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In some states only one party needs to know about the recording. In some state all parties need to know about it. If you tell them up front, they can refuse, but then it's just evidence that they're being difficult.

Certain keywords like "lawsuit" can break the strictly regimented conversation tree too.

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Be a bit careful with the "l" word - many companies instruct their reps to immediately stop dealing with people that threaten legal proceedings over the phone and tell them to contact the company attorneys.

Remember that any company that doesn't empower the phone support people to help you probably didn't empower them enough to go off-script.

If I can contact the company attorneys via email, that would be preferred anyways.

Surely you don't want to speak to a company's attorney to cancel your gym membership, or to dispute a $5 purchase. I worked in retail, and people would threaten court over 10-20 euro purchases. We would immediately end the discussion, record their details and pass them on to our lawyers who would contact them within a few days, and presumably begin some arduous process.

If you had just been polite to me on the phone, I probably could have fixed your issue in 15 minutes.

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