Consumer complaint received 2022-05-24
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: TX
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account
Sub-issue: Transaction was not authorized

Complaint:
I am a parent of a XXXX grade student, and the school reached out to parents if they would like their child to participate in an educational travel tour in XXXX  of XXXX. My impression was that the school was organizing a tour for their students and this program was designed for the benefit of my child. This was my first time and I wanted to do this for my child. They gave a presentation, and made it appear safe and easy with a 100 % refund guarantee if we set the payment through our debit card for a monthly deduction towards the cost of the trip, which I did and enrolled my child on XX/XX/XXXX hoping it would be a good experience. Early in the month of XXXX, I got a notification in my email for a {$35.00} charge for declined payment, and I wondered where that came from because, I had money available on my Capital One checking account ending in XXXX used for the monthly payment. That was when I realized that this travel agency that collaborated with the teachers at my child 's school were all about extorting money from parents. I expressed my disappointment them for the false decline payment fee charge ( which was obviously an issue on their end ) and my lack of trust in them to let my child participate in the travel tour. I asked to cancel and requested my 100 % refund. I was told that I had to call to cancel, and after several attempts to reach them on phone, I finally did early this month, only to be told that they are imposing a cancellation fee and other charges totaling {$590.00}. This whole trave tour was misleading by the teachers in collaboration with this travel agency, manipulating parents through their children to defraud them. The XXXX  tours have a very bad reputation, with a 2-star review on XXXX. I only knew this later when I had this issue with them, and for them to sneak into schools to manipulate parents with such a cruel policy in my opinion is fraudulent. They are making parents victims of their scheme and that should never be allowed. Knowing fully well that when it comes to an issue concerning the child of a parent, parents are vulnerable, and this is a clear case of such deception. 

After failing to make XXXX Tours refund my money, I reached out to my Bank, Capital One to report this case and to file a dispute on this transaction explaining the situation to the fraud and claims department. To my suprise, Capital One Bank came back to tell me that my claim was denied refusing to protect me ( a cusomer ) from the greedy claws of a travel agency manipulating parents through teachers in their child 's school to extort money from them as in my case. I told the capital one agent on the call, that I would like to speak with a supervisor on this issue because I consider it that they are not proctecting me in this case, but I was denied the opportunity to speak with a supervisor. 

I am filing this complaint against Capital one Bank for treating me with discontent and refusing to protect me from a fradulent and misleading situation with the trave agency. I am so diappointed with this bank that they totally refused my claim and the clear objective of the extortion I face with this merchant. Capital one should protect their customer in this light, and I feel they do not have any sense of what I am dealing with here, denying me the option to speak to a supervisor. To think that canceling a trip that is over 400 days away will attract a cancellation charge of {$590.00} for no service provided in my opinion is a pure scam, and Capital One bank refused to protect a customer from such scam.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation