Recording phone calls without the other party's consent is super illegal, as in criminally illegal, in all-party consent states [1]. Needless to say, one gives up leverage when one commits a crime.
Trafficking large quantities of drugs, aggravated assault, serious sexual assault, murder. These are super illegal. No one is going to prison for recording a support call that reveals impropriety on behalf of the company providing support.
Many people here seem obsessed with laws, as if they possess value and worth in and of themselves, when really they are a very high latency side channel of society and power. The steps that would necessarily have to occur in order for a case to be brought against you because you illegally recorded a support call that revealed impropriety of the other party are fairly preposterous.
Anyway, all of this can be avoided by simply stating something along the lines of "I am recording this call for my records. Please advise me now, or at any stage, if you wish the recording to cease."
The illegality of acts like those I mentioned above can't obviated by stating your intention to commit them and offering an opportunity for the other party to decline to participate. In some jurisdictions it is a form of assault to seriously state your intention to harm another.
> The steps that would necessarily have to occur in order for a case to be brought against you because you illegally recorded a support call that revealed impropriety of the other party are fairly preposterous
It's as simple as "we will settle your qualms against our business in exchange for us not pursuing your wilful violation of criminal law in court". If you say no, a cheap state court filing would be routine for a business but hell for an individual.
TL; DR If you want to record a call, get permission.
Source: I helped a friend who had a call illegally recorded Cc our local AG on a letter protesting the matter. The AG requested information from the offender; they settled with damages for everyone involved's time and expenses. Running your life assuming nobody will hold you accountable works until it fails. When it fails you've handed the other party a ton of leverage.
My understand of how criminal allegations work, at least in Australia, and I believe the other Western democracies aren't too dissimilar, is that: 1. the compfny would have to report the matter to police, 2. the police would have to believe there is reasonable grounds to lay charges, 3. the police / public prosecutor would have to believe that a. the case is worth persuing and b. there is sufficient evidence for a guilty verdict if the defendant pleaded not guilty and the case went to a hearing before a judge.
I'll admit a company could threaten legal action, and this would usually be sufficient for the lay person to back down.
I agree with you in that running your life as though no one will hold you accountable works until it fails. I've had a close call with a major indictable, the charges against me ended up being dropped nolle prosequi because the police fumbled the evidence. And from my perspective lots of companies and law enforcement are riding roughshod over their obligations to us as people, so in a sense fuck them.
It's worth noting this approach probably isn't worth the hassle... But it does seem to be a personality trait I'm evidently not interested in changing, otherwise I probably would have by now.
This comment glosses over the fact that most US states are one-party consent states not requiring notifying the other party that a telephone call is being recorded.
From your source:
> States that currently require that all parties consent to the recording include: California,[21] Connecticut,[22] Florida,[23] Hawaii (in general a one-party state, but requires two-party consent if the recording device is installed in a private place),[22] Illinois (debated, see next section), Maryland,[24] Massachusetts[22] (only "secret" recordings are banned, but is the only state without a "public location" exception),[25] Montana (requires notification only),[26] Nevada,[27] New Hampshire,[28] Pennsylvania,[29] and Washington (however, section 3 of the Washington law states that permission is given if any of the parties announces that they will be recording the call in a reasonable manner if the recording contains that announcement).[30]
This is not accurate. California makes it illegal to record "confidential" communications, which is sometimes called "two party consent," but that shouldn't be interpreted to mean that affirmative consent is required. Notice that the call may be recorded defeats any presumption of confidentiality and makes it permissible for any party to record the conversation. (I am a lawyer and have litigated these cases. But I'm not your lawyer and this is not legal advice.)
I'm not seeing the claims that you are refuting about California in the quoted text. My point was just to illustrate that most states are not two party consent.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws