Maybe they should change their slogan from “What’s in your wallet?” to “Who’s knocking at your door?” Capital One recently updated its contract for credit card customers, and the new language is giving some cardholders concern that Cap One may just pop in for tea and scones some afternoon.
The L.A. Times’ David Lazarus looks at the new cardholder agreement, which states that Cap One “may contact you in any manner we choose” including calls, emails, texts, faxes or a “personal visit” at “your home and at your place of employment.”
But if Cap One comes to visit, it probably won’t be a celeb shill like Alec Baldwin or Jimmy Fallon dropping by to watch the Olympics and share some pizza.
“It sounds really invasive, but I don’t think it’s a violation of your 4th Amendment rights,” one attorney specializing in illegal-search cases explains to Lazarus. He does, however, point out that there are laws against harassment.
A rep for Cap One says the company “does not visit our cardholders, nor do we send debt collectors to their homes or work.”
Though, explains the rep, it might be necessary to visit a home if the company is going to repossess something from the cardholder.
Another curious addition to the Cap One contract reads, “We may modify or suppress caller ID and similar services and identify ourselves on these services in any manner we choose.”
So basically, the company is telling customers it may trick them into answering their phones by making it look like someone else is calling. Bizarrely, this is not against the law so long as the caller ID spoofing isn’t being done with the intention of defrauding someone.
Again, the Cap One rep tries to downplay the strange implications of this part of the contract update.
“Actually, we want our calls to display as Capital One on caller ID, and that’s the way they are programmed,” claims the rep. “However, some local phone exchanges may display our number differently. This is beyond our control, and we want our cardholders to be aware of that potential occurrence.”
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