Saturday, September 29, 2012

What's In Your Wallet?

Nothing because Capitol One has cleaned it out:

"CFPB fines Capital One $210m for credit card add-ons" by Carter Dougherty and Dakin Campbell  |  Bloomberg News,  July 19, 2012

WASHINGTON — Capital One Financial Corp. will pay $210 million to settle charges of deceptive marketing of credit card ‘‘add-on’’ products such as payment protection and credit monitoring.

Meaning they probably made about 4x that much on the fraudulent thievery. 

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‘‘Today’s action puts $140 million back in the pockets of 2 million Capital One customers who were pressured or misled into buying credit card products they didn’t understand, didn’t want, or in some cases, couldn’t even use,’’ said Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray. ‘‘We are putting companies on notice that these deceptive practices are against the law and will not be tolerated.’’

That just seems so at odds with the wonderfully creative Capital One commercials featuring that wonderfully talented Jimmy Fallon. 

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More cases against credit-card companies may be in the works. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. have subpoenaed Discover Financial Services amid a probe into that lender’s marketing of fee-based products....

Yeah, look what they found:

Feds order Discover to refund $200M to cardholders

Trying to discover some extra profit, 'eh?

Debt-protection products, also known as credit insurance, are lucrative mainly because of limited competition. Customers can’t get a card from one company and credit insurance from another, according to consumer advocates.

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But remember, you are getting 50% more cash.  

UPDATE: Capital One plans banking ‘cafes’