If you have an American Express Card and you’ve called the company from your cell phone, hotel phone, or a friend’s phone, you may want to read the new terms of agreement that it sent you recently.
Edward Hasbrouck, otherwise known as the Practical Nomad, points to a problematic paragraph.
Telephone Communications
You agree that from time to time we may monitor and/or record calls between you (or Additional Cardmembers on your account) and us to assure the quality of our customer service or as required by law.
You authorize us to call or send a text message to you at any number you give us or from which you call us, including mobile phones. You authorize us to make such calls using automatic telephone dialing systems for any lawful purpose…
You authorize us to place prerecorded calls in connection with the status of your account, or security and identity theft matters.
You agree to pay any fees or charges you incur for incoming calls or text messages from us without reimbursement.
So what does it mean?
Let’s say you are invited to a friend’s house for dinner. While you’re there, you decide to call AmEx to get your balance. You have, in effect, allowed AmEx to call that phone number to solicit new products it may have that match your interests. This could turn out to be a sore spot between you and your friend because he may be getting calls at odd hours from AmEx. What if he doesn’t even have an AmEx card?
Another instance would be if you’re on the road and decide to contact AmEx from your cell phone to inquire about nearby offices to get travelers checks. Now AmEx has your number and it will send you text messages or call you on your cell phone. Who’s going to have to pay for those minutes or data transfers? You do.
Hasbrouck wrote to American Express refusing to agree, but he hasn’t gotten a response. He does encourage you to write to them also and has even given a Microsoft Word template you can use.
So if you do have an American Express card and you have gotten this new terms of agreement, what do you think? Will you write to them? If you have written to them and gotten a response, post it here and at Hasbrouck’s site. It’ll be interesting to see what AmEx has to say.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The purpose is a lot less ominous than it seems. This simply gives their collection department the authorization to do their job if you don’t pay your bill….You see, later, when you run up the card and start to hide from the collectors, they want the expressed right to call you & text you.
And call all your friends…and any hotel where you might have stayed in the past…etc. And while bill collection may be the “purpose,” this isn’t how it’s worded. They’re giving themselves permission to call for basically any reason.
You might want to read their other conditions as well. Turns out, they can raise the interest rate (from 11% to 15.24% in my case) on *current* as well as future purchases at any time. And raise the rate even more (up to 23.24%) if you are late 2 times. Considering, they already whack you $38 if you are late, the rate increase of 8% is surreal.