Consumer complaint received 2018-05-07
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: CT
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments
Sub-issue: Problem during payment process

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX I received a solicitation from Capital One wherein I would be charged a small balance transfer fee in exchange for 18 months of interest free financing. I had some student loans at 6.8 % so even with the fees I stood to save about $ 200- {$300.00} from this promotion. 

In two separate transactions on XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX I was charged a total of {$79.00} to transfer the money. 

The problems with Capital One started immediately when I went to set up payment and there was no option to pay the loan off gradually over time. I have done similar promotions for home repairs and it is usually very clear and easy to pay back. Given that this was a promotion allowing people to consolidate debts and then have 18 months at zero percent interest, the primary target would ostensibly be people that wanted to pay down the loan within that 18 months. When I logged in to update my autopay there was an interest saver option, which I thought was there way of helping you with the calculations to ensure the balance was paid in time.it was not. 

Basically that option just avoided the fees and at the rate of pay I would have been left with a huge balloon payment after 18 months. I called in about this deception and was basically told that I couldnt do autopay to pay off the loan in time and the only thing I could do was just go in manually at the end of the month and make payments. Even this was a problem as the order that my payments were applied was not in a manner that was in my best interest or what I thought it would be. For example I wanted to pay off an extra $ XXXX/month but my bill runs in the middle of the month and by the time that it actually gets paid there are more charges that have been accrued because I have been using the card. What then happens is the extra money is applied to those chargeseven though they arent duebecause there is technically a higher apr because the promotion is zero. This completely ignores the fact that if I dont pay that balance down in time the rates will be significantly more oppressive. 

Lastly, the statements dont say anything except the promotional balance and I cant find it on the website. I dont know when the terms are up or what the cost will be when they are. When I called Capital One to complain they said I could write or fax a letter, which is a level of just not caring about your customers concerns that I almost have to respect and has me a little concerned this is part of a XXXX for You skit. 


Basically everything that I thought would be done based on the solicitation, was actually set up the exact opposite, and in a way that I believe was done to deceive the consumer. Everywhere I turn there are post hoc rationalizations and people telling me this system of no discretion or accountability is to help me. I have now paid {$220.00} in interested charges and late fees trying to figure out how to pay things as I would like, in addition to hours of my time on the phone trying to get things straightened out. 

In its most basic form I feel this is predatory lending in that the terms are not what you would expect based on the solicitation and designed in a way that people will be forced to make a large payment or incur large interest charges, and it is very easy to structure things differently, many places do it. When you structure a program in this fashion I can only believe the intent was malicious.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation