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  • Report:  #188513

Complaint Review: CAPITAL ONE BANK

CAPITAL ONE BANK - CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION ripoff, FRAUDULENT BILLING, HOLDING PAYMENTS UNTIL THEY CAN CHARGE LATE FEES, EXCESSIVE INTEREST RATES ripoff Dallas, TEXAS

  • Reported By:
    Las Vegas Nevada
  • Submitted:
    Tue, April 25, 2006
  • Updated:
    Wed, April 26, 2006
  • CAPITAL ONE BANK
    1680 Capital One Drive, McLean, Virginia 22102
    Nationwide
    U.S.A.
  • Phone:
    800-903-3637
  • Category:

I have had multiple incidents of late fees charged when I knew the company had received my checks. My checks were held until the day after the due date and then Capital One charged me late fees in excess of $29.00 each time and entered me as a late payer in their records.

When I called to complain, they told me I needed to send the payments 10 business days prior to the due date. Adding weekends (non business days) this meant I had to send my payment 15 days before the due date. In many cases I do not receive their bill in time to do this. My Master Card payments go to Dallas Texas. I do business there with other companies and send my bill payments on the same date as I send other correspondence to Dallas. My other correspondence arrives in three days or less but strangely, the post office discriminates against Capital One and does not deliever mail to them for an additional 8 days if you believe Capital One.

On paying my Visa bill with Capital One, after send payment in full for the entire amount of what was owed $700, Capital One held my check for three weeks. I phoned every day and asked if they had received it. After 10 days I said I was going to put a stop payment on the check and send them a new check which I did. They charged me a late fee and after two months my origianl check was returned.

Finally, I started send my checks priority mail with a return receipt or delivery confirmation and because I could prove they received it, I stopped having late fees applied. They clearly watch for things that could be proven and this probably only because the State of West Virginia sued them for this fraudulent activity.

The State of Nevada will not take action on behalf of consumers as we have one of the most corrupt governments in the nation. Anyone reading the news knows that on virtually every level of government we are rife with coruption and government taking bribes and payoffs from strip clubs to casinos to insurance companies and financial institutions. The financial institutions have been able to completely get rid of any usuary laws so that interest rates in the hundreds of per cents are very common here. Judges take bribes and payoffs. We have virtually no consumer safety here and no chance of getting any.

If there are any laws that were formerly used to restrict corruption, big business will have them stricken and or removed before this complaint is published and limits on teh size of judgements against criminal corporate offenders are very reduced and strictly limited and enforced by our corrupt courts.

Capital One refuses to give in their billing statements or by telephone any street addresses for their company. They will only give a post office box. Yesterday, I phoned and asked for teh street address of their head office and they refused to give it to me. To futher deter people, they do not give people the opportunity to speak to a live person about a problem. This was noted by other people complaining about Capital One. They make you say you want to report a theft or some other option that will put you in touch with a live person. I invite any person to call their 800 number adn see if any option they give invites you to speak to a person. If you fail to choose an optin they give and if you wait in silence long enough, only then does it say they will put you in touch with a person.

If you are persistent and tell them you want the late fee cancelled, they sometimes do it. If they do, they leave on your record a late pay record. Even if your payment was received on time and they cancel the late fee, they leave this on your record to keep your interest rates high and as a reason not to give you a more favorable rate.

Several times, I have called to inquire why my interest rate is so much higher than any rate they advertise on their web site for credit cards. Even the credit cards for the worst credit records as advertised on their web sit is lower than mine. When I called to inquire why this was, they could not explain it. They said they don't have access to that web page! Then, three days later I received a notice saying I was declined a credit request because my type of credit card was not eligable for credit decreases. First, I did not ask for a credit increase or decrease. I just asked why it was so.

I have received three such notices. When I called to complain that I had not sked for a credit increase/decrease they ran my credit once again and sent me the same notices. They said there is no such thing as a type of credit card that is not eligable for rate changes and yet I have three notices in my possession saying that my "TYPE" of credit card is not elegable. Each time they do this to me, they run my credit and it looks bad on my credit report that I was denied credit when I had never asked for it. I am furious and I dare not call lto have it fixed because they run my credit report again and send me notices of denial for things I have never asked for.

This company and many credit card companies are in the middle of a huge windfall business of late fee charges when they are the ones making this happen. It creates billions of dollars for them. There is no policing of this practice by anyone. This fraudlent practice continues even if they cancel a few false late charges and they keep on their own private records a designation that you are a late payer and keep your interest rates artificially high. Their lobby is so strong that all of our legislators continue to pass anti consumer legislation that allows banks and financial institutions to rape people at will with impunity.

In my view, only a massively huge class action law suit in the type that hit the tobacco industry will stop this practice. I can see the possibility of a multibillion dollar judgement against them if enough consumers complain.

