WV Attorney General Files Complaint Against Capital One For “Unconscionable Conduct”.

Attorney General Darrell McGraw has filed a lawsuit against Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. in the Circuit Court of Mason County, West Virginia, for unfair and deceptive acts and practices, unlawful debt collection practices, and unconscionable conduct in connection with their credit card lending and collection practices. The complaint alleges that Capital One sent consumers letters disguised as new offers of credit when in fact they were to enter into debt repayment plans of existing, charged off credit card accounts.

See complete complaint at http://www.wvago.gov/pdf/capitolonecomplaint.pdf

Under the terms of the offer, Capital One would provide the consumer $1.00 of new credit in exchange for the consumer’s agreeing to transfer the entire account balance of a charged-off account to the new credit card account. Transferring the old debt onto a new credit card allowed Capital One to charge interest, late fees, and over-the-limit fees on debt that were not subject to those fees otherwise. Capital One was then able to re-age the debts so that the statute of limitations period was set back to zero, meaning for example in West Virginia where a credit card company can only sue a consumer for five years from the last payment, the five year period reset, giving Capital One more time to sue the consumer for the delinquent debt.

In West Virginia alone it is estimate Capital One has a half of a million (500,000) card holders and the Capital One scheme was presented to consumer card holders in all states. This is a far reaching scam affecting millions of American consumers. Attorney General McGraw stated, "Capital One’s practice of offering nominal extension of credit, if and only if, the consumer agreed to pay off a debt too old to be sued on is tantamount to loan sharking."

In a time when so many consumers are hanging on by a thread financially, Capital One has taken advantage of those desperate individuals by trying to trick them into a less than beneficial situation. The underlying planning to create this proposal and implement the plot on consumers seems sinister. These are hard times for American consumers and businesses alike, however one difference is the banks received a bail-out and the consumer seems to be having to pay for it in more ways than one.

If you have a Capital One or any credit card which you want to negotiate to a small portion of the balance and get it paid off for good, contact the credit card debt negotiation experts at www.CreditCardDebtNegotiator.com or call (614) 453-5963 for a personal, confidential, entirely free consultation.