Consumer complaint received 2021-06-10
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: CO
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
CapitalOne erroneously froze my account, without authorization, and reversed an ACH, costing me {$30.00} fee for the reversal. Since there was NEVER any fraud or issue XXXX except in Capitalone 's imagination ) they ( eventually ) unfroze the accounts, but only after days of messing things up. 
DETAILS : On XXXX XXXX I initiated an ACH from CapitalOne to XXXX XXXX, which went through, and XXXX executed trades as instructed. 
On XXXX XXXX CapitalOne, with NO warning nor notice nor authorization reversed the ACH. 
on XXXX XXXX XXXX charged their prescribed {$30.00} ACH reversal fee -- Due ENTIRELY to CapitalOne 's error/incompetence/unauthorized action. 
Research showed that my father, who is a joint owner of the account I used, initiated a ACH from a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT account of HIS, which CapitalOne also INEXCUSIBLY reversed without notice to him, froze ALL accounst associated with him including MINE ( jonit with him ), and FAILED to notify any of us! 
After multiple calls and 20-30+min hold times per call, totaling HOURS on the phone, my father was able to determine that the problem was that CapitalOne randomly decided that the ACH my father initiated ( again, this was from a COMPLELY DIFFERENT account than mine ) MIGHT be suspect so, with NO NOTICE or warning they IMMEDIATELY reversed ALL transactions associated with my father, including on completely different accounts like my joint account with him. This resulted in a {$30.00} fee from XXXX XXXX. That fee is clearly the responsibility of Capital One, and their ridiculous and inexcusable actions. 

Even after my father got through ( hours on hold ) and CapitalOne agreed teh transaction was legitimate and claimed they had unfrozen the accounts, it turns out they had NOT unfrozen them. He had to go through the whole calling and waiting AGAIN for them to say, " oops.. it was not actually unfrozen like we told you, but no we will fix it for real this time '' Remember this was NOT insufficient funds and was NOT due to ANYTHING we did as customers, but only CapitalOne 's INSANE policy of reversing ACH on a whim with NO NOTICE and freezing EVERY account, even of other customers. WHY?!?!?! They could have acted responsibly -- like a competent bank should -- and contacted me or my father to investigate BEFORE reversing/freezing. Even a text message or alert on their app ( like they do for literally every card purchase ) saying " call immediately '' would have helped. Instead they irresponsibly REVERSED all ACH transactions and sent off an email the next business day, with total disregard for teh damage this woudl cause consumers. What sort of lunacy prompts a bank to REVERSE already COMPLETED ACH transactions with no notice, freeze multiple accounts without contacting anyone, and even XXXX up the un-freezing until customer calls AGAIN?!?!?! 

Remember, this was NOT a problem with NSF ; Was NOT a problem with ANY customer action. In fact, my father 's ( totally different account ) ACH order that seems to have so confused CapitalOne, was to an external account he had regularly transferred $ XXXX to/from multiple times and had explicitly verified with CapitalOne as an appropriately linked account. The ONLY thing that caused this consumer harm was CapitalOne deciding, on their own, for no particular reason we can find or policy they can point to, to freeze multiple accounts of multiple customers, with no notice, and reverse ACH transactions, with total disregard for the impact on customers. As soon as CapitalOne actually took the time to get the information, they immediately saw the transactions were completely legitimate all along. So WHY damage customers instead of responsibly notifying them BEFORE doing financial harm?!?!? 

CFPB must protect consumers by shutting down this sort of horrid action by Capital one. Thankfully, the only loss ( so far ) to my family was this {$30.00} fee from XXXX XXXX  DIRECTLY CAUSED by CaptitalOne 's inexcusable actions and disregard for proper procedure and consumer protection. I hate to think about what a mess it could have caused had my siblings, who also have joint accounts with my father, had they needed money on short notice during Capitalone 's mad days of blocking all our funds XXXX multiple people, multiple accounts XXXX and reversiong legitimate transfers with no warning nor explanation. I strongly urge CFPB to consider additional punitive measures, beyond merely ordering CapitalOne to pay the {$30.00} damage they caused. If CapitalOne is allowed to continue their carless and harmful ways, who knows what financial damage they will cause the next time to the next consumer.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation