Kouichi Shirayanagi / St. Louis Post-Dispatch / June 30, 2015
PayPal has agreed to change its user agreement so that customers can use its service without agreeing to receive auto-dialed or prerecorded calls or texts.
The move came after complaints from several regulators, including Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster.
Koster, in a statement Tuesday, said he notified PayPal last week that its policy of requiring customers to accept marketing “robo-calls” violated Missouri law. The New York Attorney General’s office and the Federal Communications Commission also wrote letters to San Jose, Calif.-based Paypal expressing concern.
In a statement Tuesday, PayPal apologized and said it had added new language clarifying that it would only use pre-recorded calls or texts when helping customers detect and investigate fraud, provide notice regarding account activity or collect debts owed to PayPal.
“We will not use autodialed or prerecorded calls or texts to contact our customers for marketing purposes without prior express written consent,” said Louise Pentland, a senior vice president of PayPal, said in the blog statement.
Koster expressed satisfaction with the company’s fast response.
“Missourians deserve to have their privacy protected. In this case, we were able to prevent a violation rather than have to prosecute one,” Koster said.