Consumer complaint received 2022-04-07
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: TX
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Other problem

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX & XX/XX/XXXX I tried the option to freeze a flight price at the capital one travel website. My first attempt was to freeze a flight from XXXX to XXXX. I received confirmation and was advised the price would be frozen for 14 days. I froze the price with the understanding that once the freeze expired, capital one would book the fare or id have a credit to use for future ticket purchases in the portal. If I recall, the frozen price was a percentage of the fair and I paid {$20.00}. When it came time to book, I'd be paying the balance of the fare that remained. 

Because of the ease of the service I did a second freeze for a different flight. This time for XXXX travelers and to a new city. I had the understanding that the experience would be consistent to the experience from the day prior thus I had no concerns making a deposit towards my trip and paid {$96.00}. 

Fast forward to booking time and I logged in with the 14 day time frame to pay for my trips. I was SHOCKED to see that my flight frozen from XX/XX/XXXX had expired but my flight from XX/XX/XXXX was still good through XXXX. I panicked because I knew I had followed instructions and had already been charged {$96.00}. I was unable to find any resolution online so I called customer service. I explained my situation and advised I must have made an error. I requested a refund in good faith and advised I was a first time user and had no idea I had forfeited close to {$100.00} to capital one due to a human error. The representative demonstrated no empathy for the situation so I requested to escalate and speak to a XXXX. I had again no help from the XXXX and hung up frustrated and confused. 

A few days later ( XXXX ) I went back online to book my trip from XX/XX/XXXX. This time around I did not want to experience the same fate so I logged on to reserve my flight. When I signed in, ONCE AGAIN, my freeze had expired!! I was furious because once more, capital one had profited {$20.00} from me due to my human error or their unclear business practices. 

To make things right im requesting a refund of these charges from cap one. Furthermore, My grievance for this experience is as follows

: 1. The cfpb must investigate and review the high " fees and penalities '' cap one is charging customers who use this service. The fee is too high and should be capped at a certain amount if the client will be penalized once a price freeze expires.

2. Capital one makes no good faith attempt to notify clients that a freeze is due to expire and service fees are immeninent. The same way clients get alerts and reminders for when money is owed to the bank should be offered to clients when the bank will be imposing a fee. XXXX hrs minimum notice would be helpful. 

3. The inconsistent practice of having some freezes for 14 days and some for lesser days is confusing to customers. The 14 day timelines are whats advertised making it misleading to customers who fall into the trap of bait and switch advertising. 

4. The cutoff time for when the freeze expires should be at the end of the day vs some arbitrary time. When my freeze had an expiration date of XXXX I expected to have until end of day on XXXX to book the trip. It baffles me that once again I fell for misleading information when trying to use this service. 

5. Capital one should allow customer service agents to exercise judgement when mistakes happen. Especially for first time users of a fee based service. When I explained my situation and concerns about the service, the representatives were robotic in their responses and made no effort to assist me. Minimally if they can not refund me the fees charged they should have been able to issue credit to me towards my next travel portal purchase. Instead I felt robbed, deceived and mislead. Worst of all I was less {$120.00} which is an unreasonable penalty for anyone trying to use a travel service. 

Cfpb please do the right thing for customers and research this matter. I appreciate any help with a refund or making things right in the future for others.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief