Thanks Sidewinder. I'm glad you've not had any probs getting the charges refunded - that gives me a ray of hope! Perhaps because you've acted quickly and phoned them straightaway it's been sorted out then-and-there. My case may be different, however, in that I've only contacted them after 3 successive late payment fees have been levied - it's possible Cap 1 may have viewed my lack of action as ignoring the matter. But as I told them in my letter, this was not deliberate but merely because I'd been working overseas and was unaware of the situation. Anyway, I won't know anything until they have answered my letter. I'm firing off a reminder letter to them today as 9 days have passed and no word from Cap 1 yet. Fingers crossed for a favourable response!

Hi Livelylad Many thanks for your response. I do have the statements and will look for the preliminary letter as you suggest. Regards Kaydee

Hello everyone. I'm new to this site and think it's great that such a thing exists for people to vent their anger at the way they are treated by some banks/credit card companies. More importantly, however, it's good to know that help and support is available to people like myself who may need to take their complaints against a credit card company "to the next level". It's Sunday and I've just had my day interrupted by a call from Capital One , asking me to make a payment as my account is in arrears and I haven't made a payment for the last 3 months. This is true. However, there are good reasons for this - which I made clear to them in a letter I sent them on 11 February 2007. In January 2007 I returned to the UK after working in Libya for 4 years. During my time overseas, I managed to clear my Capital One credit card balance, and it stood at zero for approx. 2 years. I only used the card once in June 2006, when I made a purchase of approx. £220. The card wasn't used again after this and it was my intention to clear the balance and close the account. On a visit to the UK in November 2006 I checked my balance and it stood at £51.05 (which amount, incidentally, comprised 2 late payment fees of £12 each). Even though I wasn't happy about these charges, I still paid the £51.05 in full as I had to return to Libya and would not be able to challenge these charges from there. I paid the amount using my Barclays online bank account and assumed my Capital One account would now be at zero. On returning to the UK in January 2007 I discovered that my payment of £51.05 had arrived ONE DAY LATE to my Capital One account (even though I made a payment online one week before from my bank account). Capital One levied a £12 late payment fee (plus interest). Capital One also levied two more £12 late payment fees (plus interest) on each of the following two months. Despite not using the card to make any purchases and having (I thought) cleared my balance, I now have a balance comprised entirely of late payment charges! Today I was informed by the person calling from Capital One that I would be charged another late fee this month and he told me to make an immediate payment of £20. I refused and told him I had sent a letter of complaint to Capital One a week ago and was still awaiting a response. I explained to the caller (as I had explained MANY times to Capital One in the past) that it was not possible for me to keep track of my account while working in Libya (which is why I didn't use the card). Capital One would not send statements to my overseas address; a firewall at my workplace prevented me from checking statements online; telephone calls from there were at my cost and were laborious and expensive. I explained all of this to them again in my recent letter. I have asked Capital One to rescind the charges. It is entirely unreasonable that because my payment of £51.05 arrived ONE DAY LATE, I was charged a late payment fee. As I said, I had paid the full amount the previous week and cannot be held responsible for the tardiness of the UK banking system. I had also been totally unaware that Capital One had applied, and were continuing to apply, late payment charges on my account. The person calling from Capital One was not at all helpful. He just kept quoting the usual mantras "if you are late paying then we have to make a charge...." etc. He wasn't interested in my explanation. He told me that my "credit rating would be affected if I didn't pay", which I found intimidatory. I told him the problem laid at Capital One's door, not mine - I had paid my account balance in full - they had decided to impose a punitive charge for ONE DAY's late payment. I'm still awaiting a response to my letter. Judging from other people's experiences, I imagine I'll get the usual cop-out statements from Capital One, so won't hold my breath. However, I have to remain hopeful that they will see sense. If they don't...... well, I don't want to let this drop. Apologies for the length of this post and thanks to anyone who's managed to read it to the end! Regards Kaydee