Consumer complaint received 2024-05-29
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems — Privacy issues
Company: U.S. BANCORP (AR)

US Bank used the information from a commercial credit card application in a way that is not consistent with the privacy and confidentiality statement that I was provided during the application process, and in a way that caused my company harm. 

US Bank began actively soliciting my company 's business in XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, at the behest of US Bank sales representatives, I submitted a commercial credit card application with US Bank on behalf of my company, XXXX XXXX, XXXX dba Eddyline Kayaks. The privacy statement that I was provided stated that US Bank would " hold Confidential Information in confidence and only to those employees, agents or subcontractors or individual contractors whose duties reasonably require access to such information ... Each party shall cause its agents, employees, subcontractors and independent contractors, to maintain Confidential Information in confidence and disclose such Confidential Information *only for the purpose of performing its obligations, or exercising or enforcing its rights, under this Agreement*, or as otherwise expressly permitted by this Agreement. '' ( emphasis added ). 

On Thursday XX/XX/XXXX I was informed that my request for a commercial credit card had been denied. I thanked the sales rep for letting me know and moved on. As we had commercial credit cards already through Elan Financial Services, there was no issue. 

On Tuesday XX/XX/XXXX, our Elan credit cards stopped working. A team member was unable to fuel in XXXX ; our subscription renewals with advertising services failed ; we were unable to order critical supplies, etc. Eventually our finance team connected with an Elan service rep who connected us with our " relationship manager '' who referred to an email he had sent me on XX/XX/XXXX with the innocuous subject " Elan Corp Card Program Change ... ''. That email, that landed in my junk mail folder, stated that " its been decided we will need to either move your Elan Corporate Card program to prefund or secured credit no later than XX/XX/XXXX. This decision was made in light of the recent request of products with US Bank. '' Up until this point, I had no idea that Elan Financial Services was a part of US Bank. The promotional materials, privacy documents, and application documents from US Bank did not mention this. Elan Financial Services website likewise makes no mention of its status as an affiliate, dba, or wholly owned sub status under US Bank. It is clear that US Bank and Elan intentionally obfuscated this relationship. During the sales process and customer discover with US Bank Commercial Credit Card representatives, I informed them that we had credit with Elan, and they did not inform me that Elan and US Bank were one and the same.

More importantly, it is clear from the sequence of events and the timing that US Bank disclosed my Confidential Information to Elan team members *after* their decision to not provide my company credit under my XX/XX/XXXX application, and that their use of that information was not limited to " performing its obligations *under this Agreement* '' ( this Agreement being the XX/XX/XXXX application.