I believe that a few credit card companies have been positioning themselves to get around the Federal Do Not Call list. We recently received a gift card from WalMart that was actually a prepaid Visa, but to activate the card we had to call the number and provide the receipt number, our full name, our address, our phone number, and our social security number. We declined. On reading the details of the agreement that comes with the card, there’s fees all over the place, including a yearly fee.
Today I received a rebate from Corsair in the form of a prepaid Visa card from Citi. Included is a slip of paper containing their “privacy notice,” which we’ve probably all gotten used to seeing and regularly discard, but this one caught my attention because of the recent nonsense with WalMart so I read the darn thing. Most of it is the standard blah blah about what information and who they can distribute to and such. On the back are check boxes to “Limit the personal information about me that you disclose to nonaffiliated third parties.”
The word “limit” seems suspicious to me, but maybe it’s always been that way and I just never noticed. I usually just throw the things away. I get a privacy practice notice every time I go to my doctor (I finally told them to keep them — save a tree), and I guess I assumed that they were all the same. Yeah, yeah, I know what happens when you assume (you make an ass out of Brian lol).
Buried in the tiny tiny print of the card agreement is this:
Supplement — Additional Terms of Our Agreement
Required Information: You must provide your real name, street address, e-mail address (if any), telephone number and such other information as may be reasonably request by us to determine you eligibility for a Citi Prepaid Services Card. Falsification of any of this information constitutes grounds for termination of the Citi Prepaid Services Card.
It goes on about how Federal Law requires them to maintain detailed records of all information to combat terrorism, which I don’t doubt, but this whole thing got me thinking about all the recent phone calls I’ve been getting and how they may be getting around the Federal Do Not Call list. Since any company with a previous business relationship with you can call you, this sort of privacy notice is the company’s “foot in the door.”
Maybe I’m just being paranoid . . . nah.
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