To start your claim, use our online interface to create an account, tell us which company you want to claim against, and describe your issue and what you want the company to do about it.

We take the information that you’ve submitted and put it in a hard-copy letter (that’s right – old fashion snail mail) to the appropriate company. We tell the company that, if they haven’t sent you an offer to resolve your issue within a certain amount of time, your claim may escalate to a consumer arbitration.

At any time after we send the company a letter, it can offer to resolve your issue. They may send the offer to you through FairShake, or may contact you directly by phone or email. If you accept an offer at any time, then congratulations! Please let us know by signing in to your FairShake dashboard, selecting the claim and clicking “It’s Resolved!”.

If the company has not offered to settle within the waiting period, then we’ll give you the option of escalating your claim to consumer arbitration by automatically generating and submitting the form documents of the American Arbitration Association. We’ll use the description of your claim and request that you provided (in your own words or the form you’ve chosen). We’ll also use your contact information. We will default to requesting a “documents only” arbitration – which means that you won’t have to show up for a meeting or phone call to discuss the issue. If you would like to request an in-person or telephone hearing, please contact us using your FairShake dashboard.

After generating your filing documents, we will file them instantly with the American Arbitration Association to start your arbitration. We will also send a copy of the documents to the company to tell them that the arbitration has been filed. In some cases, the American Arbitration Association will require you to pay a filing fee of $200 – and the company will usually reimburse you for this. We may offer to pay the filing fee – if you accept, we will be entitled to any reimbursement of the filing fee.

The American Arbitration Association will appoint someone to manage the administrative matters for your claim, including getting documents filled out and scheduling appointments (if any). The case administrator will also ask for identifying information of everyone involved in the claim. In that same communication, the company will be issued a bill for administrative costs of the arbitration (usually a few thousand dollars).

Your claim administrator will notify you that an arbitrator – the person who will act like a judge for your dispute – has been appointed, and will give you two weeks to object to the appointment.

This is where all of the parties – you and the company – and the arbitrator have a phone call to discuss how the arbitration will take place. If you are having a “documents only” arbitration, you will set the dates on which the documents are due. If you requested an in-person or telephonic hearing to argue your claim, then you will set a date for the hearing. Your claim administrator will schedule this meeting.

Your arbitration will take place in the manner that you agreed to in your pre-arbitration phone call. FairShake is not an attorney, so cannot be present or represent you in your arbitration; however, FairShake will provide you with self-help materials that you can use to understand the process and win your claim.