Consumer complaint received 2021-04-25
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: MN
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card
Sub-issue: Can't use card to make purchases

Complaint:
I have been a customer of Capitol One Master Card for 25 years. Heretofore the below described problem, I had never before had an issue with them, or they me, never missed payments or anything else. 
The problem : The company is in violation of both the FCBA of 1975, as well as the US Department of Treasury 's Mandate for Financial institutions, public and private, to comply with Address Confidentiality Program for victim of crime, which I am a member of through my Minnesota Secretary if State 's Safe at Home program. I describe how this is so in detail in this complaint. 
I tried to make a purchase with my Capitol One MasterCard, at two different vendors, back on the week of XX/XX/XXXX. I was denied. I subsequently called Capitol Ones customer support, and was eventually transferred with account manager XXXX ( XXXX ). She informed me that my card and account had been closed out in the previous month, XXXX, due to non payment of late fees, for a charge I supposedly made of {$4.00} to XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. She told me that I never paid that charge, and than 5 months of late fees accrued, culminating with my account being closed out by the company, for this reason. 
I then informed her that I had never gotten any billing statements or any notification of any kind from Capitol, notifying me of this alleged charge, nor any statements thereafter concerning late fees. ( I don't even recall making any such XXXX charge, so I am not even sure that was a valid charge to begin with. ) After looking into this, she said that my billing statements were generated but never sent out, as the company had a policy of not using XXXX XXXX XXXX '. Well, I told her that I apprised them of this new legal mailing address on XX/XX/XXXX, a full XXXX days before the charge of {$4.00} had occurred. At that time, their rep had accepted my new address and input it into their system, with no notification that this was not acceptable. 
This new XXXX XXXX XXXX is my legal mailing address, which is even on my license. It is distributed by the Minnesota XXXX of XXXX 's Safe at Home Physical Address Confidentiality system for Crime victims. It has been legally mandated that all financial institutions accept and use this, since XXXX, in compliance with the XXXX Department of Treasury. Minnesota also has a statute concerning this law. The program also has separate physical address provisions to comply with the Patriot act. I informed XXXX of all this and she told me she would then send me my 6 months of past statements, for my records. 
She said XXXX department of their company had generated my statements, but someone there decided not to send them out. She then told me she would send those 6 months of past statements to me now, for my records. And she also gave me the address for their disputes department to write to to explain and document the issue. I expected that the problem, which was clearly the company 's, would be fixed, an apology sent to me forthwith, and all 3 credit card bureaus, which were negatively effected, to be contacted by Capitol One, corrected, along with my account being reopened immediately. None of this was done. 
It is notable that I was not only never contacted by mail, but also not by email or phone, all of which the company had of mine. As for the 6 months of past statements, XXXX assured me she would now send out, she never did. 


I subsequently sent out my dispute letter on XX/XX/XXXX, with attached documentation making my case, and with the above expectations. It seemed like this was a simple matter to resole On the XXXX of XXXX I received a letter from their Dispute Department, that simply restated that my account had been closed for lack of payment of late fees, and would remain so. None of the points in my dispute letter were addressed. Apparently my letter had not been read, at least not carefully. Also, the response letter gave no specific person in that department, so that I could then followup with them to contest this response. It was just signed : Customer Care Team. '' Then, adding insult to injury, the next day, I received a letter on XX/XX/XXXX, telling me that my credit bureaus did not report any late payments for the periods of XX/XX/XXXX to XXXX. Aside from the nonsensical, inverted datewhich itself demonstrate the shoddy, inattention to detail which this company takes disputes -- the reply made no sense : The credit bureaus which I took the time to photocopy and send them clearly showing all three bureaus indicating late fees accruing for the time period in question. I had even taken the trouble to highlight and circle such notations on my photocopied bureaus, to make it very obvious and simple to see this. 
Obviously this company severely lacks training and has people working in its dispute department who don't even know how to read credit bureau. My point about my legal mailing address and my statements being sent out was not addressed : Despite this being the central problem. I clearly stated, in my dispute letter, that their response needed to be sent to my current legal mailing address : my Safe at Home address. I even cited in that letter the legal statutes governing the use of this PO Box address as my legal address ( It is even on my license. ) Despite this, their two response letters to me were, again sent to my old, no longer valid, physical address.

It is notable that I have 3 other credit cards, and two separate institution 's banking accounts, and none of these institutions have had any problem accepting and utilizing my new legal PO Box mailing address, sending me my financial statements, and and other notifications there. Even my checks have my PO Box address on them. All all 3 credit bureaus correctly have my PO Box as my current address listed at the top. 

