The Obama administration’s consumer watchdog agency flexed its enforcement muscles for the first time Wednesday and ordered Capital One Bank to repay millions of credit card customers allegedly tricked into buying costly add-on services.
Capital One will pay $210 million in refunds and regulatory fines. Most of the money will go directly to customers. The bank’s phone-sales operators told customers that services like payment protection and credit monitoring were free or mandatory or offered more benefits than they did, federal officials said. The hard selling targeted people with poor credit, they said. Capital One will pay up to $150 million to 2.5 million customers.
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