Consumer complaint received 2018-07-12
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: WA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Other problem

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX, I filed a complaint with the CFPB, Complaint # XXXX, which highlighted an issue with Capital One 's payment qualification system. I received a follow-up call from a Capital One officer on XX/XX/XXXX. At the initial onset of the phone call, the officer stated : " This call is being recorded for institutional purposes. '' I responded that I was also recording the phone call for my records. The Capital One officer said that recording a mutual business phone call was against their policy and that she had to cut the call short. 
I instructed her to please provide visual evidence that you are in fact providing me with accurate policy descriptions. I asked her where I was able to access her stated policy information. Was I able to access information through their website? The Capital One officer stated the policy was not displayed on their website. I asked her to provide me with a link, or a document that shows such a policy, and she offered no recourse. The question that emerges from out exchange is : Why would a large financial institution like Capital One deny its entitled privilege to a smaller party, and also why would such information not be displayed if its importance would disrupt the resolving of a dispute between two COEQUAL parties? 
I further put the Capital One ad-hoc policy to question by commenting on the availability of information. Given the information that emerged through the situational context, it seemed wholly unreasonable for a client of Capital One to be able to print out a transcript of a chat with an online agent, but not be able to record mutual business conversations with a financial institution. A previously printed-out online transcript was mentioned- a XX/XX/2018 online chat with an agent, XXXX XXXX , was an informational document that I printed out. The Capital One officer said that she previously perused the document, and used it to gather information concerning my case. 
Taking this into account, I write to CFPB to complain about the inability to record conversations because it denies the client ( me ) with the ability to access important information in the future. The Capital One officer said that in order to access our XX/XX/XXXX phone conversation from Capital One would require a subpoena, which facilitates two states. The first state is creating an informational imbalance between the institution and the person. Secondly, the need to access mutually shared institution-client information is blocked by the larger party. Both states perpetuate economic discrimination because having access to an attorney shouldn't be necessary to access banking information when resolving a dispute. Additionally, in order to resolve the dispute in an equitable fashion, access to information is a primary necessity. 
Furthermore, I bring to the CFPB 's attention that Capital One grants its clients with access to information at the initial stage of the dispute, but shields information during the steps towards arriving at a resolution. Such practices by large financial institutions concerning the open-sourcing of information creates an un-even playing field on the consumer side of banking by denying clients open access to information. As a result of my inability to " comply '' with Capital One 's 'no recording policy ' the resolutive process engaged by Capital One exists in a state of impasse, which offers me no speedy resolution to my issue with my prior complaint concerning Capital One 's policies.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation