Capital One

Capital One

Basic information
Founded	July 21, 1994
Type	Public
Industry	Finance
Official website	https://capitalone.com

Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company founded on July 21, 1994, and specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States.

In May 2018, the company acquired Confyrm, a digital identity and fraud alert service.

In November 2018, Capital One acquired Wikibuy, a shopping comparison app and browser extension from an Austin, Texas start-up business;

Consumer impact summary

Capital One has been involved in several controversies, including misleading customers with unnecessary add-ons, a major data breach exposing sensitive information, and deceptive practices related to savings accounts that cost customers billions in lost interest. The company has also faced backlash for sponsoring flawed content and using copyright claims to suppress criticism.

Controversies

• In July 2012, Capital One was fined by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for misleading millions of its customers, for example by requiring customers to pay extra for payment protection or credit monitoring when they took out a card. The company agreed to pay $210 million to settle the legal action and to refund two million customers.
• In September 2018, Capital One sponsored a tutorial on how to build a computer alongside The Verge that had multiple errors titled "How to Build a Custom PC for Editing, Gaming or Coding", and the video was removed due to backlash from the community. In 2019, The Verge filed a DMCA take-down notice to YouTube to remove all reposts of the original video, alleging copyright infringement. YouTube took down two of the videos, uploaded by YouTube channels BitWit and ReviewTechUSA, while applying a copyright "strike" to these two channels.
• In July 2019, Capital One publicly acknowledged a data breach of credit scores, credit limits, balances, payment history, and contact information of around 100 million clients.
• In January 2025, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) accused Capital One of cheating savings account holders out of $2 billion in interest payments by "deceptive, abusive and illegal" practices which obscured the difference between the high-interest "360 Performance Savings" accounts vs. low-interest "360 Savings" accounts. Capital One forbade its employees to volunteer information about or marketing 360 Performance Savings to existing customers. In February of 2025, the CFPB under the Trump administration dismissed this action with prejudice.