Consumer complaint received 11-01-2017 about Credit card or prepaid card (General-purpose credit card or charge card) with CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION (CA).
Issue: Trouble using your card
Sub-issue: Can't use card to make purchases

Complaint: I am writing to file a complaint against Capital One XXXX. As both a business owner and a head of household, I have maintained dozens of credit cards during the last 30 years, and I have never had to complain about the service I was getting from a credit card company. A review of my accounts will show that I have always paid my credit card bills in full and on time each month, and in the rare instances where credit card payments have been a few days late, this occurred because of problems with the mail, when I was traveling, or under circumstances beyond my control. I am writing at this time to file a complaint against Capital One. I have three different credit card accounts through Capital One, including visa and MasterCard account, and I have been doing between {$500000.00} and {$1.00} million of business on my credit cards during the last few years. Despite the fact that I have been a very good, loyal customer, Capital One has engaged in hostile tactics against my account, constantly denying charges and today, freezing my account without notice. I am sure you can appreciate that this is far more than an inconvenience. 

As you know, there have been a series of major financial crimes during the last six months to 12 months including involving XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, XXXX and other major retailers. About two months ago, one of these criminals purchased a {$1200.00} coffee maker through XXXX  and charged the item to my Capital One XXXX XXXX. Unfortunately, XXXX was negligent in protecting its customers online accounts and made no reasonable effort to verify the identity of the user or to provide verification credentials when changing the username and password. XXXX failed to live up to well-established retail industry standards for protecting customer credit. 

At that time, I notified Capital One of fraudulent activity on my credit card. Capital One appropriately froze this account and closed this credit card account, issuing me a new card. However, from that moment forward, I have had daily problems with all of my Capital One accounts. I have received numerous emails from Capital One about potential fraud, but unfortunately, Capital One never informs me about which credit card account XXXX have become the target of fraudulent activity, and Capital One does not even provide the right date and time of the transaction. Most of these transactions have been legitimate. Capital One has overreacted and flagged almost every single purchase that my family, employees, and I have made during the last two months. As a practice, we make every purchase possible with our credit cards, and the knee-jerk reaction of Capital One to deny every single purchase has made it impossible for my business and my family to function. Capital One is making us the victims all-over-again. Time and again we have called Capital One to clarify the charges, and time again Capital One employees have told us that charges were not denied or that freezes have been taken off of the accounts. I one occasion, I received a new credit card and activated the card online only to have the card denied when I went to use it. I then had to call in two more times to speak with Capital One representatives, each time being promised that the card was activated, and yet the card was never activated. It has become incredibly embarrassing going to different restaurants and stores that we frequent and having Capital One decline my purchases as if I were a deadbeat who failed to pay his bills. Capital One has violated my rights under the Fair Credit and Reporting Act. 

Within the past two days, three different users on my credit card account were denied purchases, including myself, XXXX XXXX, and XXXX XXXX. I called this morning and spoke with the Capital One representative, and she first told me that none of our charges had been declined, and then she realized the mistake ( she was looking at the wrong account ), she told us that yes the cards had been declined out of concern for fraud. I explained to her that these purchases were being made with the original credit card using chip readers at restaurants that we regularly frequented and the purchases were for small amounts of money, no more than {$50.00}. The Capital One employee reassured us that she had fixed the problem. Within two hours, XXXX went back to the grocery store to make a purchase, only to have the card again declined. This time when we called back to Capital One, we were given a totally different explanation, that my credit card had been frozen because I was apparently late in making my credit card payment. I have never had my credit card frozen for being a few days late for making a payment, and as I have said, I am almost always paid my bills in full and on time. I have a professional bookkeeper and two full-time billing employees who all insist that the checks were mailed out more than two weeks before the due date. Eventually, Capital One posted the payment, along with the duplicate payment I was forced to make to have my account reactivated in order to conduct my important business of patient care. Within the last week it, Capital One has claimed that I am late in paying my balance on two different accounts and has closed two different accounts without any attempt to notify me that there was a problem. Again, these are violations of the our credit card agreement and the Fair Credit and Reporting Act. 

Additionally, Capital One has not honored the Visa dispute process. I filed a dispute for charges from an online service provider, and the online business provided none of the services promised. Multiple Capital One employees told me that if I provide supporting documentation for the dispute, that Capital One and XXXX would find in my favor. I submitted massive amounts of documentation. The online merchant submitted a one page form letter with no facts, and the Capital One dispute department found against me and told me XXXX after four previous phone calls to the contrary ) that my dispute did not meet XXXX requirements. This should have been disclosed form the outset. More importantly, I do not believe that Capital One is following the dispute process to the letter of the law. 

I have written multiple letters to Capital One Chief Executive Officer XXXX XXXX and to the corporate office, and I have either had no response or my concerns have been passed off to a low level, poorly-trained customer service representative with no authority to correct any of the problems we have face. 


Sincerely, XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX. 
Chief XXXX XXXX Diplomate of the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Phone : ( XXXX ) XXXX Fax : ( XXXX ) XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation