Don’t Make any sudden moves, or Capital One will charge you with Assault

I went in to the Flower Mound Branch of Capital One to deposit a pair of checks, one of which was for my mentally and physically disabled father in law for whom I am Attorney In Fact (I have durable power of attorney).  Despite the account being used for this purpose for almost a year with many checks including ones just like this, (Treasury Dept.), I was informed this wasn’t sufficient any longer and I needed to re-open the account correctly.  I have no idea how the account was opened incorrectly, but Lynn, the Assistant Branch manager said it was wrong and therefore we could not deposit the check.  I said that was f—ing ridiculous since we have been doing business this way for almost a year and have so much business at Capital One.  This was after her asking me to sit in her office for over twenty minutes waiting on something that usually takes two minutes and we handle through the drive through.

I then stood up to leave, and Lynn took the check from her desk, and despite me asking her for it, since she wasn’t going to do anything with it anyways, she refused and I reached over and took it from her hand, since after all it was my property and she refused to give it to me.  She then very dramatically claimed I assaulted her, and claimed to call the police.  I laughed considering the preposterous nature of the claim of assault, and left to continue on errands with my family.

While driving, I called the national call center for Capital One and filed a formal complaint with Brittany.  She informed me of the process and that someone would be in touch.

About fifteen minutes later, I received a call on my cell phone from the Flower Mound Police Department asking me to return to either the bank or the police department.  I told them I would be at the police department in about ten minutes.

I showed up and sat down in a conference room with a pair of officers who explained to me the situation.  Lynn is claiming assault, but since it obviously wasn’t assault, it has been moved down to a Class C misdemeanor of “Offensive Touch”, which is dubious since there were no witnesses or any physical evidence.  I filled out a voluntary statement explaining what had happened. The officer  said the bank wanted to “Trespass” me, which basically means they tell me not to come back or they will call the cops.  The officer said he wasn’t going to do it, and asked for my word that I wouldn’t go back.  I, of course, gave it since at this point I can’t take my business from Capital One fast enough.

During this time, my wife had been in the car with my girls and on the phone with Capital One trying to figure out how to continue to conduct business until we can change banks.  Sandy (she introduced herself as the branch manager), told my wife I was not to come back to the bank, and that all our accounts are now frozen (garnished).  Sandy gave no reason for this drastic (and illegal) action.  My wife told Sandy that she needed to buy groceries that night for our infant and toddler daughters, and in response, Sandy said, “You can’t.  Your accounts are all on hold, until you come in and close them.”

One of the accounts garnished was my business account, and LLC which isn’t even mine since it is its own entity not linked to my social security number at all.

My wife eventually got the number for Mr. Randy Hall, the District Manager, whom we tried to call several times but he doesn’t answer his phone and his voicemail isn’t set up, so we were unable to leave him a message.

We received a voice mail on Tuesday from Leslie at the call center saying “there is a chain of command and you will need to speak with the Branch Manager”.  We also found out that day that there really isn’t a branch manager just an interim setup of various people filling in as required.

Since all our accounts were frozen, we went and opened four new accounts at another local bank.  My wife had asked Capital One’s call center for some help in understanding what was going on, but they said we had to speak to the branch manager at the Flower Mound branch.  We couldn’t even go to another branch to get this fixed, and by fixed, I mean, get our money that had been illegal garnished.  We then got our attorney involved to figure out how to get the accounts closed.  He called the Flower Mound PD and they said to just go to the Flower Mound branch, and let them call the police.  As long as we were there conducting business, they can’t ask us to leave since we have effected consent to be on private property.

I didn’t really like that answer, so our attorney called the Flower Mound branch and asked what we could do.  James said my wife could come up there and close the accounts, even though the business account, by contract and law, couldn’t be closed by anyone other than myself.  But since Capital One employees had already broken a few laws, why stop now?  We decided to go to the Lewisville Branch and close the accounts.

Olivia helped us there and was very helpful, friendly, and professional, exactly what we were used to and have come to expect from Capital One over the years.

On Wednesday, I again called the call center and spoke to Kenneth, who was appalled at the entire situation and again gave me Randy Hall’s phone number.  Kenneth did confirm that it was in fact not working and gave me Mr. Hall’s assistant’s phone number instead.  Kenneth did confirm that in Texas it is illegal to place a hold on an account’s funds without state or federal directives and only then it is for child support or the IRS.

I have called and left a message with Randy Hall’s assistant, so we will see where this goes.   I am still pursuing the matter actively with consumer groups, regulatory entities, and governmental agencies.

The treatment was ridiculous.  Does Lynn call the cops on every single person that takes a piece of paper from her hand faster than she wanted?  Especially after being asked for it and not relinquishing it?  If so, it is amazing there are customers at the Flower Mound branch of Capital One at all.  If not, why was I singled out?  What are the consequences for Sandy and Lynn for illegally garnishing our accounts, including a company account which is hurting our business since we can’t cut checks until we have new ones printed?  I have employees to pay, and that now gets delayed due to the illegal scare tactics of Capital One Bank.