With Capital One, their corporate policy is to refuse to give a street address for any of their offices. Any of you who have credit cards issued by Capital One can attest that they only give post office box addresses in order to hide from consumers and to thwart filing actions against them. If you ask them who can accept service of process, they refuse to give you that information and tell you to write to a post office address and ask customer service.

They have no intention of stopping the practice of advertising high credit limit cards and giving low limit cards with high annual fees. They use deceptive advertising and do it with the intent of signing you up and hooking you into a bad situation at high interest rates. They regularly hold back payments until they can charge late fees unless you use an alternate form of payment which is very expensive. They say, well it is your fault, don't use the post office to make payments. They commit postal fraud on a massive scale and the post ooffice is unwilling to do anything about this. The post office is happy they make you use very expensive postal services to make your payments because this is increased revenue for the post office. In effect, the post office is an accomplice to all this.

Credit card companies are extremely well financed and it is cost prohibitive for an average person to fight this corruption. The result is that it goes on and on unchecked.

I was able to tape record concersations with employees of Capital One. I told them I wanted to tape record them and could I have their permission. They said yes to my dismay. I then turned on the recorder and advised them it was being taped and were they away and do I have their permission and they said yes.What these conversations do is point out just how obnoxious and anti consumer they really are. It shows just how they refuse to help and refuse to co-operate to resolve problems and how they try to be clever store front attorneys when they were really cutting their throats. I only wish I had the funds to file a devastating complaint.

Kenneth
Las Vegas, Nevada
U.S.A.

Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Capital ONE

CLICK HERE to read about Credit Card Scams... find out how to get your money back. Consumer makes harsh but accurate statements. *Rip-off Report Investigation follow-up provides valuable information.

8 Updates & Rebuttals


D

-,
Oklahoma,
U.S.A.

A novel idea

#9Consumer Comment

Wed, April 26, 2006

Ok. Let's all get 'em back. Let's all pay off our credit cards, and cancel them. If we all do this, these credit card companies will die. We can all sit around and giggle our butts off as they drop, one by one. Let's all kill the credit card companies by not using their credit cards.

Also, instead of making a car payment to a bank or loan shark, take that "car payment" and put it in savings. Example, $300 a month over 60 months is $18k. Then go out and by a late model used car. You can usually find a good deal on one for 15k. While driving and caring for this one, keep putting away money for the next car. You will have much better leverage as you are paying cash. YOU are in the drivers seat, so to speak. Negotiate to YOUR advantage, not theirs.

I tell you what, it's the end of credit cards and bank loans for me. Doing things this way means keeping the car you have and nursing it along until you save up enough money, or at worst, buy small old cars for $1k a pop and drive them until they go t**s up, and then junk them and buy another $1k car, and keep this up until you have enough cash to buy a good one. Imagine the joy-gasm you'll have by walking into a dealer with a giant wad of cash and actually being in charge of things.

Anyone with me on this? Let's get rid of the "I gotta have it now!!" attitude and do it old fashioned way. The way our fathers and grandfathers did things. Live with our means and save our money.


Duane

Monroe,
North Carolina,
U.S.A.

Your rant is offbase.

#9Consumer Suggestion

Wed, April 26, 2006

You seem to rant and rave and say things that are twisted in actual fact. Like for example, you called two people who responded to your original rant as anonymous. I see where we both have our name on our post.

You continue to want to blame somebody at Capital One for your problems. The actual problem is you. Obviously you cannot follow the simple policy of the credit card company.

The majority of your rant is about not being able to get a street address for Capital One. Like the other poster pointed out, street addresses are not normally given out; in part to prevent nutcases from harassing the employees.

I previously posted information on where you could mail your payments, and the fact that you could make your payments online. You went on to continue your rant in an additional post.

You can find the corporate address for Capital One online very easily. I did it with little effort. By law, there is certain information that is required to be available. A street address is one of those. If you actually had an attorney and a legal issue, your attorney would be able to find that same information easily.

Do you realize how goofy your original post was where you accused the post office of being an accomplice? The electric meter-reader probably has his hand in it to, huh? And I bet it's all being directed by the phone company to create situations where people have to use the phone more......

The point is you mis-trust the post office (as well as Capital One; and I bet you have a long list of others.) You do have options to make payments otherwise. Do it online like I stated earlier. Oh yeah, you mis-trust that too. OK then, use the phone and make your payment by phone - it gets posted to your account the same day!

