Consumer complaint received 2024-12-20 00:00:00
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: CO

Complaint narrative:
A scammer contacted me through XXXX using a fake account pretending to be a legitimate art collector from Texas who was interested in purchasing a XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX I posted on XXXX recently. We agreed to a {$4500.00} price for the painting and the scammer asked if I accepted XXXX for immediate payment. I have access to XXXX through Capital One account and agreed to have his funds for the sale of the painting {$4500.00} transferred through XXXX to me at my Capital One account. In order for the buyer ( scammer ) to transfer the funds to me, XXXX requires me to give the buyer ( scammer ) my phone number and email address. So now the scammers have my personal phone number and email account. Once I gave the the buyer ( scammer ) my info, I got an email from what at first glance looked like an email from XXXX support ( but was actually sent from the scammer from a XXXX  account address ) saying the {$4500.00} are being held by XXXX and will be transferred to me once the sender ( scammer ) sends an additional {$200.00} through XXXX to me because I didn't have a " XXXX XXXX Account '' and I will be responsible for paying that extra {$200.00} back to the sender. This all started to seem rather strange to me and I should have investigated the XXXX XXXX business account thing and the fact that they were sending me XXXX  support XXXX account emails. 

I told the scammer about the hang up from XXXX and he reported that he got a similar email from XXXX explaining the extra {$200.00} that they were requesting he send. The scammer then called my phone number and engaged in a telephone conversation pretending to be the real art buyer from texas. The scammer ( the one who was actually sending me these fake XXXX  support emails and now was calling my phone because he had my phone number ) then asked me to promise to send him the {$200.00} back to him establishing a sort of fake trust between us. I promised to send the money back to him. I shortly later got another fake email from the fake XXXX support XXXX account showing that the sender sent another {$200.00} to my account and the full funds of {$4700.00} would be transferred to me once I send the {$200.00} back to the sender at the information the sender provided to me which I promptly did and the transfer was successful. 

I had just been robbed of {$200.00} from a scammer who successfully used the XXXX app to hook me. 

The scammer still talking to me on the phone after getting {$200.00} from me, then proceeded to try to scam me even more, by sending me another fake email from a fake XXXX  support payments XXXX account saying XXXX needed me to send another {$500.00} to another XXXX agent in order for the senders funds of {$4700.00} to be released to me and I would again be refunded back the extra {$500.00}. So once I pay an additional {$500.00} to another XXXX agent, XXXX would then release the full {$5200.00} to my account. 

At this point I fully realized I had been scammed {$200.00} and the buyer I thought I was working with to finalize the deal was actually a talented scammer and they were trying to get more money out of me by hooking me with the fake XXXX business payments XXXX account and making me think the buyer was taking the risk by sending the extra {$200.00} because I did not have a XXXX business account and the scammer made me think I needed a XXXX business account in order to transfer {$4500.00} into my account. Which was completely fabricated, but because XXXX requires me to give my phone number and email to the scammer, they had my email address and sent fake emails that initially looked like they were coming from XXXX payments support. 

I quickly cut off any contact with the scammer and called Capital One to report the fraud. Capital One acknowledged the fraud complaint and sympathized with me and collected some basic information about the incident and told me they would do an investigation an get back to me. 

I later received an email from capital one that they had completed investigation of my fraud complaint and concluded that I needed to contact the scammer merchant that defrauded me in order to get my money back.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation