Consumer complaint received 2021-03-05
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: AZ
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
On XX/XX/20, I purchased a salt cell for a pool salt water system from The XXXX XXXX XXXX ( {$230.00} ). The cell never worked correctly, and never generated the amount of chlorine that it should. When I finally determined it wasn't working correctly, I reached out to The XXXX XXXX XXXX for a replacement. The company never returned any phone calls or emails. 

Research later determined that many, many, many people had experienced the same thing : a faulty cell and no support from the retailer. The retailer was and still is unresponsive. They didn't respond to my inquiries or the credit card dispute 's inquiries. 

I was forced to purchase a replacement cell. This time I bought a different cell from another retailer. The same credit card was used. It was purchased on XX/XX/20 in the amount of $ XXXX+tax. Note, this is more expensive than the transaction in dispute. It works without any problems as it should. 

I reached out to Capital One to dispute the charge. All I got was the runaround. I was told because it was still under warranty, that I couldn't use my credit card 's warranty that extends it an additional year. They also stated I would need to get a professional to my house to provide a written estimate to fix. This was absurd because the cost to do so would have been more expensive than the cost to replace it. I brought the cell to a testing facility and they told me what I already knew : the cell was faulty. Hence, I bought another one as mentioned above. I filed more documentation with the credit card company including my statement, evidence of the purchase, evidence of the replacement 's purchase, pages of consumer complaints filed on a website regarding the retailer, copies of my email communications to the retailer as well as the manufacturer. It turns out the manufacturer owns the retailer which would explain why they never responded either. 

The credit card company still rejected my request for warranty coverage/purchase protection. Finding that resolution unacceptable I spoke with a gentleman named XXXX at the credit card company. He was the " Fraud Industry Manager. '' " XXXX '' is his employee id. According to my notes from this discussion, uploading a personal statement would suffice for the claim. He swore he'd get back to me. I never heard from him again. 

Purchased : XX/XX/20 Dispute Filed : XX/XX/20 Supporting Evidence uploaded to credit card company : XX/XX/20 If the credit card company isn't going to stand up to clearly fraudulent retailers, why offer any type of protections at all?? By not doing so, they're supporting the businesses that are SCAMMING PEOPLE. All of this should fall under the additional warranty protection. The fact that the retailer is unresponsive to warranty requests means the product 's warranty can't be pursued, leaving no other recourse. Capital One is PLAYING GAMES suggesting I'd have to wait for the product 's warranty to expire before getting reimbursed, but NOW THEY'RE REPLACING MY VISA CARD WITH A MASTERCARD and I fear this will end any additional attempts to be made whole. I've been a customer for 10years+ and all they do is give their customers the runaround when there's a problem!!! It's getting to the point I absolutely DESPISE THIS COMPANY AND HOW THEY HANDLE THESE MATTERS!! Frankly, if they can't see this was a scam, some employees should be FIRED.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation