A BIT OF A FLAP OVER YOUR FINANCIAL PRIVACY
It’s time to gather a little information and generate a bit of discussion on this one.
Over the past few months all of us have been receiving little notices in the mail from our banks, credit card companies, mortgage companies, credit unions and other financial institutions. These notices told us of some fancy new federal law that was supposed to protect our privacy rights vis-à-vis out financial information.
I, like most of you, have ignored these notices. Finally I sat down and read one. To my surprise (and I should be ashamed here) I found that these notices were telling me that my bank or credit card company was going to share any information they wanted to share if I didn’t’ fill out this form explicitly telling them NOT TO.
To me, that’s a breach of trust with your customer. These institutions knew damned well that very few customers would actually read those notices, let alone fill them out and return them. They deliberately worded these forms in such a way as to get your implied consent to share your financial information because they knew you weren’t going to be paying attention. I have no idea how many of these notices from my financial institutions have gone un-answered. Now I’m left with the necessity of sending each and every one of them a certified letter telling them that they most certainly do NOT have my permission to share any of my financial information with other companies.
There’s a flab brewing over this in Washington. The deadline for responding to these notices is July 1st. Over 60 of Americans tell pollsters that they don’t even remember receiving the notices, let alone responding to them. Financial lobbyists are telling the media that less than one-half of one percent of the notices are being filled out and returned with “don’t share” requests.
Congress is considering extending the deadline – and maybe requiring another notification. Might not be a bad idea.
It’s time to gather a little information and generate a bit of discussion on this one.
Over the past few months all of us have been receiving little notices in the mail from our banks, credit card companies, mortgage companies, credit unions and other financial institutions. These notices told us of some fancy new federal law that was supposed to protect our privacy rights vis-à-vis out financial information.
I, like most of you, have ignored these notices. Finally I sat down and read one. To my surprise (and I should be ashamed here) I found that these notices were telling me that my bank or credit card company was going to share any information they wanted to share if I didn’t’ fill out this form explicitly telling them NOT TO.
To me, that’s a breach of trust with your customer. These institutions knew damned well that very few customers would actually read those notices, let alone fill them out and return them. They deliberately worded these forms in such a way as to get your implied consent to share your financial information because they knew you weren’t going to be paying attention. I have no idea how many of these notices from my financial institutions have gone un-answered. Now I’m left with the necessity of sending each and every one of them a certified letter telling them that they most certainly do NOT have my permission to share any of my financial information with other companies.
There’s a flab brewing over this in Washington. The deadline for responding to these notices is July 1st. Over 60 of Americans tell pollsters that they don’t even remember receiving the notices, let alone responding to them. Financial lobbyists are telling the media that less than one-half of one percent of the notices are being filled out and returned with “don’t share” requests.
Congress is considering extending the deadline – and maybe requiring another notification. Might not be a bad idea.
