from Hacker News

Chase did a bad thing, so we did a good thing

by zbruhnke on 6/11/19, 10:04 PM with 231 comments

• by rkhassen on 6/11/19, 11:40 PM

  For me the red flag is them willing to send this letter to Chase, via snail mail at no charge to you. Nobody gives something for nothing. So I thought, why would they do this? after reading through the form, at the bottom, it looks like one of the companies, who sponsors this site, "Radvocate" seems like they are in the "class action" lawsuit business. https://myradvocate.com/

  This site is about having enough potential clients are able to sue Chase at some point in the future, whenever a class action lawsuit comes up - and heck, they even will have a customer list and a relationship with you from sending this "free" letter for you in the past.

  Usually in those kinds of cases, the end recipient gets very little - perhaps some subscription to a ID protection service or a few bucks but the firm who runs the class action makes a lot.

  On the one hand, maybe it helps keep them honest (they cite Wells Fargo) so its good to be able to. But clearly there is some vested interest here on the part of Radvocate.

• by neilv on 6/11/19, 10:50 PM

  Assuming that you're completely legit and utterly competent, there's still a big security problem here: it's encouraging people to put their PII and CC info into arbitrary Web sites.

  On top of that, it's further identifying them as both Chase CC holders and receptive to scams, qualifying them as leads for further phishing/scamming.

• by cdubzzz on 6/11/19, 10:49 PM

  Under the "What is the actual language in the agreement sent by Chase?" FAQ item, it says --

  "Can I (the customer) reject this agreement to arbitrate?

  Yes. You have the right to reject this agreement to arbitrate if you notify us no later than 8/9/2019. You must do so in writing by stating that you reject this agreement to arbitrate and include your name, account number, address and personal signature. Your notice must be mailed to us at P.O. Box 15298, Wilmington, DE 19850-5298. Rejection notices sent to any other address, or sent by electronic mail or communicated orally, will not be accepted or effective." (emphasis mine)

  How does this service handle the "personal signature" requirement?

• by kileywm on 6/11/19, 10:47 PM

  I just want to point out that, as a user, opting out of this portion of Chase's agreement could result in Chase deciding to close your account. Not advocating what course of action to take, but merely pointing out that there is risk associated with this action.

  That being said, I have read through the email from Chase, and there is nothing that explicitly states that they will close it as a result of the user opting out of arbitration.

  Does anyone have experience with similar situations with Chase or other banks and agreement opt-outs that they could share?

• by ziroshima on 6/11/19, 10:38 PM

  I was surprised when I received the letter explaining this from Chase. I made a mental note to write them a letter and opt-out, which I had immediately forgotten about until now. Thanks to the creators of the site.

• by mjkornbl on 6/11/19, 10:40 PM

  Here from myradvocate.com, which is partnering on this project with Zach / HM Bradley. We're psyched for this to go live.

  We track news about arbitration pretty closely, and I've been surprised and impressed by how much this Chase issue has "broken through." I no joke overheard a random convo about it on BART on Sunday.

• by kevin_b_er on 6/11/19, 11:27 PM

  Aside from the issue of trust, the site does a terrible job of explaining how bad arbitration is.

  The arbiter is permitted the following: * To make an arbitrary judgement outside the scope of the agreement. * The arbiter is not required to follow any law but the arbitration act. They are permitted a manifest disregard for the law. * The arbiter is not required to be fair or impartial. They aren't a judge. * The arbiter may be blacklisted by companies if they rule against the corporation. The companies know who rules against them. * The arbitrations are secret. You may research how the arbiter acted in the past. The company knows, though. You just don't.

  To engage in a corporate controlled mandatory binding arbitration is to leave the rule of law and enter into a dystopia where even the courts of law are privatized. Consumer protection laws? Gone. State consumer laws? Gone.

• by asimjalis on 6/11/19, 10:22 PM

  How secure is this website? What prevents a phishing site from pretending to be an opt-out site?

• by strangattractor on 6/11/19, 11:05 PM

  Do you really want to give a site run by someone you don't know vital info and a account number. Probably legit but ...

