Consumer complaint received 2016-10-07
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: NY
Product: Credit card
Issue: Billing disputes

Complaint:
Hello, thank you, in advance, for your assistance! 

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM I have not had a credit card account with Capital One since my last active account expired in XXXX, but I do occasionally receive promotional emails from them that I automatically delete. Today, however, I opened an email from Capital One and was surprised to see a bill for a total of {$130.00}, an original charge of {$48.00} plus {$83.00} in late fees. At first I thought it was a very old bill, as the original charge was from a merchant with whom I had closed an account on XXXX XXXX, XXXX, but then I saw that the date of the charge was XXXX XXXX, XXXX. 

I contacted the merchant, XXXX, and explained to the customer service representative that I had closed the account with XXXX in XXXX, XXXX, prior to the charge. She looked into my account records and saw that I had indeed closed my XXXX account before I was charged. She apologized for the error ( and explained that sometimes there is a lag time ) that she would have the amount charged to Capital One refunded to me. After a brief time on hold, the customer service representative from XXXX stated that she could not refund the charge to my credit card because the Capital One card they had on file for me had expired in XXXX, so she would have to mail me a refund check instead. She also said that the {$48.00}. SHOULD have been declined since the Capital One credit card had expired two years ago. Please see the attached email that I received from XXXX describing the erroneous charge to the expired Capital One card and reason for the refund. 

I immediately contacted Capital One and explained to them that I have not had an account with them since my last credit card with them expired in XXXX, and that the merchant was refunding the original charge by mail because the credit card account no longer existed, and that I expected the late fees to be removed since a closed account should not be able to be charged. The Capital One representative said that closed/expired accounts " are sometimes charged '' accidentally and I was still accountable for the late fees. When I explained that the credit card that was recently charged had expired two years ago and that I have not had an active account with Capital One for two years, her response was, " Well, sometimes that happens [ expired accounts are charged ] '', and that it does not matter if the account has been expired for years when it was charged, that I still owed the money. 

When I first I asked the Capital One representative if I could speak with a supervisor, and she became angry and just repeated that it does n't matter how many years my account has been expired, " sometimes it happens '' and that I " owed the money '' even if the original merchant recognized the error. The second time I asked to speak to a supervisor, there was a silence, then a dial tone, and it seemed very obvious to me that she had hung up on me. This made me very scared that I would not be able to trust any of my direct interactions with Capital One, so I contacted the CFPB immediately. 

I know that late fees can have a devastating effect on my otherwise " Very Good '' to " Excellent '' credit score, so I am very afraid that Capital One will try to do as much damage to my credit score as possible, based on the hostility I have confronted with the customer service so far. 

Once Again, Many Thanks, XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief