Consumer 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.

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.