Cardholder Services
Has Cardholder Services called you?
You may have recently received a call from "Cardholder Services" offering you a lower interest rate. The calls are made by an auto-dialer which plays a pre-recorded message saying something along the lines of:
"Hello, this is Rachel (or some other name) from Cardholder Services. Although there are no problems with your account, but you have a limited time to take advantage of an offer to lower your interest rates."
You are then given the option to either press a button to talk to a representative, or press a different button to have your number removed from the list. Pressing the button to be removed from the list doesn't seem to work; the calls simply continue. If you press the button to talk to a representative and attempt to find out anything about the company - their phone number, where they are located, etc. - the representative will usually simply hang up on you. The caller ID number seems to invariably be fake.
There appear to be a number of illegal things about these calls:
1. They are often made to numbers on the national do-not-call list.
2. They keep calling you even if you tell them to stop.
3. They refuse to provide any information about who they are.
4. They call cellphones.
5. They use auto-dialers to play prerecorded messages.
Although this is very annoying, there appears to be little that can be done. Since they won't tell you who they are or what their real phone number is, there's no way to file a complaint with the FCC.
An internet search reveals that this behavior appears to have been going on for years, at least as far back as 2007: http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2007/07/02/cardholder-services/ . It is astonishing that such behavior could go on for so long without anyone doing anything about it.
Do you have any experience with Cardholder Services? Do you know anything about them? If so, please leave a comment below.
