Consumer complaint received 2024-10-12
Product: Checking or savings account — Savings account
Issue: Managing an account — Deposits and withdrawals
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION (MA)

I think it should be considered whether Capital One should be allowed to do business the way it is with its " Cafes '' in that it presents itself to customers that they will have a physical location to do transactions in but when they go to the location, are told they can not actually do banking transactions like withdraw money not because they dont have money in the bank, but because the banks ambassador on site can not help them, nor will the call center they call, help the customer.

Here is what happened to me on Friday, XX/XX/2024 I discovered that day that Capital One Cafes do not allow banking transactions without debit cards. Not knowing this, I opened a CD last winter. Later I opened a 360 Performance Savings account to have the money transferred into, once the CD came due. No debit card was sent. Today being the day the CD came due, I walked to the Capital One Caf in XXXX XXXX ( 55 minutes -- because there is no parking, traffic is a nightmare, and the XXXX XXXX to XXXX only comes once an hour ) to withdraw some of the money to pay bills. I was told that not only could I not withdraw money from the account, but also that in order to do it, I would need a debit card, and that it would take 7-10 business days to get one to me. The ambassador said since he couldnt get me a card expedited to shorten the time, he would call the help center to see if they would be able to. He brought me into a room and made the call. ( My identity was verified three separate times by the ambassador, btw, using my Massachusetts drivers license. This will be important for what comes. ) Over the phone the ambassador and I were told by the call center rep, who had a thick accent, that she could not expedite a debit card because I had never had a debit card attached to my accounts. In fact, I had a 360 checking account for which I had been given a debit card years ago, but it went unused because there were no locations near me where I could use it so I stopped using the account and Capital One did not send me another card when that one expired. I told her I did have a debit card in the past, so the reasoning didnt work. At which she implied I was telling her an untruth. So I asked her if she was saying that I was stating something that was untrue and she reconsidered but insisted she could not expedite a card. I mentioned that it made no sense if transactions can not be made without debit cards to not send them to customers when opening accounts. To which she had no answer. I asked, so there is no one at Capital One who can expedite this card? to which she said no. The ambassador asked about how it would be sent and she answered him that it would be sent to the address on file. So he asked me if I still wanted a card and I said yes. The call center person then said I had to state my address so I stated my address. She told me I didnt speak clearly enough. She had heard everything the ambassador and I said up until this point, and knew that my identity had been verified three times ( at least two of them while she was on speaker ) so it was clear to me it was obviously a language barrier issue given her thick accent so I said that she already stated she would send it to the address on file so she could just do that. She said no she would not because the procedure is I have to state my address. How does that match it is a normal practice for banks and credit card companies to send sensitive things to customers addresses on file without any previous verbal communication, and I heard her telling the ambassador that she would do that but now to me she is insisting she can not do that, even though my identity had clearly been verified more than once with a document that had my address, the same as the one on file ( never mind that it didnt need to be if its being sent to an address that is already on file )? And why wasn't a card sent when I opened the account if I would have no access to the money without it? I had already spent 30 minutes there going through this conversation with someone over the phone after walking for an hour ( when I really should have been speaking to a supervisor ) back and forth to do something that should have taken 5 minutes and said that since the address is on file she did not need me to repeat it, to which she insisted she did. I said I would make a complaint to the company for putting people through this. She told me she was not going to send the card she asked me if there was anything else she could help me with to which I said I wanted her name. She hung up on us.