Capital One not closing account desite repeated requests - legal recourse?

BigLad_2

Hello,

Advice appreciated please.

Over that past few weeks I have asked Capital One to close my account on five separate occasions.

The account is fully paid up and clear, the card not having been used over the past year.

The last two requests were not even given a reply.

I have now given up hope that they'll close the account without being forced to.

What legal or other recourse do I have to force them to close the account please?

Thanks for your help.

Tixy

You say the last 2 request had no reply? what reply did you get to the earlier request? did they give a reason for not being able to close it?

How did you make your requests?

Telephone? email? post?

If you haven't made the request in writing and sent in the post then I would do that now.
If you have already written and given them reasonable time to reply then I would write again and head your letter up as a formal complaint.
Once you have made a formal complaint then they have 8weeks to resolve it or provide a final response to you. If they don't, or if you are not happy with their final response then at that point you can take your complaint to the FOS.

BigLad_2

Previous replies were somewhat bizzare.

At my first request they they said they'd decided not to close it until I asked them again so that I could spend my £ 0-06 cashback. So essentially they directly ignored my first request.

The second request received no reply whatsoever.

At the third request they apologised and said my request had been escalated. It did not require 'escalation'. It merely required closure of the account.

My fourth and fifth requests have been completely ignored with no reply received whatsoever.

All contacts were made by their secure e-mail messaging system in the account.

I'll write an old fashioned pen and paper letter but frankly don't believe I should have to do this in this day and age.

My advice to anybody looking for a credit card would be to use a more reputable supplier. I've never had this trouble with any other card I've used in the past.

Cheers

opinions4u

Take them to court if you like.

Googling "Financial Ombudsman" may prove more effective.

pqrdef

What do you want them to do exactly?

They've got no way of knowing that you haven't used the card lately - a payment claim could be in the pipeline. That could include any CPA payments that you may have forgotten about, or maybe don't even know about. You can't just repudiate your credit agreement if you've incurred any obligations under it.

All they can do for now is set your credit limit to zero, decline any pre-authorisation request that may or may not be made if you try to use the card**, and stop sending new cards. Your account will show as Settled on your credit report at the same time whether you close the card or not. It shouldn't immediately disappear from the website.

**EDIT - don't rely on that - they might treat any attempt to use the card as a request to reactivate it.

BigLad_2

pqrdef wrote: »

What do you want them to do exactly?

They've got no way of knowing that you haven't used the card lately - a payment claim could be in the pipeline. That could include any CPA payments that you may have forgotten about, or maybe don't even know about. You can't just repudiate your credit agreement if you've incurred any obligations under it.

All they can do for now is set your credit limit to zero, decline any pre-authorisation request that may or may not be made if you try to use the card**, and stop sending new cards. Your account will show as Settled on your credit report at the same time whether you close the card or not. It shouldn't immediately disappear from the website.

**EDIT - don't rely on that - they might treat any attempt to use the card as a request to reactivate it.

I was clear on this point. Both to Capital One and in this post. I want the account closed.

Closing the account does not 'repudiate my credit card agreement'. I am entitled to ask for my account to be closed.

From your description everyone should simply leave their cards open. Why then has every other card company I've ever dealt with simply close the account when requested and sent a letter confirming that they have done so?

There are no CPA payments due. None have ever been set up. The card has been inactive for a year and I would like it closed. Simple as that.

As for your query "What do you want them to do exactly?". Well, close the account and confirm that they have done so. Also, perhaps it would be nice if they actually responded to customer's queries.

Gordon_Hose

What do the T's&C's say about closing the account?

BigLad_2

Gordon_Hose wrote: »

What do the T's&C's say about closing the account?

I'll have to dig them out. But what I find frustrating is that they simply don't reply. I've never had this issue with other providers. They've always simply confirmed in writing that they'll close the account and asked me to cut up the card.

simax

I rang them today and asked them to close my account. They closed it immediately and I can no longer login to the online account so it's done and dusted.

Ring them.

andyuk01

simax wrote: »

I rang them today and asked them to close my account. They closed it immediately and I can no longer login to the online account so it's done and dusted.

Ring them.

Same here, about 3 months ago i closed my progress account over the phone

Took about 3 weeks to show as settled on experian, account access was revoked immediately

CLAPTON

is the balance on the card zero?

if yes, how long has the balance been zero?