One man is alleged by the Minnesota Attorney General in a recent consumer protection lawsuit to control ultimately an alternate legal system in which the main parties and the “judges” before whom those parties appear and the money that flows back and forth between them form a “complex web of companies that compose some of the largest debt collectors and arbitrators of consumer credit card debt in the country.” For whom the bell tolls in this failing economy? Ordinary consumers, of course.
You heard of Bernie Madoff, the infamous Wall Street Financier now serving 150 years in federal prison for bilking the rich of their play money. But, you are unlikely to have heard of J. Michael Cline, a New York City investment manager and allegedly the chief architect of an Unholy Alliance involving the National Arbitration Forum and the debt collection law firm Mann Bracken. Cline’s alleged goal? Bilk the consumer using fraudulent arbitration claims filed by fraudulent debt collectors before fraudulent arbitrators… all of which his companies ultimately control.
The National Arbitration Forum has long claimed that it was a neutral, unbiased, and independent arbiter of claims filed by credit card companies and junk debt buyers against consumers. Mann Bracken, on the other hand, is the largest debt collection law firm in the United States poised to become even bigger as it gobbles up more and more debt collection law firms across the country. Mann Bracken regularly files claims on behalf of its credit card and junk debt buyer clients against consumers with the National Arbitration Forum. However, confirming the worst suspicions of Consumer Rights Attorneys, Cline is alleged to control directly or indirectly the management of both the National Arbitration Forum or its affiliates and Mann Bracken or its affiliates. Thus, it must be determined whether the National Arbitration Forum is biased toward Mann Bracken by ruling against consumers not because of the law, but because they are both controlled by the same parent companies. If proven, the legal system had been usurped by private interests.