ABOUT WACHOVIA FAQS

At Wachovia, the term 'privacy' is used in connection with how we gather, manage, and safeguard information about our customers.

As our Privacy Statement describes, Wachovia takes steps to protect customer privacy and ensure the security of customer information.  Keeping financial information secure is our responsibility and our committment to you.

• We protect customer information through physical, electronic, contractual and procedural measures that comply with or exceed applicable laws and standards.
• We train our employees to protect customer information and only authorize access for employees who we believe have a business need for that information. Employees are held accountable by Wachovia’s Code of Conduct and Ethics to properly protect customer information.
• We maintain policies and procedures that provide for the proper physical security of workspaces and records.
• We require contractors and other companies that provide services on our behalf to protect information, and we prohibit those companies from using it for any other purpose. We only provide them with information that we believe is necessary to fulfill their responsibilities or to provide a financial service to you.
• Protecting information about our customers online is an essential part of our service to you. For more information on our Internet Security and Privacy practices, please visit wachovia.com/privacy.

Legislation requires all financial services companies to provide their consumer customers with a copy of the company privacy statement each year. We want you to know how we manage and protect confidential information, and the choices you have concerning privacy. We also provide you with information about steps you can take to protect yourself from fraud and identity theft, and limit the amount of marketing that you receive.

Our statement has not changed in terms of how we gather, manage, and safeguard information about our customers.  Our Privacy Statement has been enhanced, however, to make it easier to read and use.

Our Privacy Statement applies only to consumers who are customers or former customers of Wachovia, and have established relationships with Wachovia in the United States. However, we follow procedures to safeguard all information about customers – both consumer and non-consumer customers.

Yes, it covers all personal accounts. In some cases, we may tell you that a separate privacy statement applies to an account you hold with one of our affiliate companies, for example, Wachovia Mortgage, FSB, or Wachovia Securities, LLC.

We gather certain information about you and your accounts in order to facilitate your transactions and provide quality customer service. In addition, we may collect other information (such as your income, assets, debts and employment information), to help us better understand your financial picture, evaluate your eligibility for various services and recommend other valuable services to meet your needs.

The information we collect depends on the type of accounts you have with us. We will routinely require identifying information (such as name, address), and may also ask for information about your income, credit history, assets, debts and employment information. We also maintain transactional information (such as loan repayment and checking account history) generated by the use of your accounts.

Wachovia Corporation includes several related companies that operate in a variety of business lines, such as banking, credit cards, consumer loans, insurance, securities and others. We may share information based on your transactions with us among the companies that make up Wachovia Corporation.  This allows us to provide the support and customer service that our customers want and expect.  We may also share information from applications, credit reports and similar sources such as income, credit history, debts and employment information.*  We do this so that we can develop a more comprehensive picture of your relationship with us and evaluate your eligibility for various financial services, for example, a line of credit at a special rate.

*   Other Applicable Laws

The practices described in the paragraph above are in accordance with federal law.  You may have other protections under applicable state laws, such as Vermont, California and Nevada. To the extent these state laws apply, we will comply with them when we share information about you. For example, Vermont law places additional limits on sharing information about Vermont residents.  As long as they remain residents of Vermont, we will not share information we collect about Vermont residents with companies outside of Wachovia, except:

• With companies that perform marketing or other services on our behalf;
• Contact information (like name and address), and transaction information (such as your payment history) to other financial institutions with which we have joint marketing agreements;
• With the authorization or consent of the Vermont resident; or
• As permitted or required by law.

We also will not share credit information about Vermont residents received from others within Wachovia except with the authorization or consent of the Vermont resident.

Information about you helps us to develop a more comprehensive picture of you and your relationship with us; provides us with information about you that can help us prevent fraudulent use of your accounts; allows us to identify and recommend valuable products and services to you; allows us to determine your eligibility for discounts based on your relationship with Wachovia, and enables us to streamline and shorten the turnaround time on your requests because we’ve already gathered general information about you.

We do not provide customer information to companies outside of Wachovia Corporation except as outlined below. You do not need to request this confidentiality; it is our standard practice.

In order to serve your needs, we may provide all of the information we gather to:

• Companies that perform business operations for us (such as check printing).
• Companies that act on our behalf to market our services, or companies with whom we have entered into a joint marketing agreement in order to provide you with valuable financial products and services.*
• Others only as permitted or required by law (such as to protect against fraud or in response to a subpoena).

We require contractors and other companies that provide services on our behalf to protect information, and we prohibit those companies from using it for any other purpose. We only provide them with information that we believe is necessary to fulfill their responsibilities or to provide a financial service to you.

Our policies for sharing customer information, both within and outside of Wachovia as described above, also apply to all of the information we have gathered about former customers of Wachovia.

