One important tool in dealing with companies is customer’s ability to record customer service calls, but many wonder if it’s legal or not. Well, until a company actually takes someone to court for doing it, we’ll never know for certain. However, we can look to the state by state wiretapping laws for guidance. Let’s begin.

States either have laws requiring one-party or two-party consent. One-party means just one person, which is to say, yourself, has to be okay with recording the call for it to go forward. Two-party means that both parties have to agree to the call being recorded. These are mainly in place to prevent law enforcement from abusing their ability to listen to phone conversations, but if you want to be super-safe, you can make your call from one of the one-party states.

If you should actually ever try to ask permission to record the call. Most customer service reps are trained to terminate the call if the customer is recording the conversation. Kinda strange, considering that every single one of their robo voice lines says, “This call may be recorded,” but hey, that’s the breaks.

Here’s the state-by-state breakdowns, inside…

States Requiring Two-Party Notification
California
Connecticut
Florida
Illinois
Montana
Michigan
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Nevada
Pennsylvania
Washington

States Requiring One-Party Notification
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Colorado
Delaware
District Of Columbia
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Nebraska
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Texas
Utah
Oregon
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wisconsin

Check this post for options to start recording your calls.

(Photo: Getty)

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