Consumer complaint received 2018-07-10
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: NJ
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers
Sub-issue: Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card

Complaint:
Company : American Express Title of Privacy Policy Document : WHAT DOES AMERICAN EXPRESS DO WITH YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION? ( Rev. XX/XX/2018 ) Date Accessed : XX/XX/2018 URL ( published and accessed in PDF format ) : XXXX XXXX XXXX  American Express ' Privacy Notice accessed on XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX XXXX  does not provide adequate and reasonable means of contacting the company electronically OR via telephone to easily allow consumers the ability to limit their sharing of customers ' personal information in a clear and reasonably-straightforward manner.

1. The policy goes on to state that some of the information CAN be limited : " Why can't I limit all sharing of personal information?

Federal law gives you the right to limit only sharing for affiliates ' everyday business purposes - information about your creditworthiness affiliates from using your information to market to you sharing for nonaffiliates to market to you State laws and individual companies may give you additional rights to limit sharing. See below for more on your rights under state law. '' 2. HOWEVER, here is the express policy from AmEx on consumers ' means of limiting their sharing of personal information : " To limit direct marketing We provide additional privacy choices to customers. Privacy elections you make for any one product or service may not automatically be applied to other products and services. To let us know if you do not want us to use your personal information to communicate with you about offers by email and/or direct mail : Click on the unsubscribe link found at the bottom of the email communication ( s ) and follow the instructions provided.

Follow the instructions provided on the bottom of the direct mail communication. " PROBLEM : I wish to limit the following : " sharing for affiliates ' everyday business purposes - information about your creditworthiness '' ... yet there is no number to call expressly to opt out, nor is there an electronic means of doing so through their website. Saying that I can click an unsubscribe link is not satisfactory, as third party offers do not come from American Express, they come from the third party.

If I do not recognize the sender, I am not clicking ANY link in their email for safety concerns, like any prudent email user -- for example, spammers ( who don't care if you unsubscribe or not ) will often hide viruses when an unsubscribe link is clicked inside of a malicious email.

Or, spammers can track your clicks on any link inside the email in order to verify whether the email inbox is being monitored by the consumer, in a malicious means of " confirming '' the email to be active and monitored by the consumer.

I wish for American Express to be more clear and provide a more adequate means of communicating consumers ' rights and the express steps a consumer can take to quickly limit sharing of personal information -- BOTH online, via an adequately sufficient and reasonable process for electronically opting out on their website ( not within a random email from a partner ) ; as well as via phone, the number which is expressly stated for the purpose of opting out -- as opposed to simply a general, generic " help '' line " questions '' -- the description of which is obviously too ambiguous, language which likely helps them with their goal of reducing the number of consumers who wish to limit their sharing of their data ; this is obviously the intention, as any marketer would know -- due to the fact that consumer financial data is some of the most lucrative [ and not to mention VULNERABLE! ] consumer data being monetized for ancillary revenue beyond their primary business of providing consumers with credit and charge card accounts.

I appreciate your commitment to improving your policies to present more clear and concise privacy and data sharing standards.

Thank you, Anonymous 8+ Year American Express Customer & Cardholder

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation