No, You Can't Opt Out Of Capital One's E-Mails, Ever
What's an account-related message from your company, and what's marketing? Kevin, the subject of this week's Red Tape Chronicles column, wants to know, because he'd like Capital One to stop sending him advertisements for their products. Capital One claims that he can't opt out, since the marketing pitches are "account management communications." Right.
Sullivan writes:
Few would argue that credit card firms have the right to e-mail account statements or other notices to customers. But the e-mail to which Kevin objected strains the definition of "account communications."The e-mail offered Kevin a chance to transfer balances to his Capital One card at a teaser rate of zero percent for 12 months. At the bottom of the e-mail, the firm stakes its claim that the notice isn't spam.
"This e-mail was sent to (you) and contains information directly related to your account with us," it says.
Sullivan notes that these e-mails are akin to the convenience checks that credit card companies send in order to encourage customers to transfer balances, and are probably more secure, but that doesn't make them any less annoying.
What do you think? Are e-mails like this really account communications, or marketing?
Bank says its e-mail too important to be spam [MSNBC] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)
(Photo: sfxeric)
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Comments:
Im on the fence. Its definitely not answer 4. But it could be either 5 or 3.
No need to opt out of emails with Gmail. Simply hit the "Report Spam" button and never see emails from them again.
I have a Capital One card (don't use it anymore was one of my first, but keep it for credit history) and I hate these e-mails. Also, as far as I can tell you can't opt-out like the OP says.
On a side note: how come if you cancel a card all the good credit history associated with it is removed, but none of the bad stuff? Shouldn't be able to have it both ways.
@taking_this_easy: Agreed - you can't just filter out their emails. This is the problem with having a relationship with a spammy company.
Forget the question if it's spam or not. Capital One is alienating their customers. Perception is everything. If the message looks like spam and smells like it, then it's not a matter of legalese anymore. The customer will be left with a negative perception of Capital one. If they can't opt out, they'll just hit the spam button. Then Gmail or Hotmail or whoever will see the high complaints and start sending their messages to the spam folder where users hardly check. Sure, capital one can hide behind its technicalities all they want, but in the end,continuing to do so will just create ill-will from their customers who may think twice before deciding to do business with them.
They will rue the day they start to spam me. the CAN-SPAM act, SpamBot, Yahoo! accounts, domain level filtering. And that's just for starters.
Did the guy in the picture think that his Spam can costume wasn't enough, where he had to throw in the mug of beer hat?
Just flag them as spam at your ISP and in your email client. If everyone does this then they will be irrelevant.
Funny ... I just unsubscribed from Capital One spam yesterday. Every 2-3 weeks, they had been sending me an email urging me to sign up for a savings account with 1.75% interest. Caught my attention until I saw the fine print requiring a $10,000 minimum.
We'll see if this unsubscribe actually sticks, but the option was right at the bottom of the email, clearly marked.
I wish they would stop sending me those stupid "checks" in snail mail every month.
@zonk7ate9: The good history stays on your report indefinitely. Bad history is for a set number of years (7 maybe? For some reason I'm thinking less).
What changes is your available credit. If you have a limit of 5K on that card and 20K over all with a 10K balance over all, then you'll go from a 50% credit availability to a 25% availability if you close that card.
@okrick: Unfortunately, that could also block useful e-mail concerning your account. Capital One probably won’t care because that means more fees when you miss payments.
They'd do this with me, only with junk mail. "IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR Capital One ACCOUNT" it would say on the front of the envelope. OK, I had paperless billing, but that didn't mean I got paperless junk mail. So I would open it and peer inside the envelope, in case there really was anything important inside (nope, not this time either), and in the shredder it goes. Capital One was one of the main reasons I needed a paper shredder in my house, damn them.
I quit them when they sent me a notice that they were raising my rates to match those of their more irresponsible customers. Zero balance means I don't have to take their shit, and to hell with my FICO score.
I had this issue with AmEx about a year ago. I'm a Gold card customer and was getting solicitations for their Platinum card ($100 more a year, and no appreciable benefit for me). I mentioned in one of their customer satisfaction surveys that I'd like to stop getting these e-mails. 2 days later a CSR called me up, asked if I wanted to be taken off the list, and when I said yes he took me off. Then he gave me 4000 bonus points (effectively $40). Made me a happy customer.
Can't say I'm surprised by this. Capital One is one of the spammiest (if that's even a word) companies in existence. Every time I check my mail it's clogged with their offers. Their TV spots are among the worst/most over-played on television...would you really expect anything else of them as a customer?
I get this from AT&T Universal Card where their convenience checks and promotional APR letters come with "Important Account Information" on the outside of the letters. So I sent them some for my own company. Fair's fair.
@Nighthawke: If you're their customer, CAN-SPAM doesn't apply. If you're not, I wish you godspeed in finding a way to file an effective complaint with the FTC. The web complaint form doesn't even have a category for spam.
My experience with Capital One is that they will get away with as much as they can. They are definitely one of the slimiest companies I have ever done business with.
@BZMedia: Unfortunately, "Report Spam" doesn't always work. Some guy signed up for email alerts from his kid's school, and I CAN'T unsubscribe unless I contact the school in writing.
Man, I want this guy's real email just so I can send him a bill for the 44 cents.
@LiC: dunno about other e-mail services, but i'm pretty sure that with gmail, you just need to setup a filter based on something (maybe in the subject) that identifies the annoying e-mail, and have it go directly to the trash. i did that with amex - i get the "pay us" e-mails, but the "entertainment something-or-other" go to the trash.