Thus, this past week, on XX/XX/XXXX, I again called Capitol one at the number that was supposedly the account manager number. I stated my calls at XXXX PM. In order, I spoke to : XXXX in Account disputes. She did not know about my dispute letter. 
So she then transferred me to account specialists, XXXX. After having to explain my problem all over againapparently no one had read my dispute letter -- she then transferred me to XXXX, ( ID # XXXX ). She told me she did not know anything about the situation. 
XXXX then transferred me to to Supervisor and Senior Account Manager, XXXX, XXXX ID # XXXX. ) After I had to explain my problem all over again, he told me your letter went to the front office, we don't have anything to do with them. ( Then why wasn't I connected to the people in the front office who had send me the response letter? Made no sense. But spoke volumes for this one department of this company not knowing what another is doing. ) XXXX then said he did not know why my account had not been reopened, but after finding my letter in their system, and reading it, he said, based on my documentation, my dispute clearly met the criteria for another look. 
XXXX then transferred me to XXXX, XXXX # XXXX, ) who then put me on hold to confer about my letter and the situation. 
After another long hold, XXXX then transferred me to Senior Account XXXX, XXXX, XXXX ID : XXXX ). 
Since at this point I had been on phone for more than XXXX XXXX hours, I XXXX XXXX immediately to give me his number, or call me back if we are disconnected, because I did not want to have to go over all this again starting from scratch. Despite this fact, XXXX hung up on me at at XXXX XXXX, when I was still talking. I had by then been on the phone, continually transferred, for 1 hour and 45 minutes, only to be hung up on and never called back. 
Before hanging up on me, unbelievably, XXXX had the gall to tell me that the situation was my fault, as he now claimed the account was closed due to inactivity. ( I had made two charges in the past 6 months, hows that inactivity? ) This was a totally different reason all their previous reps had given me verbally, and different than the reason stated in their response letter to my dispute. ( I said if you are going to claim that, now, you needed to send me a letter with your name on it, on company letterhead, explained this was not the reason you were claiming my account was closed. He did not respond. ) I tried to explain again my dispute pointsas clearly XXXX had never read my letter XXXX I don't understand why everyone I was connected to have not read my letter. Why wasn't I connected to the people in the dispute department that supposedly read my letter? ) He told me it was my fault, as, in the last 6 months, since that, supposed, {$4.00} XXXX charge, I did not try to charge something elseeven a XXXX dollar pack of gum because, if I had, in his twisted pretzel, non-logic, my charge would have been denied, and I would have called sooner and been told by a rep that I had a problem. 
It was and is not my problem that the company did not comply with the law and send me out my statements, which, as I stated in the beginning of this letter, their representative XXXX told me were generated but not mailed out. Also, if their company had a problem sending my statements to my legal address, and that they had just piled up, unsent, they obviously internally saw there was an issue, but chose not to address it. XXXX also had the gall to tell me their company did me a favor by closing out my account. My credit has been cut off, and my credit bureaus negatively effected, that is no favor to me. My responsibility was to kept their company updated with my current contact information : which I did. It was their company 's responsibility to utilize such. 
The onus, obviously, was not on me to stumble upon their company XXXX up, and lack of compliance with the law. ( Indeed my attempting a purchase last XXXX is the reason I found out there was a problem. ), But this was clearly not the issue, as, again, even when I apprised this company in writing that their response letter must be sent to my current, legal mailing address, they still sent it to my old, invalid, physical address. Talk about making a bad situation worse, and adding insult to injury. XXXX would not address any of my dispute points, just insulting me and giving me a totally nonsensical reason to deflect from the company 's culpability in this problem. Indeed, his saying my account was close for lack of activity, and not non payment, but then tells me in same sentence that if I had attempt a new charge sooner, it would have been denied for late of payment, he contradicts himself. 
XXXX would not address why my billing statements were not sent to methe central reason for the problem. I pointed out his company was not in compliance with the Department of Treasury 's mandates for financial institutions concerning with Address Confidentiality programs, nor the FCBA. By FCBA mandate, companies must send bills to your current address. And that a creditor may not threaten your credit rating, report you as delinquent, accelerate your debt, or restrict or close your account because your bill is in dispute or you have used your FCBA rights. A creditor cant deny you credit just because you've disputed a bill. And a creditor must provide a statement for each billing period in which you owe or they owe you more than XXXX dollar or on which you have been charged a finance charge. 

They did not do any of this. I kept kept trying to make XXXX understand the issues but XXXX then simply hung up on me. He made no attempt to call me back, so clearly this was not a mistake. I took the liberty of recording this call with XXXX. 


Their company violated the FBCA, and Treasury Department Law. and instead of fixing an obvious problem in their billing and contact practices, their personnel have doubled down and said, in effect : Oh, I don't understand this, just give him an irrational response and be done with it, hang up on him. Ignore it and it will go away. 
I can truly say this situation was the worst customer service experience of my life : And on a problem that was easily addressed, and that they need to do so to comply with the law. To treat a good customer of 25 years this way is outrageous. 

In resolution : I want my account reopened, the company should apologize to me for putting me thru this needless hassle. And they need to contact all three credit bureaus and tell them the account closure, and late fees indicated, were incorrect : it was the company 's error, and to make sure all 3 credit s bureaus are thusly corrected. 

I thank you for taking the time to read this extensive complaint, and hope you can help me get this a proper resolution.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation