Why Capital One Customers Should Read Company’s Recent Contract Update Very Carefully

Capital One reserves the right to contact its customers “in any manner we choose,” including via phone, text, email, fax or even a “personal visit.” The personal visits can be “at your home and at your place of employment.”

AP

That’s according to the company’s recent contract update it sent to cardholders. Unsurprisingly, the creepy language has customers concerned.

As the LA Times notes, “The police need a court order to pull off something like that” — but not Capital One.

Los Angeles resident Rick Rofman, 71, told the Times that he received the contract update and was stunned by the language.

"Even the Internal Revenue Service cannot visit you at home without an arrest warrant," he said.

Daniel E. Kann, an attorney who specializes in illegal-search cases, told the news outlet that the language “sounds really invasive” but is not a “violation of your Fourth Amendment rights.”

However, depending on how far the credit card company goes, there are harassment laws that protect citizens from invasive contact.

The updated Capital One contract also informs customers that the company may “modify or suppress caller ID and similar services and identify ourselves on these services in any manner we choose.”

Even if Capital One is not technically breaking any laws, such policies are not going to do much to build consumer trust.

Read the LA Times’ full report here.