed 145 million people’s personal information, but it later removed the clause, with Smith saying it had been a mistake.
Twitter had its curiosity piqued about the reasons for the Monopoly man's appearance, and lauded Werner for her creativity.
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