Two days after being sued by the Minnesota state Attorney General for alleged privacy violations, U.S. Bank ended its contracts with Memberworks and other telemarketing firms and launched a newspaper ad effort ostensibly to fend off possible bad publicity.
In full page ads in the Friday editions of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press, parent company U.S. Bancorp ran an open letter from chairman, president and CEO John F. Grundhofer stating that U.S. Bank was “ending our participation in this and all similar types of marketing programs for nonfinancial products.”
On Wednesday, U.S. Bank was accused in a lawsuit filed in U.S. district court of improperly releasing customers’ private banking information to Memberworks in exchange for fees and commissions. That information allegedly consisted not only of its customers’ names, addresses and telephone numbers but also such personal data as checking account number, credit card number, Social Security number, average account balance, and credit limit. U.S. Bancorp later denied those charges.
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