Consumer complaint received 2023-01-25
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: VA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I made contact with Capital One Auto Finance to request a payment plan due to financial hardship. The hardship was temporary, and while I could make the full payment on XX/XX/XXXX if need be, it would be helpful in terms of my other expenses if they could push the payment back one month and extend the length of the loan accordingly.

When I spoke to the representative, I had one stated goal which I made abundantly clear : I do not want derogatory information reported to credit bureaus. A reasonable mind - one of even below-average intelligence - would understand that this means I would only be looking for payment plans that would prevent the reporting of derogatory marks to credit bureaus. If no such plan was available, a reasonable mind of even below-average intelligence would understand that the only correct answer to my request is " I'm sorry, we can not help you at this time. '' Failing that, it is obvious to any reasonable mind that when presenting other options to me anyway, it would be critical for them to state unequivocally and in no uncertain terms that the plan they are offering me would still result in derogatory information being reported to credit bureaus. 

Unfortunately, my experience could best be described as " ineffective assistance of customer service '', to paraphrase from the legal world. And like ineffective assistance of counsel, the proper remedy is to remove the derogatory remarks and address the situation again with a representative that meets the " below average '' intelligence qualifications outlined above. Below I will provide a description of my experience, as well as my experience with Capital One more broadly, and why I had no choice but to file complaints with the CFPB and the commonwealth Attorney General. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I spoke with a capital one representative and made my goal of the call clear : to prevent derogatory marks on my credit report. Secondarily, my goal was to push back my payments a month and extend the length of the loan accordingly. The representative ran my information through some system that makes all the decisions for him, and it said that I was not qualified to have payments pushed back one month. At this point, a reasonable mind would have said clearly that they do not have any options available to me that would meet my primary goal of preventing derogatory marks on my credit report. A reasonable mind would tell me that the only option available to me is to make the payment that day ( the due date ) in full. Unfortunately, there was no reasonable mind on the other end of the phone line. The representative offered to put me on a payment plan instead, saying nothing about the fact that my account would still be considered delinquent. 

The terms of the plan would be that I would not have to make payments on XX/XX/XXXX, however, I would need to make slightly larger payments on the XXXX of XXXX, the XXXX of XXXX, and the XXXX of XXXX. At this point, I would be caught up and able to resume normal payments on XX/XX/XXXX. It is unclear to me what exactly this plan would accomplish ; I was still reported to the credit bureaus for being late because teh account was still considered delinquent. All this guy did for me was a little bit of math to spread out my payment, while still being delinquent every month until XXXX. I could've just done that myself anyway! I know how to divide my payment by 3 and split it up. If it's still going to be considered late either way, why do I need some representative to dress up a 3rd-grade math problem for me and call it a " payment plan ''? Seriously- all they did was schedule 3 payments for XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX in the slightly-higher amount. I wish I was making this up. I know it's hard to believe that they called this a payment plan, but I am absolutely serious. This really happened. Given the sheer absurdity of the existence of such a payment plan, it would be reasonable for me to assume that it would result in my account not being considered delinquent. I hate to make the same point repeatedly, but I think it really needs to be emphasized how absurd it is to call someone delinquent when they are making payments according to agreed-upon terms with the lender. Beyond that, avoiding a delinquency was the entire stated goal of the conversation. Even if this absurd payment plan was all they could offer me, it would be incumbent upon them to make it clear that this plan does not satisfy my request whatsoever. If I had this information, I would've made sure that the payment was made on XX/XX/XXXX and then called around to other lenders for potential relief instead. Again, I want to stress- this was the entire point of my call, and I made that clear. 

Upon seeing the shocking negative mark on my credit report in early XXXX, I immediately made contact with Capital One again and confronted the representative with their deception. Of course, it was not the same representative. It was someone else ( and then later, their XXXX ) telling me that " of COURSE your account would still be considered delinquent! It's past the real due date, silly! '' as if it were obvious that an account could still be considered delinquent while payments were being made according to a verbal, legally binding agreement. They ultimately gave me the runaround and pushed me to file a dispute with their dispute department. ( One common theme with Capital One is that their MO is " not my department '', and of course the right department is always deliberately designed to be impossible make contact with ). 

