Earlier this week, PayPal was lambasted for its new user agreement which allowed the online payments company to robocall and autotext customers at will. What was particularly jarring about the user agreement — set to go into effect on July 1 — is that PayPal reserved the right to contact customers not just for account problems, but also for surveys and promotions. Even worse, PayPal brazenly advised users who weren’t on board with the new agreement that they should simply close their account and move it along.
Naturally, news of PayPal’s new TOS caused something of an uproar online. Thankfully, PayPal has since realized that forcing users to accept automated texts and phone calls wasn’t the wisest of business decisions.
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A PayPal spokesperson provided the following statement to BGR earlier today: “Our policy is to honor customers’ requests to decline to receive auto-dialed or prerecorded calls.”
This is somewhat reassuring, especially in light of reports that PayPal wasn’t originally on board with letting users opt-out.
To wit, Credit.com posted the following yesterday:
When PayPal consumer Robert Pascarella questioned PayPal about the terms of service on the company’s Facebook page recently, he requested an opt-out for the provision and was shot down.
“Regrettably, there isn’t an opt out option to certain items within our User Agreement,” PayPal responded. When he objected, PayPal posted directions for closing his account.
It remains to be seen, though, how straightforward and visible the opt-out process will be. If PayPal wants to avoid future criticism, an opt-out option must be made easily accessible online. If PayPal requires users to pro-actively call and request to be removed, well, that’d be disappointing to say the least.
From some of the comments we’ve seen thus far, it unfortunately appears that PayPal has opted for the later option, forcing users to call them up and request to be removed. And even then, we’ve seen reports that PayPal operators are unsure of how to handle such requests.
We’ve reached out to PayPal for clarification and will update this post accordingly.
