The Missouri Attorney General’s office announced Tuesday that PayPal has agreed to alter an amendment to its user-agreement.
The proposed amendment was set to go into effect on July 1 and would have required customers to consent to robo-calling for promotional offers if they wanted to use PayPal.
Attorney General Chris Koster said the amendment would violate Missouri law.
His office sent a letter to the company on June 25 after the FCC sent a letter regarding the same amendment earlier this month.
Robo-calling has been a hot topic for consumer advocacy groups around the country.
Margot Saunders, a member of the National Consumer Law Center, explained that PayPal cannot force a consumer to consent to robo-calling through a user-agreement.
“PayPal said if you don’t agree to (robo-calling) then we are going to consider that you’ve terminated your contract,” said Saunders. “That combined threat came to the attention of the Federal Communications Commission.”
The company announced Monday that it would be altering the wording of the amendment to its user-agreement.
It now says “PayPal will not use autodialed or prerecorded calls or texts to contact our customers for marketing purposes without their prior express written consent.”
In a press release, Attorney General Koster said “Missourians deserve to have their privacy protected. In this case, we were able to prevent a violation rather than have to prosecute one.”