Additionally, if you are tired of getting ads from the credit cards, you can opt out of getting them. You can do this by phone or by mail (oh no....back to them again!) Here is some areas where you can opt out:


Calling 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) to have your name removed from direct marketing lists. You can also opt out online at OptOutPreScreen.com, which is the official consumer credit reporting industry opt-out website.
Contacting the individual credit bureaus to opt out
Equifax Opt Out at:
Equifax Inc
PO Box 740123
Atlanta, GA 30374-0123

TransUnion Opt Out at:
TransUnion LLC
Name Removal Option
PO Box 97328
Jackson, MS 39288

Experian Opt Out at:
Experian
901 West Bond
Lincoln, NE 68521
Attn: Consumer Services Department




Writing directly to the Direct Marketing Association at either/or both addresses to opt out of pre-approved offer. Include all pertinent information, including your full name, current address, and home telephone number.

Direct Marketing Association
Mail Preference Service
PO Box 1559
Carmel, NY 10512
Direct Marketing Association
Telephone Preference Service
PO Box 1559
Carmel, NY 10512


Kenneth

Las Vegas,
Nevada,
U.S.A.

Capital One false late payment charges

#9Author of original report

Wed, April 26, 2006

Anonymous states that he does not believe any corporation would take the time to look for payments to hold and asks if it makes any sense. Clearly it makes billions of dollars worth of sense and he should look at the profit figures for all such corporations. This is and has become one of their largest single sources of revenues.

Making payments on the internet is fine if you do your banking on theewspapers have reported large dumps of peoples banking information stolen via the internet and identiy theft if very high using this source.

Making payments via other options such as Fed Ex or phone payments is expensive and there is no reason in the world that any SANE person would add such costs to paying a bill with credit card companies when no other type of company requires such increased costs. Fools and their money are soon parted and clearly there are foolish people who want to throw away money by adding to their payment a fee ranging from $5.00 to $30.00 for special mailing services from postal services or other institutions. The plain fact is that people should be able to feel confident that they can mail their payment to credit card companies and have that payment logged and credited to their account in a timely manner.

The reasons a person might wish to know the street address of a large corporation is to contact the President or board of directors to advise of problems encountered at lower levels or to suggest policy changes or to file a law suit or to subpoena records or a hundred other reasons. Not everyone is looking to do violence to some low level telephone person and the suggestion is juvinile only showing a level of thought that is immature, irrational and emotional.

The fact that this corporation has been sued for the activities I allege by the State of West Virginia and numerous other responsible authorities as well as individuals (this information is available on the web) show that the concern is valid and real.The fact that Capital One refused to honor a subpoena for records that were detrimental to them and were ordered by the court to honor the subpoena shows this corporation to be hostile to the law and trying to hide things. Before comments are made embarrassing the writers further, I suggest they wait to hear the verdict in the law suits which I believe will prove my point and vindicate my allegations.

That someone was able to find a some street address of a branch that has nothing to do with my account or card is simply immaterial. The other address provided is a post office box. Read my original report. It clearly says the post office boxes are all they will give and all they put on statements. If an employee of Capital One makes false and misleading statements, one needs to have the physical address of that place in or to serve them with process in any litigation. Consumers injured by someone who has lied and or made threats to that customer has the right to redress through the courts and the right to sue and press charges. In short, only the extremely uninformed would question this and any such person has no understanding of the legal sytem or the law. It is offensive to think they can do things anonymously and hide from ever having to face the consequences of their wrongful and tortious behavior in court.

No one should have to deal with a company on the internet becaue if you do not and use the mail, that corporation will commit mail fraud. That suggestion is obscene and offensive. They send you a credit card by mail. Your application is made by mail. Your statement arrives by mail. One should be able to pay by mail and not have your payment held back so that they can charge you excessive fees which are a billion dollar source of income for them. It is just that simple. Knowing the exact pysical address of the head office and the names of the corporate officers and the duties of each officer is a fundamental right of consumers and duty of corporate offices to make available to anyone who requests it.

Priority mail, by the post offices own published signage states that it normally takes 2 to 3 days but they will tell anyone who asks that there is no guarantee of that delivery time. I have used them and even had tracking and it took over a week to go from Nevada to California. If you want guaranteed overnite delivery it costs as much as $29 and change. If your credit card bill is $11 dollars it makes little sense to pay this huge charge. It makes little sense to use a credit card that would punish you this way. For all people who suggest using these expensive ways to pay a credit card bill each month, this is impractical and insane. There are multiple ways to pay. No person ever said anything different. What people are saying is that it is expensive and costly and dangerous if using the internet. No person should have to open up internet bank accounts just to pay a deviant and unlawful corporation. Even a simple person can understand this premise.

Look at the sheer number of people who have this complaint. It is astronomical. That tell the real tale. Saying that one does not think this happens is so very much like those who think that no one landed on the moon and that they think the world is flat. In America you are entitled to think what you will but it is not factual. We who have this complaint have documents, records, phone conversations and witnesses to back up what we say. It is NOT just an opinion.

