First, I want to thank you for the invitation!
Most have heard the adage: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” We have long known that the “squeaky wheels” who are proactive in pursuing their needs and complaints are most likely to get what they want. That is proper for the most part to the extent that it rewards those who expend the time and resources to pursue their interests. However, this “squeaky wheel system,” or “SWS” for ease of reference, allows businesses to bank on our inertia (laziness) in contracting and ration remedies to only those with the most resources and power. This also may allow businesses to control public information by quieting the squeaky wheel consumers. The SWS can effectively prevent economists’ proposed “informed minority” from policing fairness of contract terms and business practices by alerting the majority about purchase concerns and prompting companies to make contract changes.
This SWS has troubled me, leading to my recent article, Access to Consumer Remedies in the Squeaky Wheel System in volume 39 of the Pepperdine Law Review. This Article uncovers the salience of the SWS and explores its impacts on contract regulation and purchase practices in the consumer marketplace. It also provides a snapshot of empirical data from my own e-survey of Colorado consumers that is relevant to SWS dynamics. The article proposes proportional and efficient means for consumers to access purchase information and contract remedies using online and other low-cost remedy mechanisms. This proposal is by no means the “answer” and I invite other ideas for expanded and equalized remedy mechanisms to help diffuse the SWS,narrow the divide between the consumer “haves” and “have-nots,” and foster better fairness regulation of companies’ contract and claims assistance practices.