Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Consumer Protection Agency Strikes: $210M Fine For Capital One


From Forbes: The controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its first enforcement action today against Capital One Bank.  The agency said the credit card company will pay $210 million in fines to regulators and refunds to customers.

The CFPB said it ordered Capital One Bank to refund approximately $140 million to two million customers and pay an additional $25 million penalty. Capital One also will pay the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency a $35 million penalty and refund an additional $10 million to customers.  This is agency’s first ever enforcement action since being created. The annoucement and fine amount sends a message to both financial companies wondering about the agency’s power and politicians who opposed the agency’s existence.

What did Capital One do wrong? The CFPB, which was created out of the Dodd-Frank Act, said it discovered Capital One was lying to consumers about the its products. The third-party call centers it had hired used high-pressure sales tactics to sell consumers add-on features to their credit cards but misled them about the benefits.  The agency says consumers were sometimes led to believe that the product would improve their credit scores and help them increase the credit limit on their Capital One credit card…

Read more at http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2012/07/18/obamas-consumer-protection-agency-strikes-210m-fine-for-capital-one/

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