Blog :: Annoyances

My credit card company is annoying me. I've gotten probably 10 calls in the last 3-4 months ostensibly from Chase offering me a new feature on my Credit Card. Basically they want me to purchase income insurance from them - if I pay them a few cents a month they'll allow me to carry a balance with no payments for a few months in the event of an unexpected job loss, medical emergency, etc.

All that is fine - the plan might be useful even. What's annoying is that the calls are frequent, repetitive, and deceptive.

The sales pitch basically goes like this: As a valued customer we're offering you a feature on your plan and we'd just like to send you an informational packet about it. Now if you'll just confirm your home mailing address for me...

Wait a minute - I get a statement from Chase every month, why would they need to confirm my address?

As it turns out I'm dealing with a salesperson who needs "consent" to add the feature to my plan on a trial basis and if I give my address that's taken as consent to turn on the feature as well!

I actually got one caller to admit that if I gave her my address she was going to make a change to my account.

I consider this to be deceptive. I recognize that the companies I do business with can call me or mail me sales information. I don't like, however, tactics designed to claim consent in ordering services without actually telling you what's going on. Consider this a warning when choosing credit cards...

Posted on Jul 14th 2007, 12:00 PM