* Other Applicable Laws

The practices described in the section above are in accordance with federal law.  You may have other protections under applicable state laws, such as Vermont, California and Nevada.  To the extent these state laws apply, we will comply with them when we share information about you.  For example, Vermont law places additional limits on sharing information about Vermont residents.  As long as they remain residents of Vermont, we will not share information we collect about Vermont residents with companies outside of Wachovia, except:

With companies that perform marketing or other services on our behalf;

• Contact information (like name and address), and transaction information (such as your payment history) to other financial institutions with which we have joint marketing agreements;
• With the authorization or consent of the Vermont resident; or
• As permitted or required by law.

We also will not share credit information about Vermont residents received from others within Wachovia except with the authorization or consent of the Vermont resident.

We do not give information about our customers to telemarketers to solicit you for non-financial products and services provided by other companies. Occasionally, we hire outside telephone solicitation firms to market our own products and services or financial products and services offered jointly with other companies. In this case, these companies are acting specifically on behalf of Wachovia or its partner. We share with them only the information they need to contact the customer and, if the customer agrees, to complete the sale. If you prefer to limit the ways in which we contact you for marketing purposes, simply complete our online Consumer Privacy Preference Form, call us at (866) 203-5722 (Command Asset Program, IRA, Brokerage and Insurance customers should call (877) 358-1114), or visit a financial center.

If you ask that we not share credit information about you (such as credit history) with companies within Wachovia Corporation, we will not share this information with Wachovia companies. If you opt out of all types of solicitations (telephone, direct mail and email), you will not receive targeted solicitations from any Wachovia companies. You may still receive non-targeted solicitations such as statement stuffers.

We are committed to helping you manage your finances in the most effective way, and helping you maximize the return on your financial investments. For these reasons, we may contact you to offer financial advice and inform you of different options that may be of value to you. By opting out of marketing, we are unable to contact you to let you know of these opportunities. If you are comfortable with the ways in which we contact you currently, there is no need to opt out. If, however, you prefer to limit the ways in which we contact you for marketing purposes, simply complete our online Consumer Privacy Preference Form, call us at (866) 203-5722 (Command Asset Program, IRA, Brokerage and Insurance customers should call (877) 358-1114), or visit a financial center. If you do choose to opt out, we may still need to contact you to service your accounts, and you may receive certain non-targeted solicitations such as statement stuffers.

We do not share your information with unaffiliated companies outside of Wachovia Corporation, other than pursuant to the limited exceptions explained in our Privacy Statement; therefore, you do not need to opt-out of this type of information sharing.

Wachovia takes steps to protect customer privacy and ensure the security of customer information. Keeping financial information secure is our responsibility and our commitment to you.

• We protect customer information through physical, electronic, contractual and procedural measures that comply with or exceed applicable laws and standards.
• We train our employees to protect customer information and only authorize access for employees who we believe have a business need for that information. Employees are held accountable by Wachovia’s Code of Conduct and Ethics to properly protect customer information.
• We maintain policies and procedures that provide for the proper physical security of workspaces and records.
• We require contractors and other companies that provide services on our behalf to protect information, and we prohibit those companies from using it for any other purpose. We only provide them with information that we believe is necessary to fulfill their responsibilities or to provide a financial service to you.
• Protecting information about our customers online is an essential part of our service to you. For more information on our Internet Security and Privacy practices, please visit wachovia.com/privacy.

We employ safeguards to protect information about our customers and prevent fraud. We ask for proper identification when customers request service from us. You can also help protect your information by carefully selecting those to whom you give your Social Security number, protecting PINs and account numbers, destroying sensitive documents instead of tossing them in the trash, and being cautious when talking about personal matters in public places (including telephone conversations).

Protecting your personal information online is an essential part of our service to you. Our systems use technologies such as firewalls (designed to protect systems from intrusion) and encryption (scrambling of information) to protect your information from others. For a complete look at Internet security, please read our Security Statement.

Customers and non-customers who click on online marketing advertisements (banner ad, sponsorship, text links, etc.) appearing on non-Wachovia web sites or who access wachovia.com directly may have third-party cookies placed on their hard drive.  These cookies enable us to capture statistical information – such as which advertisements on non-Wachovia web sites are driving visitors to wachovia.com, information about where site visitors navigate– to help us better understand the effectiveness of specific online marketing campaigns and make improvements to the Web site. No personal information is obtained, only statistics such as the number of times a page is viewed, pages viewed as a result of specific advertisements, and links utilized. Any information gathered will be used in accordance with Wachovia’s Privacy Statement. For more information on how wachovia.com uses cookies, please visit that section in our Internet-Specific Privacy Statement.