Beware Capital One -- A Consumer's Story

Yeah I know this has nothing to do with EQ or DAoC, and I'm not normally one to use this as a pulpit for things like this, but after a couple of hours on the phone on this, I figured I would give people a heads up about this company's practice. I have (soon will have had) a Capital One Credit Card. You know the one with those cute "what's in your wallet" commercials. It's actually under my wife's name, which has some bearing on this. Well today I get a call from "Rod" from "The Account Solutions Group", a collection agency, stating that our credit card payment is overdue. Amazed, I tell him that this is impossible, since I pay the card off each month and in fact just sent in a payment last week. He of course insists, in very strong and insistant terms, that we owe Capital One money. Basically, he was rude as hell. Well after much hassle back and forth from him, I finally get out of him that he is looking for a "Tony Moyer", male, born in 1979, instead of "Toni Moyer", female, born in 1965. Great. So I figure it's just a stupid, if unpleasant, mistake. Nevertheless, to be safe, I call Capital One to make sure they do not have us listed as delinquent and that our credit rating has not been affected. After the usual wait on hold and a transfer, I finally get to "Kevin" of customer service. He tells me that there should be no problem with our credit report since the account would be under a different social security number. But I insist he look further since someone got our number to call us and harass us, so I figure someone thought that was our account. Then he says the most amazing thing: that if they can't track down the actual debtor, the collection ageny will typically pull every phone number in Capitol One's database with the same name as the person who owes them money and call them all to try to collect their debt. I'm like "are you saying that just because some Tony Moyer in Podunk owes you money, you called us and accused us of being delinquent?" Basically yes. There were 15 variations of Toni Moyer in their database and apparantly they called them all over this single debt. They didn't call us by mistake as much as mistakenly called us. He claimed that was the price we are supposed to pay for getting that low interest rate. So of course I told him to cancel my account. Then, after I had hung up, it occured to me that a company this unscrupulous and unethical could not be trusted to not somehow mess with our credit rating, so I decided I had better get a letter from them confirming that our credit with them was fine just to have on file somewhere. Plus, I had to make sure what he told me was truly correct, because it seemed so incredulous to me. So I called back and eventually got to 'Nancy" in customer service. Yes indeed she confirmed, we will call everyone necessary to collect a debt. "Even if the age, sex, and social security number all don't match?" You bet. That is apparantly a company policy. I believe the exact quote was "Capital One will do whatever is necessary to collect a debt". Apparantly even if it means hassling people who have absolutely no connection to the debtor beyond a similar name. So if you are considering getting a Capital One credit card, keep in mind that if anyone with your name owes them money, you can expect to get a similar phone call from a collection agency accusing you of not paying your debts. In addition, I ask you to consider this. If they will use the information you provide them in this unsavory manner, how else will they use it? I of course only know about this incident, but do you want to take the chance that this is the only way they will twist your data? Is this the type of company you want to deal with? You may want to consider a different company, and if you currently have a Capital One Card, you may want to consider another option before you too get a call like this.
Tags: General, News

Comments

Post CommentRoot Thread
Capital One - My Saviour
# May 09 2002 at 6:14 AM Rating: Good
2 posts
When I first moved out of my parents at the tender age of 19, I lived like any youngster would do, I got pissed every night and racked up HUGE phone bills playing EQ. Subsequently CCJ's (county court judgements) started rolling in and got a REALLY bad credit rating. So I moved home. I thought it would be years before I would be able to get any sort of credit again, that is, until Capital One contacted me and offered me a card. Now this was a godsend. I got a £2000 credit limit and the oppertunity to rebuild my credit rating. And thats what I did. 2 years later I can now afford to go to any bank and apply for loans/cards etc. Of course as soon as I could I got a Halifax VISA card (Much lower APR) and cancelled my Capital card. They never once rang me or sent me a bad letter, just my statement once a month (which was more than enough) Now the reasoning for this is most likely that you guys live in the US and I live in the UK and the people that work for Cap are probably more understanding/dont care as much here, but that dont excuse their misuse of info that you talk about. Just thought I'd tell the other side o' the waters version )
RE: Capital One - My Saviour
# May 21 2002 at 7:18 PM Rating: Decent
*
92 posts
Capital One UK will give a Visa card to practically ANYONE... same goes for Providian, MBNA and a few other US firms trying to enter the UK market. Up until about 9-10 years ago, there were laws in UK/Europe restricting these companies from operating here.

Simple advice to follow for these types of CC...

Do NOT agree to the 'Payment Protection Insurance' plan... it's a con. In the unlikely event that you can PROVE that you're injured/sick/dead enough to qualify... the 'plan' doesn't even cover an amount that would normally be considered your 'minimum balance due' amount. This means that, for example, if you go into hospital for 3 months and make no further transactions... when you come out and resume work or whatever, you'll find your balance has actually INCREASED.

MBNA recently put their interest rates UP... despite worldwide lending rates being at a post-war low for the last 16 months.

Currency transactions carry a 2.75% surcharge (which works out more than TWICE as expensive as changing currency at a Travel Agents) which is disguised in your statements "exchange rate"... so buying goods and services in US Dollars with a UK Sterling card is suprisingly expensive.

Do not try to move house/change job/get married or ANYTHING that will require some kind of alteration to your records with the company without first getting confirmation IN WRITING of any changes. A favoured trick is if you move house, to keep sending your statements to the old address... makes it easier to charge you a 'late payment' fee if you miss the 'due date' (which they sometimes change, and then swear they've notified you about... to the OLD address).

If you really DO have a screwed-up credit rating and these clowns are your only hope of getting a CC, take them up on it but NEVER use the card. You can even use one card to improve your chances of getting another... until you're finally at the point where you qualify for CC from a UK company.
____________________________
If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothes. And if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order
Post Comment

Free account required to post

You must log in or create an account to post messages.