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Cendant is a conglomerate of real estate, travel, and financial services which bills itself as follows:

"We are the homes you buy, the hotels and resorts you visit, the cars you rent and the services that you rely on...both on-line and off-line. "

Cendant is also the parent company of Days Inn, Howard Johnson, Ramada Inn, Travelodge, Knights Inn, Wingate Inn, Villager, and soon, Amerisuites.

Days Inn's reservation center, which took my Visa information, either sold the particulars to its parent company or has an agreement with the parent company to provide this information.

Which really disturbs me.

I spoke to several levels of personnel at Days Inn. My first call was to the reservation center, where I was immediately transfered to a supervisor. "Yes, we are aware there is a problem," the representative told me. "You need to talk to a customer service supervisor; they are tracking the calls." The customer service supervisor was Marlo, a pleasant and charming young man who wanted my name and full street address. He couldn't tell me why he needed this information, but I suspect it is to remove the names of people who complain about this from Cendant's database. He had no answers to my questions about the issue but instead gave me a toll-free number to "The President's Line," an upper-level customer service call center. No one answers; you have to give your name and phone number so someone can return your call. I did this twice, with no callback.

My call to Cendant's PrivacyGuard was equally unsatisfactory. A representative named Elizabeth repeatedly asked me for my account number. I tried to explain that I had no account since I had just been solicited but she rudely refused to transfer me to a supervisor because I had no account number. Even if I had wanted PrivacyGuard, this Elizabeth's behavior would have made me run away from any company which treated its customers with such rudeness.

I was able to speak with Laurie Quinn, spokesperson for Cendant Corporation, who told me that this is a "widespread, common, legal and effective practice in the banking and credit card industry."

"This was just a hotel reservation," I said to her, "not a banking transaction."

"Cendant Corporation is a diverse company with many levels of service and industries," she said. Further, she says, there is a disclaimer on all Days Inn® and other hotel property forms that indicates that Cendant is privvy to your data.

"What about my having used my card over the telephone to secure a reservation?" I asked her. "I got no such disclaimer, and it was on that basis that I was solicited."

"I will have to look into that," Ms. Quinn advised.

She then told me that it wasn't an issue of "selling" the data or sharing it with an outside company, since Days Inn, Howard Johnson, etc. are really only brand names under the Cendant Corporation umbrella.

"When you pay for your hotel room at a Days Inn," she says,"you are paying Cendant, so the practice of soliciting you for other services is actually to the consumer's benefit."

Not in my mind, it isn't.

My last call was to the Days Inn® media center.

David Jimenez, the spokeperson for the Days Inn® brand, was surprised at my comments. After some research, he advised me that the cross-marketing with Cendant's other services is what they call "value-added." BUT, he says, I should not have been solicted based on simply securing a reservation with my Visa, and that he can understand why this would cause me to be concerned about the dissemination of my personal information.

"This is something we will work on," he assures me. "You should have been able to see the disclaimer when you signed the bill."

As for the manner in which the solicitation arrives, making it appear that one is somehow "in trouble," Mr. Jimenez simply states "...that's direct marketing. It gets you to open the envelope."

I think there are other ways to entice me to do just that.

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