Capital One Glitch Costs California Woman Month's Worth of Bills

After Capital One's electronic pay failed a customer, she found out that the company hadn't given money to her credit card company and will take more than a week to fix it, according to a recent video on TikTok.

It's many consumers' worst nightmare to find out they didn't pay their credit card bill despite sending a payment through, but that's what happened to Becca Murray, a content creator who goes by the username of @TheBeccaMurray on TikTok.

Murray said she received a text from Capital One saying her minimum payment was due in a couple days despite having paid her balance in full that month.

Once Murray went to her checking account, however, she saw the money she paid was in fact taken out of her checking account.

"None of the billers had received their money," Murray said. "So I called my bank, and I was like, 'hey, what's up?'"

It was then that Capital Bank confirmed that it did take the money but "didn't send it where it was supposed to go," Murray said.

Although Capital One said it would open a claim and credit the money back to Murray's account, there was a catch: the payments would only arrive in seven to 10 business days.

"I'm going to need that money back today," Murray said at the time.

She then asked to speak to a supervisor, who told her the same thing.

"She also said that the reason it was taking so long or that the payment was not processed was because the electronic bill pay failed," Murray said.

After Murray's initial confusion, she was told that once Capital One cancels the paper check they sent, they would then refund Murray and she could pay the bill again.

"I said, 'Why would I trust you to pay that bill again through online bill pay?'" Murray said, adding that she never received notification that the payment didn't go through.

"You have two jobs: you keep my money, and then when I want to send my money somewhere, you send it to that place. Those are your two jobs. You're currently failing at 50 percent of your two jobs."

Murray said she's still waiting for a call from the employee's manager.

"Capital One, you have my number," Murray said.

While Murray did not feel comfortable disclosing the exact amount of money taken from her account, she said it essentially covers all of her bills for the month.

"I am in a fortunate position to be able to cover those bills, but many people are not," Murray told Newsweek. "A two-week delay could cause not only late fees and interest charges, but impact credit scores and relationships with billers.

"The lack of communication is unacceptable. I only received this much information because I reached out to Capital One, and I only did so because a separate institution alerted me that they had not received payment."

"We have resolved the issues regarding our customer's funds and are actively working to address any related impacts this delay caused for her," a Capital One spokesperson told Newsweek in an email on Friday. "We understand that this situation was frustrating and appreciate the opportunity to resolve her concerns."

The situation had many users commenting about the lack of reliability that can comes when banks operate in this way.

"Capital One's new slogan: what's in your wallet? no really, what's in your wallet, we need to know, we forgot and we're scared," one user wrote in the comments section.

Another shared that this was a common experience across various banks.

"Chase once did this with my rent payment," they wrote. "When I told them I was going to get evicted if they didn't give it back ASAP the guy told me to ask my parents for money."

According to Alex Beene, financial literacy instructor for the state of Tennessee, this situation is far more common than most would believe.

"Every few months, I have a student who comes in claiming the bill pay through their bank did not work properly," Beene told Newsweek. "It's obviously not malicious on the bank's part. Technical glitches can cause money to be pulled from an account but not immediately directed to where it needs to be, and, as a result, it's stuck in a kind of financial limbo."

Still, Beene said the seven to 10 business days rule is antiquated and "needs to go."

"It's a holdover from the paper check days where processing times and verification took substantially longer," Beene said. "My advice to someone who has to endure this is to first call the debtors you were wanting to pay and inform them. Normally, they'll waive the interest on any late payments."

Update 1/29/24, 1:53 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Capital One.