Consumer complaint received 2024-05-29
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement — Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION (OH)

To whom it may concern : This letter will serve as an explanation of the events in regard to the charge of {$390.00} made by the fraudulent company XXXX XXXX, on my Capital One XXXX card. 

I had been contacted several times over text messages by XXXX ( see uploaded texts ) starting in XXXX of this year. After several attempts, I agreed to speak with their representative who told me his name is XXXX XXXX. I have no idea if it actually is his name, but I suspect it is a fake name. He informed me that if I signed up for their program, I would receive several qualified real estate leads per week. Further he stated that the leads would begin arriving the week that I signed up. I had some hesitation about moving forward, but he was able to convince me that his company was a legitimate company. He also told me that he would be my point of contact moving forward, and that if I had any issues to reach out to him. I decided to move forward, and part of the reason was knowing that if I used my Capital One XXXX, I would be able to dispute the charge if the transaction turned out to be fraudulent. After the charge was made, I never heard from XXXX XXXX or XXXX again. No leads were delivered, as were promised and paid for. 

After about 9 days of waiting for the leads to be assigned over to me, I reached out to XXXX via text message ( again see text docs ), which he said was the best way to contact him. I asked when I could expect to received the leads as promised. He did not respond. I got very busy with work, and then reached out to him about 18 days after my first text message, as I still had not received any of the promised leads, and again here was no response. 

I knew that this was a fraudulent company, but the lack of response confirmed it for me. I decided to dispute the charge. After the dispute, XXXX was contacted by either Capital One or XXXX, and produced a document with my electronic signature as proof of the charge. Whether or not I authorized the initial charge is not in dispute. However, the point of the dispute is that XXXX never provided the service that was paid for. Even since the initial charge was made over 3 months ago, I have not received any real estate leads from XXXX, and have not been contacted by XXXX XXXX, or anyone else from XXXX. If this was a legitimate company, would they not have reached out after the dispute was filed, to try and rectify and resolve the situation? 

Instead, they are relying on the electronic signature on a document offering fraudulent services, to try and steal the {$390.00} from me. The simple point is that if they had provided what they originally offered, I would have no issues with paying them for what we agreed upon. If you look at the history of this card, there is not a history of disputes. As we are happy to pay for goods and services at an agreed upon price. XXXX XXXX is that XXXX has not provided anything that they have offered. Once I did some digging online into these companies, I quickly discovered that many other people have had the same issues. Also, since this has happened, I have been contacted by several other companies all offering the same services. To test them, I tell them that I will not sign up for any service that requires an up front fee. They all have the same spiel that XXXX had, that this is needed to secure my willingness to work with them. Once I tell them firmly that I will not be paying an up front fee, predictably, they cease to contact me. 

This is the heart of the scam. Get people to pay an up front fee, if they dispute the charge pull out the agreement, and hope the victim get dejected and just drops the issue. 

I will not be dropping this issue. 

If Capital One/XXXX XXXXllows criminals to use their platforms for this type of illicit fraudulent behavior, then that is not only allowing fraud against their customer, but even worse, is actually aiding and abetting this fraud. Not only should I receive my refund, but XXXX should stop allowing XXXX Solutions to use their platform to facilitate scamming money from any more people, who are just trying to make a legitimate living. 

If my dispute is declined, I will have to move forward with filing a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as reaching out to my local representatives for the federal government, to try and hold financial institutions accountable for the types of entities they do business with. 

If you have any questions or concerns about this matter, please feel free to reach out to me directly. 

Thank you for your time. 


XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX