Is it illegal for a credit card company to...

United States
March 4, 2009 6:52pm CST
discuss your information with somebody who is not on your account? Here is my situation. My sister just called and said that her credit card company called because she is behind on payments. Instead of talking to her, they talked to her husband. He is not listed on her account or anything. They set up a payment plan with him through her bank account. Is this legal?
2 responses
@CRSunrise (2981)
• United States
5 Mar 09
I always assumed that the people who call us about back payments, whether it be credit card, loans, whatever, could only talk to the person whose name is on the account. We had a credit card that was only in my husband's name, and they would only talk to me about very little on the account unless my husband got on the phone and gave his permissions for me to have the information. It eventually got to the point that that Credit Card company had to send us an authorization paper, stating that they had permission to talk to me about these things, without him always getting on the phone. At that time, he wasn't home alot due to his job. Now it's rather easy to get this information. Could it be possible that he does have autorization to discuss things with this account, even if the account is just in your sister's name? I'm not sure that he should have set things up without talking it over with your sister though. Only she would know about how money flows into and out of her bank account.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
5 Mar 09
It probably is because he's her husband. If they had talked to another relative it definitely wouldn't be but the lines are fuzzy when it comes to husbands and wives. My husband and I have joint credit cards except for one, which is in his name only. I have made payments to the account over the phone and also arranged to have the due date changed since it conflicted with some other bills we had.