I thank the anonymous persons who responded to this report. If they are employees of Capital One or have family in their employ I hope you have a nice day.


Jennifer

Richmond,
Virginia,
U.S.A.

Quite a rant

#9UPDATE EX-employee responds

Wed, April 26, 2006

It always makes me laugh when I see people say that their credit card companies (Capital One or otherwise) "hold" or "sit on" their payments just long enough until they are late. Given the millions of accounts that companies like Capital One have, and the thousands of payments that must be processed each day, do you REALLY think that they have the time to pull out individual payments received, check the account's payment due date, then put the payment aside in order to process it another time so it posts late?

Do you see how preposterous this scenario sounds??

You have the internet; you have seen Capital One's website. And yet you don't make free online payments. You have a phone; you have called Capital One multiple times to complain. And yet you don't make phone payments (which aren't free but are at least an option). There are several ways you can make payments, and you have obviously been dissatisfied with one of them (via mail), so why not try another method that might work better for you??

As for not giving out street addresses to the corporate offices, why would you need them? Are you planning on sending your payments there? That's a terrible idea -- that would just delay your payments even more! Corporate doesn't receive or handle payments; the payment processing centers do. Just because it is the same company doesn't mean every office handles the same operations. Apples and oranges.

The policy not to give out physical addresses also has to do with safety. There are callers who are sometimes so pissed off that they want to come to the call center and "talk" to the phone rep face-to-face. I know this because I have heard calls where this has happened. Bottom line is, no matter how angry someone is about their credit card situation, threatening an employee is obviously something that is to be avoided.

If you want to get through to a human being, try calling the main customer service line (800-955-7070) and pressing "00" at each prompt. That should work, no guarantees.

Ultimately you must remember that there is more than one way to pay your credit card bill. I honestly don't know why you would go to all the effort and expense to pay via return receipt when all you have to do is pay online for free. But, that's just me.


Duane

Monroe,
North Carolina,
U.S.A.

I think you are wrong....

#9Consumer Suggestion

Tue, April 25, 2006

I have dealt with Capital One for several years and have never had a problem.

You can access your account online. You can make your payments online. They will post the SAME day you make the payment.

Additionally, they have every address they use listed in plain Enlish on their website. You state that you can access their website. Do you know how touse the internet? I found this list of numbers in two clicks from their website. Here are two of thos addresses that people might find useful:

US Standard Mail and 2 day Priority Mail:

Capital One
PO Box 60024
City of Industry, CA 91716-0024


US Overnight Mail:

Capital One
Attn: Payment Processing
4349 Woodson Road
Suite 100
St Louis, MO 63134


Duane

Monroe,
North Carolina,
U.S.A.

I think you are wrong....

#9Consumer Suggestion

Tue, April 25, 2006

I have dealt with Capital One for several years and have never had a problem.

You can access your account online. You can make your payments online. They will post the SAME day you make the payment.

Additionally, they have every address they use listed in plain Enlish on their website. You state that you can access their website. Do you know how touse the internet? I found this list of numbers in two clicks from their website. Here are two of thos addresses that people might find useful:

US Standard Mail and 2 day Priority Mail:

Capital One
PO Box 60024
City of Industry, CA 91716-0024


US Overnight Mail:

Capital One
Attn: Payment Processing
4349 Woodson Road
Suite 100
St Louis, MO 63134


Duane

Monroe,
North Carolina,
U.S.A.

I think you are wrong....

#9Consumer Suggestion

Tue, April 25, 2006

I have dealt with Capital One for several years and have never had a problem.

You can access your account online. You can make your payments online. They will post the SAME day you make the payment.

Additionally, they have every address they use listed in plain Enlish on their website. You state that you can access their website. Do you know how touse the internet? I found this list of numbers in two clicks from their website. Here are two of thos addresses that people might find useful:

US Standard Mail and 2 day Priority Mail:

Capital One
PO Box 60024
City of Industry, CA 91716-0024


US Overnight Mail:

Capital One
Attn: Payment Processing
4349 Woodson Road
Suite 100
St Louis, MO 63134


Duane

Monroe,
North Carolina,
U.S.A.

I think you are wrong....

#9Consumer Suggestion

Tue, April 25, 2006

I have dealt with Capital One for several years and have never had a problem.

You can access your account online. You can make your payments online. They will post the SAME day you make the payment.

Additionally, they have every address they use listed in plain Enlish on their website. You state that you can access their website. Do you know how touse the internet? I found this list of numbers in two clicks from their website. Here are two of thos addresses that people might find useful:

US Standard Mail and 2 day Priority Mail:

Capital One
PO Box 60024
City of Industry, CA 91716-0024


US Overnight Mail:

Capital One
Attn: Payment Processing
4349 Woodson Road
Suite 100
St Louis, MO 63134

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