• by neilv on 6/11/19, 10:59 PM

  What did your legal counsel say about liability here? For example, what happens if a cardholder who used your opt-out service has a dispute with Chase, and Chase claims they did not receive the opt-out?

  What has counsel advised about any risk of federal authorities investigating you as possible CC phishing operation (perhaps initiated by monitoring for bank-phishing-like domain name)? (Obviously you have some defense, but the best case might cost you money and misery.)

  Also, do you expect to keep the domain name past an ICANN dispute?

• by PunksATawnyFill on 6/12/19, 12:23 AM

  I caught these assholes at Chase doing this and demanded a refund of fees, which of course they provided. They're just testing your resolve, every day:

  "JPMorgan agreed to pay $110 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its procedures for charging customers overdraft fees. It was among more than a dozen big banks sued by their customers for reordering debits from their accounts to maximize the possibility that the accounts would become overdrawn, which would generate more fees."

• by mleonhard on 6/11/19, 11:51 PM

  I think I'll just close my Chase credit card account.

• by snug on 6/11/19, 10:23 PM

  Wait, you want me to put my credit card number and my personal info?

• by linuxhansl on 6/12/19, 12:26 AM

  Is Chase's practice itself legal? Forcing mailing a physical letter that must contain a lot of personal identifying information...?

  That's a really shady move and I'll take note to avoid any business with Chase in the future.

• by giancarlostoro on 6/11/19, 11:55 PM

  I know everyones talking about how sketchy the online forms are. But my question is what sketchy practices is Chase involved in that they need this to be part of their agreement. Secondly and its been noted here before why are such clauses even legal? I really hope we can take the concept to court and murder it completely.

• by dbpatterson on 6/11/19, 10:48 PM

  Link to the "full privacy policy" 404s, which is not a good thing, given you are asking people to enter their full names, addresses, CC numbers.

• by llaappqq on 6/11/19, 11:12 PM

  Question: how do we prove in the court in the future that we've sent them the rejection letter?

• by fooey on 6/11/19, 10:44 PM

  Isn't the likely outcome of opting out that Chase just closes your account?

• by news_to_me on 6/11/19, 10:51 PM

  This is great!

  What would be really cool is to see this extended to many types of opt-out-by-email things — I know it's a pretty widely-used dark pattern by e.g. newspapers and spam mail companies.

• by adzm on 6/11/19, 10:19 PM

  Wow, Chase is acting like they are a gym or something by requiring a snail-mail letter to opt-out.

• by gortok on 6/12/19, 2:02 AM

  One red flag for me is that for Chase, your Credit Card number is your account number. So we're going to give third parties our credit card number... That's safe.

• by jld on 6/11/19, 10:27 PM

  Does this only apply to Chase credit cards? Or also to other Chase services?

• by gene91 on 6/12/19, 4:19 AM

  Can Chase take adverse actions against customers that opt out? For example, denying future account applications, closing existing accounts, exclusion from future promotions, etc.

• by AngeloAnolin on 6/11/19, 10:59 PM

  It mentioned that the opt-out requires a specimen signature (from the FAQ as well What do I need to do to opt-out?). How would you be able to ensure that the opt-out process for the customer will be valid / accepted by Chase if there's no actual human signature?

  From Chase's perspective, wouldn't they be asking for more details especially if their business hinges on retaining people into their business as much as they can?

  Update: Additional wording

• by ycombonator on 6/11/19, 10:56 PM

  Are you collecting email addresses of your future customers for marketing purposes ? Whats the guarantee that you don't mine the customer address information you collect for your new bank venture http://pdf.secdatabase.com/92/0001772417-19-000001.pdf

• by vmurthy on 6/12/19, 9:20 AM

  For those of you who do have stamps, the PDF version of the letter is here : https://www.chaseoptout.com/ChaseOptOut.pdf

  Mailing address: Chase Customer Service P.O. Box 15298 Wilmington, DE 19850-5298

  P.S. The website gave the info. Don't sue me :-)

• by axaxs on 6/11/19, 10:48 PM

  Thanks, I'd been meaning to do this but couldn't be arsed.

