I submit the following case for your consideration.
If you worked for a major bank, would you issue a credit card to an applicant if:
- The person applying had been declared an Adult With An Impairment in a court of law, and the three major credit bureaus had been advised of this fact?
- As an impaired adult, the prospective cardholder lacked the legal capacity to enter into financial agreements, and have financial agreements enforced against them?
- Another institution had to write off as uncollectable over $25,000 because they kept advancing cash to the applicant after learning he was not only impaired, but the victim of an ongoing scam?
If you cared about your job and had a lick of common sense, it would be idiotic with a capital "I" to issue a credit card to such an individual.
Yet that's precisely what Capital One, did.
By their actions, I can only conclude that Capital One (who I have thus dubbed "Crapital One") are incompetent, greedy, or desperate. Or all of the above.
Did these people learn nothing from the recent financial meltdown?
If they learned anything, it was the wrong lesson: Namely, that if you're too big to fail, you can be as reckless and disdainful of cardholders as you please, because the taxpayers will bail you out.
As the taxpayer in charge of my father's finances, I, for one, do not intend to bail out Capital One and repay the money they carelessly loaned my dad.
Postscript: Capital One eventually canceled my father's credit card. Not because I ordered them to, but because of suspected fraudulent activity, such as failed attempts by others to obtain his account number, and/or make unauthorized transactions.
To quote Gomer Pyle USMC: "Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise . . ."
To quote Gomer Pyle USMC: "Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise . . ."
I have been following your blog for the last 2 years. My mother in law in FL has been involved, on and off, with the scammers for well over 3 years. It has come to our attention that she has given out her SS# to her Jamaican friends. We are currently looking into the ramifications of that. My question has to do with Western Union and MoneyGram. Were you ever able to get them to stop wiring funds to Jamaica?
ReplyDeleteJanis,
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question: Yes, we were finally able to get Western Union and MoneyGram to block wire transfers made in my father's name.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that they stopped only when they were legally compelled to do so, by Letters of Conservatorship accompanied by a directive to stop transmitting money for my dad.
The other bit of bad news is that, after months of inactivity and some prompting from the crooks, my father resumed sending money, except this time using aliases. This tactic has been hard to counteract, since the Big Two do not require senders to present ID when transmitting funds.
As for your mother-in-law giving out her Social Security Number, you are right to consider the ramifications of her disclosing this information.
Here are two possible consequences, that I can think of:
1. If she shared other personal details such as her date of birth, the crooks can steal her identity, which is as good - or better - than cash.
2. Armed with her SSN, the scammers might be able to obtain account numbers and other information they can use to their advantage. For example, if your mother-in-law has taken advances against her credit card, there are ways they can pretend to pay down her balance long enough to fool her into making more "payments."
Thank you for posting. I hope my input has been helpful.
SOS