The web complaint form doesn't even have a category for spam.
And when you do type the word "spam" into the FTC complaint form, their built-in spellchecker flags it as "spelling error found" and tries to make you change it to "spa" or "spasm" or "spar" etc. Ahh government....
@LiC: Tell the school you're going to notify the local media that they're sending private/confidential information about their students to a complete stranger. That ought to light a fire under their butt.
@taking_this_easy: Sure. You'd do business with a financial services company that would email legitimate business details to you? (Other than a link to a secured server?)
My Visa is with a bank as opposed to Capitol 1 and they've told me in any number of mailings "We will NEVER email you as we don't feel it's private enough. If you get an email saying it's from us, please contact the authorities because it can't be us. If we need to contact you about anything urgent, we will call you."
@Necoras: I ended up with several blog posts back in the day entitled "Dear American Express". Several were about being inundated with the platinum card solicitations, and a couple about the seemingly endless Oreck XL sales pitches. On the other hand, if I ever need to pick up a bowling ball with a hand vac, I know just who to turn to.
@LiC: If you're on gmail, setup a mail filter to just delete it. It'll never appear in any of your folders.
I can't get to the link to the article. Does it say he actually HAS an account? Or are they just sending him the emails?
Either way, it's spammy.
Best method: forward all spam messages to the CEO. No explanation, just a plain forward.
Capital One is this century's answer to AOL.
@Daniel Parmelee: That is something I tried and tried but couldn't opt out of. My mailman was notorious for putting things in the wrong box at my apartment complex so it pissed me off to no end that one day my neighbors might try to go on a spending spree on my behalf. Even if I am not liable for it, I wouldn't want to go through the pain of straightening it out!!! I finally gave them an ultimatum that ended with me canceling the card.
Unless Capital One is as screwed up as Skype (very possible) and is unable to update user information, then what this guy should do is just CHANGE his email address on file with them to some new address, or a subfolder address, and sequester their mail. That and shut off all business relationships with them now and tell all friends not to ever do business with them.
Many mail services support subfolder addresses. These are usually done by appending a "+" or "-" followed by an arbitrary folder name. You'll have to ask your mail service provider what the particulars are for your service (or ask your sysadmin if this is a work address, or look up the docs if you are the sysadmin).
Many providers offer custom blocking, too. Others have a means to mark mail as spam and have its contents added to the spam detection system knowledge base.
If Capital One so well mixes up their business mail with their marketing trash that you can't automate any means to block the trash, then you should not be doing any business with Capital One.
@HogwartsAlum: Apparently he has an account. That means they can LEGALLY spam the hell out of him and the courts won't do anything about it. MOST businesses still have a means to opt out of the marketing aspect. Those that don't should be driven OUT of business (and yes, Capital One has deserved it long before this).
@Daniel Parmelee: I know of someone that got a bunch of those checks once. I don't think it was from Capital One. He just handed them out in a "dangerous" part of town. And as expected, they started billing him for the amounts people he didn't know wrote on them. He just claimed identity theft and that he knew nothing about where those checks were used. After a couple months along with a lawsuit threat (today they'd probably say he was bound by mandatory binding arbitration that he never agreed to) they quit billing and retracted the credit report items.
If Capital One becomes insolvent and goes out of business, I won't be crying ... I'll be partying.
@Yoko Broke Up The Beatles: He's not just dressed as a can of Spam, he's dressed as a tasty, filling meal!
I have a Capital One card, and I put them on my mail host's blacklist. When their server sends a HELO, mine disconnects. So they're not even wasting my bandwidth (except for the HELO.) It's nice controlling my own email server :). If Capital One has any "information directly related to your account with us" they can send me a letter.
@larrymac: "Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?"
That whole movie is quotable. Smart people on ice!
Change your e-mail to root@localhost
I had a furnace financed thru CitiBank. I signed on the dotted line and waited for the bills to arrive. Because they couldn't verify my credit (I froze my credit for security purposes) they bumped up my interest from 9% to 27%. No warning, no phone call, just the way they do business.
I promptly paid off the loan for the furnace and instructed them to close the account. And by "close" I meant "never want to do business with them again". To this day, every 6 months or so, I still get junk mail from them, some of them with information on how my "interest rates have changed" (gone UP!) on my account balance of $0.00. They even have the temerity to charge me a maintenance fee on the account. I duly tell them to "fuck the hell right off". I moved 6 months ago and here I am in the new house and BAM, another notice from them trying to get me to use that credit account again. How they got my new address baffles me.
They're insidious.
@Skaperen:
That's stupid. You're right. They should die.
I did like their barbarian commercials, though.
Damn. They changed the picture! Now my witty remark won't make any sense! (Probably for the best...)
@Josh Smith: It doesn't matter. Capital One is not listening to the customer, and the customer is taking the correct remedial action by leaving.
This is very much like AT&T calling me repeatedly on my landline from the same phone number trying to get me to subscribe to their DSL service (I use another provider). Through AT&T I have Privacy Manager on the landline, which requires telemarketers to go through a series of automated menus that screen those calls. AT&T doesn't have to go through the Privacy Manager as they already "do business" with me (or so they tell me). Despite my telling every person who calls I don't want their cruddy DSL, they continue to call at least 4 or 5 times a month, for the last year.
I have tried to use Call Block to block the number, but of course, when I try to do that it says "This # is not available for the Call Block" service.
Oh, but according to AT&T it's not "telemarketing". Yeah, whatever.
Clearly Answer 3.