I asked to be transferred to the department that handles credit reporting. They, of course, would not do this. In fact, there is absolutely no way to talk to anyone involved with credit reporting at Capital One. Whenever credit reporting comes up in a phone call, they all have the same rehearsed talking points about " neither I nor any other human alive can possibly talk to you about this. The people who can, apparently, do not have phones in the year of our lord XXXX. The great credit overlords are only reachable by Fax and nothing else. Please file a dispute ''. 

I had already filed a dispute regarding a similar matter with Capital One last XXXX. I provided documentation to support my claim, and demanded documented evidence from them that supported the negative mark on that account. They replied with a letter that simply stated " lol no ''. I am being facetious of course ; they in fact sent a full page letter that said " lol no '', but with 500 words. They did not provide any documented evidence to support their claim, including those documents which I expressly demanded. They provided no email or phone number for me to contact to follow up or discuss the dispute. Ultimately, I hired a law firm to handle the issue. Capital One, knowing that they were wrong all along, relented and removed this negative mark. I shouldn't have had to spend my hard-earned money proving that I am, in fact, correct ( perhaps I would've been able to make my XXXX payment with ease had I not spent money going after Capital One legally! But I digress... ). because of this prior experience, I did not even bother with filing an internal dispute in regard to the XX/XX/XXXX alleged delinquency. I don't need to wait 30 days for their kangaroo court to tell me " lol no '' again. 

Instead, I submitted a dispute through XXXX, and Capital One ( I assume ) provided documentation that the payment was due on XX/XX/XXXX and that I hadn't made it. The derogatory mark remained. Capital One neglected to provide documentation to the credit bureau that would show that I was, in fact, in compliance with the agreed upon terms ( per the payment plan ) on the date that the derogatory mark was reported. While it's abundantly clear in hindsight that this payment plan was a total sham, there was simply no way to know in real-time that this " plan '' was simply some call center rep pushing some buttons that I could've pushed by myself. 

Early on, I alluded to my belief that this was all the result of personal incompetence, as well as overall bureaucratic incompetence. However, I harbor suspicions that Capital One 's motives for their deception and obfuscation may be both deliberate and sinister. The negative mark that I was disputing back in XXXX made it nearly impossible to get an auto loan for a new car ( a car which I needed due to a total loss, and which Capital One knew that I needed because the total loss was on a Capital One Auto account ). Surprisingly, despite my abysmal credit score, I was approved for relatively good financing terms ... from Capital One. And only Capital One. The sales reps were surprised I could get financing at all with my credit score, let alone for a new car at the rate that I did. It was after this that I hired XXXX XXXX to barrage them in order to get the mark removed. While it's possible XXXX XXXX was simply better at this than I am, the timing of that removal ( ie- immediately after my new car purchase ) raises a lot of questions. Did Capital One deliberately sabotage my credit score with information that they knew to be false in order to ensure I financed my new vehicle with them? I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be able to find out. Until then, I will assume incompetence rather than malice. 

All of this brings me to the letter I am writing today. Capital One routinely engages in deceptive practices as outlined above. While I continue to assume for now that this is the result of incompetence on an individual and organizational level, Capital One 's practices as a whole demonstrate systemic maliciousness. They make it impossible for their representatives to assist with any complicated matters. They have a script and talking points, and that's that. They deliberately ensure that each individual representative in each department can only help with certain things. This results in constant transfers between different departments that, by design, are unable to communicate with each other. Some departments do not allow any access at all. I would love to simply resolve this dispute through Capital One. I have tried and tried, and I have gotten nowhere. I am left with no choice but to submit a formal complaint with the CFPB to get my derogatory marks from XX/XX/XXXX removed and to, hopefully, initiate an investigation into Capital One 's business practices.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation