This was inevitable:

“Hello, it’s Capital One, can I come in? I brought lemonade!”

That’s something credit card customers of the Capital One bank are worrying they might hear on their front doorsteps. The credit card issuer said in a recent contract update to cardholders that it can contact customers “in any manner we choose.”

That includes calls, emails, texts, faxes or a “personal visit,” reports the Los Angeles Times. The company has also reserved the right to suppress its caller ID and identify itself however it wants, a tactic known as spoof calling.

Any one who studies economics soon learns of the information asymmetry problem: It is in the bank's interest to know everything about a borrower's life, and it is in the borrower's interest to hide key pieces of information about his/her life. This is the game they must play. It is a game with real risks. Banks, however, are not really about markets but about capitalism, and so they want the power to do business without any risks. Capitalism is a market whose risks have been minimized by the state.