Consumer complaint received 2019-08-07
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Problem with personal statement of dispute

Complaint:
Hello, I made a purchase at a Kohl 's for XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX of 2018. I always pay my full balance in the store, but their was an issue with their computers and they were unable to process using my debit card in the store to pay off the credit card. Thinking that I would later receive the bill, I forgot that the payment was never actually complete. I never received a bill for this amount. I only received a letter from Kohl 's after my account was more than 30 days late. I called them and they removed the XXXX dollar late charge, and they admitted that they did not send me a bill because I was on paperless billing and I needed to make an account and pay online. I had never even made an online account to be able to pay or even see the bill, so it would have not even been possible for me to pay or see this bill. I received no electronic version of the bill either. 

Over the phone they understood and removed the XXXX dollar late fee, but still reported this incident to the credit bureau as a late payment. I called them to attempt to have it removed and they refused to do so unless I wrote a letter explaining the situation, which I did. They wrote me a letter back saying they were not legally allowed to do so because the payment was paid late so they have to report it as such. I know this is not true as I have read online about similar scenarios with other companies who have removed late payments that were essentially the fault of the company. This is clearly an example of that. Although I do bear some responsibility, the company had many more chances to avoid this than I did. 

If their system had been working properly, I would have paid in the store as I always do. If they had a mechanism to send a bill if a customer has not even signed up for their online account to pay for it, I would have also paid it. Shouldn't the company know that I have not even made an account in order to pay the bill? They could easily set up something that sends a text alert or an email or something to someone who is about to have a late payment, but of course they won't do that because it makes more money for them. They have to make it as likely as possible that you will have a late payment. 

The fault that is mine is forgetting about the purchase not being complete due to their error, but that is such a minor oversight and there were many ways in which the company could have avoided this and only one way in which I could have. Should the onus really be on the customer to remember that Kohl 's servers were down, and to rush home and make an online account on the off chance that Kohl 's will not send them a bill in the mail like every other company does? That seems ludicrous. If the company wants to save money and the environment by going paperless I am 100 % for that, but in cases like this it seems so obvious that I shouldn't have a 7 year mark on my credit for something that was mostly their fault. 

As a side note, this incident is totally against the spirit of of what a credit score is supposed to represent. A late payment is supposed to reflect someone who was unable to make their payment on time and is therefore more risky to lend to. It is not supposed to punish someone for years who didn't receive a bill from a company. I still find it hard to believe they did not remove it, but here we are. I can not understand how any reasonable person would find that they can recognize their error enough to remove the XXXX dollar late charge, but still want to hurt my credit. 

Hopefully you can help me, thank you. 

Here was the reference number on the late charge being refunded Reference Number is XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation