05-25-2007, 04:01 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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People in masks cannot be trusted
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Joy of going cancelling a credit card.
Article
Quote:
Wife beat corporate horde
Dennis Rogers, Staff Writer
FAYETTEVILLE - You may have seen those annoying TV ads that feature rampaging barbarians or pitchman David Spade.
The credit card company running the ads is Capital One. If what is happening to 2nd Lt. Steven Wilson and his wife, Angela, is any indication of how Capital One treats its customers, barbarians are an apt corporate image.
Let's go back to January. That's when Lt. Wilson, a Fort Bragg paratrooper, was making preparations to deploy to Iraq.
"He decided to close his account with Capital One," Angela said. "Steven got the card in college -- it only had a $600 limit -- and we almost never used it. In fact, we had a $199.67 credit balance. Steven wrote a letter requesting that the account be closed and the credit balance be refunded."
Angela soon received a check for $199.67, a tidy little sum to buy something for the baby they're expecting this summer.
"I was waiting for a letter any day saying the account was closed," she said. "But that letter never came."
So began the frustrating runaround familiar to all who have had the misfortune to deal with an uncaring corporate bureaucracy. But Angela Wilson is a small-town girl from Taylorsville, up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. She has more grit than quit in her small frame, so she didn't back down.
Not having the account closed makes a difference. Capital One continued to charge Lt. Wilson a $6.95 monthly fee and piled on late fees when she refused to pay.
"It's not the money, we can afford that" she said. "It's the principle. They're taking advantage of my husband being deployed. It is an injustice and I'm not going to take it."
She called what is laughingly referred to as "customer service" at Capital One. A manager acknowledged receiving the letter from Lt. Wilson, she said, but could not explain why the account had not been closed. He told her he'd look into it.
There were many more calls and just as many runarounds. The company at one point said it would not close the account based on her request since it was in her husband's name. Never mind that Lt. Wilson had requested in writing that the account be closed and a Capital One manager had admitted receiving the letter. Apparently the letter had vanished into the giant corporate graveyard where customer complaints go to die.
Letter? What letter?
Send us a power of attorney to prove you have the legal right to close the account, the company challenged. So she did. Angela then made follow-up calls on April 6, 12, 17, 24 and 30, all to no avail. Then the power of attorney she sent also disappeared, possibly eaten by the rampaging barbarians (or perhaps Spade), so would she like to send another one? Finally, in May, the power of attorney was grudgingly accepted.
Exasperated, she called me. I attempted to contact the media relations department at Capital One. Surely someone there would be smart enough to recognize that it would not be good public relations for the company to be seen as ripping off brave American soldiers fighting terrorists in Iraq.
Or maybe not. I made seven calls and sent two e-mails over a week, explaining each time to a corporate answering machine that I wanted to be fair and give the company a chance to tell its side of the story.
I assumed concerned company officials would be so aghast at the way the Wilsons -- a brave soldier dodging bullets, and his sweet pregnant wife back home -- had been treated, they would fall over themselves to make it right. Apologies, phone calls, letters, that sort of thing.
Or maybe not. I'm still waiting for a response. And so is Angela Wilson.
That's not to say there hasn't been action. Capital One has apparently written off $100 in fees. Then, in the most bizarre move of all, the company said it was canceling the debt because the Wilsons had sought relief under the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act, a law first enacted during World War I to protect military families unable to meet their bills.
How sweet. Except that neither of the Wilsons ever requested any such thing. It is a total Capital One fabrication.
Needless to say, the company has yet to admit it was wrong, explain how the mistakes occurred, offer an explanation for the missing letter and power of attorney or discuss the Soldiers and Sailors Relief act fantasy. And of course, no apology has been forthcoming. Barbarians, indeed.
Too bad. I'm dying to hear the corporate justification for the shabby way the Wilsons have been treated.
And so is Angela. She's an active member of the family readiness group in her husband's unit, as well as a master's student in counseling.
"I hear from families all the time about shady billing practices," she said. "I'm doing this for the families who don't have the ability or the resources to fight back. I have an obligation to them. If they're doing it to my husband, they're doing it to other people, too."
Hey, Capital One. You can ignore me, but you'd better bring more than Hollywood barbarians and David Spade if you plan to do battle with this tough paratrooper's lady.
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I always knew credit card companies are evil, but this is insane not cancelling an account like that. I wish she had complained to her State Attorney general, and the BBB.
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