  This seems to be, at least in part, advertising for your bank. I clicked on it, but could get no real information about it. Would be curious for more info about it, as I'm generally tired of dealing with bad online presence.

• by makeramen on 6/12/19, 2:53 AM

  Want to make the same thing for SoFi? They require the same within 60 days after opening and account: https://www.sofi.com/b/policy/arbitration

• by indigodaddy on 6/11/19, 11:37 PM

  Any advantages or downsides to opting out of Chase’s arbitration if Chase sues you for credit non-payment? I read the sites FAQs (only mentioned class action and if one or more people sue Chase) and appears that situation is likely not relevant for this opt-out?

• by miguelmota on 6/11/19, 11:17 PM

  Cool service. A concern is that scammers can use variations of the domain (chaseoptout.co optoutchase.com etc) and use adwords to get on top of search results to trick people and steal personal identifying information if this thing gets popular enough.

• by keehun on 6/11/19, 10:45 PM

  I read somewhere that Chase will close out your account if you opt out. Is this true?

• by burntsushi on 6/11/19, 11:03 PM

  Yup, I just happened to notice this by chance when the email came. I was really surprised to see this. Fortunately, I do have stamps lying around, so I've already mailed out a letter rejecting the agreement to arbitrate.

• by kccqzy on 6/11/19, 11:21 PM

  I have a feeling that Chase will send a letter to the operator of this website using some excuse like unauthorized use of the Chase trademark or something.

• by JumpCrisscross on 6/11/19, 11:36 PM

  Side note, arbitration is cheaper than litigating in court. The only thing opting out affords consumers is easier access to class action suits. If you think you might bring an individual claim against Chase, arbitration is cheaper and a more level playing field (no countersuit strategy) than state or federal court.

  TL; DR arbitration is not the corporate-controller enigma many seem to think it is. You trade off real benefits by opting out of Chase's mutual binding arbitration terms.

  Most people should opt out, but not everyone. (Nobody should opt out unthinkingly.)

• by pbk1 on 6/11/19, 10:59 PM

  Very nice! I was actually in the process of building the exact same thing but charging users for the cost of mail and server/API expenses.

• by olalonde on 6/12/19, 1:01 AM

  I have nothing better to say than clever marketing for the two sponsors and nice website design.

• by boh on 6/12/19, 11:35 AM

  Give a random website my name, address, email and account number?? Yes please!

• by patagonia on 6/11/19, 10:24 PM

  JCrew credit card requires a post card mailed to opt out of arbitration

• by gowld on 6/12/19, 1:09 AM

  HN title is contentless and doesn't even match the linked site.

• by the_arun on 6/12/19, 3:34 AM

  Does this use Lob under the hood for print & mailing?

• by j_shi on 6/12/19, 7:18 AM

  ps can’t click last button on iphone se via iOS hn app

• by GrumpyNl on 6/11/19, 10:52 PM

  Nice initiative, but who pays the bill, like the stamps etc?

• by basicplus2 on 6/12/19, 4:57 AM

  SMAAS

  Snail Mail As A Service

• by 420basteit on 6/12/19, 1:43 AM

  From one media manipulator to another: when you pay the premium price for a long-standing hacker news account, it's usually more convincing to let people find the comment history for themselves.

• by rdxm on 6/11/19, 11:22 PM

  ok, so this is being provided by a new/competing bank and a marketing agency. What could possibly go wrong?

  A quick read of privacy policy should dissuade anyone form putting information into this system.

  A+ for guerilla marketing

  F- for anything related to privacy, etc...

• by yhoneycomb on 6/11/19, 10:26 PM

  This seems sketchy as fuck - your website, I mean

  Might as well leave a box for the SSN while you're at it

• by Xunxi on 6/11/19, 11:02 PM

  There's often a sinister motivation for such goodwill. Most often than not.

  Are you just going to discard all the data afterwards or is it just a ploy to build a mailing list for your bank?

• by rajacombinator on 6/11/19, 10:51 PM

  Very suspicious. Why should I opt out? Why did some companies/individuals think this was worth spending time building and promoting this service and spending potentially millions of dollars in print & postage to mail letters?