Question: I received a phone call today from one of my credit card companies. They are soooo polite in identifying who they are and where they are calling from. I ask in a demure, friendly voice “Is there some sort of a problem?” Because I want to throw them off-guard. I know that they are calling to give me $1m accidental death and dismemberment insurance or some such crap that I don’t need.

Well today, the young gentleman on the other end of the phone really got my goat!!! He said, “We understand that you are $xxxx in debt.” And was going to go on with his pitch for, what turned out to be, a debt consolidation loan. I said to him, “How do you know how much debt I am in???? Did you run a credit check on my to find that out? And how did you access ANY kind of information about me without my permission?”

Then I hung up on him.

When did this kind of sh*t start?

Concentrating on deep breathing exercises to bring down my blood pressure,

Answer: Basically, any company with which you have financial dealings (e.g., credit cards, car loans, mutual fund investments, checking accounts) can give (or, more likely, sell) all your information to whoever they like, unless you explicitly tell them not to. Unfortunately, the salescritter you were forced to listen to didn’t need your permission at all.

All those “privacy” messages you may have been receiving recently are the letters that tell you how to “opt out” of this. None of the letters I got were particularly clear on how to go about opting out, though all of them were very keen to tell me that my “privacy is very important to” them.

Whenever a letter tells you that the company sending it “will only share information where permitted by law” they’re just saying that they’re not willing to go to jail and will merely feel free to sell your financial information to whoever wants it.

Related posts:

1. Annoying telemarketing calls
2. Debt Consolidation Services
3. Annoying telemarketing calls
4. debt consolidation or student loans
5. Need advice – Debt Consolidation
6. What Is The Best Method for Debt Consolidation?
7. Debt Consolidation
8. debt consolidation?
9. debt consolidation
10. Debt Consolidation Services
11. Help with debt and credit card consolidation
12. Reputable debt consolidation companies

In Consolidation Loans. You can leave a response, or trackback from your site.