Consumer complaint received 2021-07-20
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: AZ
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:
I had a {$25.00} late fee assessed due to the Auto-Pay function not being enabled on one credit card account. I had previously set up Auto-Pay for this card at the same time as my other two accounts, another credit card and an auto loan, but their online interface didn't save it for this card. The online account interface has all 3 accounts, making it easy to set up each in order. I'm sure that I set it up. I know they probably include wording that it's my responsibility to ensure it's enabled and make payments, but that isn't really fair when a normal person would expect that it works after setting it up. With all the notification and marketing emails this company sends, it's hard to ensure that I get an email to confirm that the automatic payment will happen. I obviously didn't ensure that I was enrolled. 

When I called the customer service on XX/XX/XXXX, they claimed it wasn't possible to credit back the fee. The option was " grayed out ''. Even the escalation agent was helpless to do any form of credit to the account. The fee was from XX/XX/XXXX. Their customer service has said before that they can only do recent late changes, but now it seems that it needs to be less than 30 days. I understand that it is allegedly a one-time " courtesy credit '', but I didn't even know the payment was missed until 3 days later in the form of a email. 

I had called a few times last year, due to missing some payments during a hard time ( COVID related employment and health issues ) and they were only able to credit me ONE fee during the last call, and this credit did not include the interest that they charged. In terms of how reasonable my request is, I only requested the fee be refunded. Other companies like XXXX XXXX and XXXX offer to refund both the fee AND the interest, essentially erasing the lateness. Capital One has only ever returned the fee, leaving the interest and the penalty APR at a whopping 19 % + interest. 

Additionally last year due to those missed payments, they reduced the credit on my other card, even though I used it frequently up to 25 % of that card 's total amount. They know people rarely go above 15-20 %, and it really hurt my credit score. 

As a side note, I would like to mention that I have had multiple automotive loans through Capital One. The APR rate that I ultimately got from them was 2-4 % MORE than the rate I was quoted during " pre-qualification '', despite the all the terms, including the amount of the car, my income, my credit score, and down payment being exactly identical to the initial application. This was extremely deceptive. I would have definitely shopped around more before if I knew the rate was going to be that high, but I needed the cars quickly with no time to shop further. In the future, I will probably seek other financial companies.

These are predatory fees and lending practices.

I have paid all of my bills, even past fees, without complaint. I set up Auto-Pay for the account, but for whatever reason it didn't store in their system. I'm just asking for a late fee back, which is not too much to ask, given all of the fees that they have collected from me over my multiple car loans and credit cards with them.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief