Financial Services Industry
Industry: Email Alert RSS FeedConsumer Clout - sharing of customer information within the financial services industry - Brief Article
Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Sept, 2001 by M.D.W.
PRIVACY | When customers picked up the phone to ask one company about its policy on SHARING INFORMATION, they got results.
ON MY DESK at home are stacked a dozen or so notices from financial-services companies, which are required by law to tell me how they handle my personal financial information. The first to arrive last spring was from Allmerica Financial, a life insurance company.
When I received it, I was puzzled that it didn't give me an opportunity to opt out of letting the company share information about me with nonaffiliated third parties--which is, after all, the whole point of sending the notices. Nor did it state that Allmerica had elected not to sell data to third parties--a step some firms have taken to save consumers the hassle of opting out.
Most PopularCBS MoneyWatch.com Articles
As a customer rather than a journalist, I called the toll-free number and expressed my concern. Company counsel William Cahill promptly returned my call and explained that Allmerica has no plans to share personal information with third-party marketers.
In July I received a letter from Mr. Cahill telling me that, based on my input and that of other customers, "we have modified our Privacy Notice. We do not share information with nonaffiliated third parties that would use it to market products or services to you."
Companies have been criticized for mailing privacy notices that are inscrutable and easy to miss, in hopes that consumers will ignore them. Many people apparently have. But at least one firm was willing to clarify its policy when clients took the trouble to read it.
Brought to you by CBS MoneyWatch.com
- Best- and Worst-Paid College Degrees
- 6 Things You Should Never Do on Twitter or Facebook
- How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?
- 6 Big Myths about Gas Mileage
Most Recent Business Articles
- Multiple criteria evaluation and optimization of transportation systems
- Multi-criteria analysis procedure for sustainable mobility evaluation in urban areas
- A two-leveled multi-objective symbiotic evolutionary algorithm for the hub and spoke location problem
- Multi-criteria analysis for evaluating the impacts of intelligent speed adaptation
- The development of Taiwan arterial traffic-adaptive signal control system and its field test: a Taiwan experience
Most Recent Business Publications
Most Popular Business Articles
- 7 tips for effective listening: productive listening does not occur naturally. It requires hard work and practice - Back To Basics - effective listening is a crucial skill for internal auditors
- FAS 109: a primer for non-accountants - Financial Accounting Standards Board's "Statement 109: Accounting for Income Taxes"
- Design a commission plan that drives sales - Sales Commissions
- Too Young to Rent a Car? - 25-years-old the minimum age for car renting - Brief Article
- LIFO vs. FIFO: a return to the basics


