Consumer complaint received 2020-12-09
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: NE
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Problem with fees

Complaint:
For the last 6 months, there has been word that my company was on the verge of going out of business due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I have been on edge for the last 10 months, as Im sure most of us are, worrying about all my bills and debt, and how to navigate my finances during these hard times. I was forced to make the hard choice to either hold on to my savings and live off of them in the event of losing my employment, or minimize my financial burden to ease the stress. 

On XX/XX/2020, I decided to dip into my savings to pay off this credit credit card that i had been making minimum payments on for a little over 2 years. I researched and found the pay-off amount which was {$3000.00} and I made that entire payment on XX/XX/XXXX. 

Later, on XX/XX/2020, I received an email from Capital One showing a balance of {$20.00}. I didnt think anything of it and just thought to myself that its probably due to a lag in their system - they have not updated my records to show that the balance had been paid off in full. On XX/XX/2020, I received another email reminder saying that I have a payment of {$20.00} due by XX/XX/2020. At that time I realized that the balance showing on my account is not due to a lag in updating my account. Capital One had in fact charged me {$20.00} after paying off my entire balance. 

On XX/XX/2020, I contacted Customer Service. I explained to the first rep that I had paid off my credit card the previous month but somehow, Capital One charged me an additional {$20.00} and I did not think that this was supposed to be charged. I asked that the amount be removed/reversed from my account to reflect a {$0.00} balance ; however, the CS rep said that the charge was for residual interest and fees from having a balance on my account the previous month.Further, I needed to have a {$0.00} balance for 2 months in order for Capital One to stop charging any more fees and interests. Therefore, due to this policy, they would not remove the charge. I then stated that the amount I paid was on my account was the pay-off balance which means that once that is paid off, there will be no additional charges by the bank, and also, how can they charge interest and fees in the next billing cycle when the interest and fees should have been charged and applied to the previous balance, which is what I had just paid off? All the CS reps stonewalled me and could not give me a legitimate response. They gave the obligatory response that its their company policy and they can not do anything for me. After being transferred to numerous CS reps and several disconnected calls between reps, I spoke to the last person who was supposedly the manager and she said to me there is absolutely no way to waive that {$20.00} fee and interest charge. 

I was completely disturbed by the answers I got from each CS rep as I had never heard of a credit card company being unable to waive a fee. I explained to each of them that at the very least, that fee should be waived as a gesture of good faith as I have had the credit card for 10 years. I have dealt with different credit card companies, including Capital One and have asked for a waiver of fees, interest, late fees, etc, and have been given those with minimal effort as a courtesy, notwithstanding the company policy. A lot of the amounts that Capital One has waived in the past has even been much, much higher than the {$20.00} waiver I requested. Those phone calls were ended with no resolution. 

As of today, XX/XX/2020, Capital One still has my account reflecting the previous balance of {$20.00} and they have gone further and charged an additional {$20.00} for late fees and I now have a balance of {$40.00}. iI is clear to me that Capital One is unwilling to be reasonable. Clearly, this is not a large amount of money being disputed over, but it is a matter of principle. I suspect that they will keep charging my account more and more money and find a way to keep finagling money out of me. If they are doing this to me, I am willing to bet they are doing this to many others - it is fraudulent, illegal, unconscionable and downright criminal to treat consumers in this way. The ill-gotten money keeps multiplying exponentially by defrauding consumers under the guise of residual interest and fees and I am absolutely appalled by this treatment. 

I did everything I was supposed to do - got the pay-off amount and paid what I owed in the amount of $ XXXX in the middle of a pandemic when most of our jobs are NOT secure. I am asking you for your assistance in resolving this dispute with capital one and making them do the right thing - have them reverse the so-called residual interest and fees, stop charging additional fees on my account, and bring my account down to a XXXX  balance. 

All your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief