Capital One Credit Card

leicestercityfan

Hi
My husband has just received a credit card statement from Capital One (July 2009) and on it is a debit from February 2008. During that time we had been on holiday to Borneo and the debit has originated from that period. There is a date for that debit and we suspect its a trip we paid for using his card. We were suprised that it had taken nearly 17 months for this to be debited to our account and our natural instinct was that this was a mistake or potential fraud. My husband called Capital One and they advised that it wasn't fraud as we had been there. He tried to explain that if we owed this money we would pay but we wanted some evidence that we had not already paid this charge last year (like most people we don't keep our statements once we've paid). Capital One don't keep records going back more than 9 months (or so they say) so they can't look back on my husband's account to see if this has been paid previously. All Capital One say is that he has to dispute the charge. I guess our question is, is it reasonable for a credit card company to authorise a payment to a third party 17 months after the event, without investigating the matter first? My husband's card had no balance on it. I'd be intrigued to know what Capital One would have done, if he had closed the account down!

cifpower

The payment would have been authorised 17 months ago but has only been shown on your statement now. It does and can happen.

goonasuk

Any financial company have to keep 5 or 6 years worth of records (whether its in archive or available straight away) so this 9 months thing is nonsense, they just couldn't be bothered to check back. It probably couldn't be done over the phone but would have to be investigated.

td_007

leicestercityfan wrote: »

I guess our question is, is it reasonable for a credit card company to authorise a payment to a third party 17 months after the event, without investigating the matter first? My husband's card had no balance on it. I'd be intrigued to know what Capital One would have done, if he had closed the account down!

If you are sure this is a valid transaction and you have not paid it, then I guess just paying it off now will just keep everything simple and straight forward. However, if you are not sure, then dispute the transaction and Cap1 have to dig up the proof of you having authorised the transaction and you not being previously billed.

cos_2

It does seem odd to get a charge from such a long time ago - I would be just as cautious as you. I'm surprised that Cap1 aren't a bit surprised as well, tbh. They can't get many charges coming through that late can they?

I'd call them back and ask them to convince you it's a valid charge, and explain to them that you are going to contact Visa (or is it MasterCard?) to check that the merchant is bona fide even if they won't. I'm sure Visa would be very interested to hear about this one, regardless if it's genuine or not. There's obviously a problem somewhere in the process.