I begged the American-sounding Capital One associate (on-more-than-one-occasion) NOT to send my call to India or Malaysia – or wherever-the-Hell they send you to, to deal with an operative they pay chicken feed — who barely speaks English…further inducing another 3-Jager- shot phone call. And for the umpteenth time, they did it again, prompting my New Year’s resolution to part ways with these assholes and the illiterate slave labor that is supposed to solve my Capital One-induced problems.
Nephew Arash showed me a hilarious “Saturday Night” piece satirizing the-Hell-out-of VISA companies – and this probably helped me muster the necessary and sufficient cajones to break free from the tractor beam of bad credit threats these sorry Fucks at Capital One had me stuck in.
But let me step back for a bit…
I have had my Capital One Business Visa Account for a decade now, and, have always paid on time (they did screw around with that Best Buy trick of charging you a late fee if they didn’t process your check by the due date – but a-couple-of-threats to cancel my card stopped that nonsense). So I’ve spent some bucks with Capital One over-the-years.
On this past Summer’s trip to World Cup in South Africa, I forgot to inform Capital One that I was on vacation there. So after I rented my car for $1302 (approximately 10,000 Rand [R6000 of which was my deposit]) – Capital One shut down my card (so I had to call them and get my VISA service going again). All went pretty well from there-on-in, except when a Vodaphone shop tried to double charge me — but Capital One actually fielded this one nicely.
The trouble started when the car rental company in South Africa didn’t refund my R6000.00 deposit. This company admitted (in writing) that they owed me the deposit (and this written evidence was sent to Capital One in my dispute) and that their Johannesburg branch would be crediting my VISA account (which never happened): hence my dispute.
In my dispute I suggested that I only needed $833-or-so back from the car rental company – as that was the dollar amount of my deposit. Capital One, however, disputed the whole $1302 amount. But by the next month they seemed to have got it right, and, re-charged my account $1302, while giving me my $833 deposit credit (so I paid about R3283 for my car rental – which is usual-and-customary in S.A. for a month’s rental).
I thought everything was fine – what with a normal statement coming through the next month. Then, for Christmas, Capital One charged me $1400 for my car rental in South Africa. Incensed I called them up – and got sent to India, a-couple-of-times. Then I got sent to a manager named Carlos…(Phillipines?) who said he would fix the problem — but instead of taking off the $1400, my next bill only had only $140 removed. Yet another round of phone calls (where I’m sure I was sent to India after pleading to talk to an American) yielded a promis that Capital One had fixed the problem once-and-for-all (I also learned that the dispute department at Capital One and their billing department never communicate with each other [reminding me so much of ‘Dilbert’ that I believe Scott Adams to be the ultimate corporate pundit]).
And sure enough, when my February statement arrived from Capital One, they had recharged me $833 for my car deposit that was supposed to be refunded to me in-the-first-place – and, in effect, wanting my deposit…for…them?
So, so long, Capital One…and I still don’t get your commercials with the Vikings asking us about what we have in our wallets – because if it suggests that you’ll even give Vikings a VISA card – I guess you are counting on folks like myself (along with your slave labor) to fund your truly delinquent accounts…