Holiday Shopping More Costly for Some Capital One Cardholders, Says Hagens Berman

SEATTLE, Jan. 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- For Christmas shoppers across the country, the day of reckoning is at hand: those dreaded January credit-card bills are winding their way to the mailboxes of disciplined and over-exuberant shoppers alike. For some, though, banking on the promise of no-interest credit card offers, those credit-card bills may contain worse news than they imagine. 

According to a consumer-rights law firm, at least one major credit-card company -- Capital One (NYSE: COF) – has gamed the system to make those seemingly attractive no-interest credit cards as expensive as their high-interest competition.

In a consumer-rights class-action lawsuit filed by Hagens Berman, consumers claim Capital One deceived cardholders who participated in a transfer balance program. Advertisements for the program promised that any balance transferred from another creditor would incur no interest for the first year. At the same time, consumers believed that any charges to their credit card would not incur interest if the balance was paid off on time at the end of each billing period.

However, cardholders claim that Capital One misrepresented the program. When they paid their credit card bill, Capital One allegedly diverted payments to pay off the transfer balance, rather than the normal credit card balance. The next month, according to the lawsuit, cardholders received a new bill that reflected no payment to the credit card balance and interest charges exceeding 13 percent on the balance.

Holiday spending this year is predicted to reach almost $470 billion. All Capital One cardholders who participated in the company's transfer balance program are part of a proposed class identified by the lawsuit filed by consumer protection law firm Hagens Berman at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

The firm wishes to speak with consumers who were forced to pay high interest rates on credit lines, even if payments were made on time.

You can contact the Hagens Berman legal team via email at [e-mail]. Consumers can also contact the firm by calling [phone]. Additional information is available at www.hbsslaw.com/capitalonetb.

About Hagens Berman

Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is one of the top class-action law firms in the nation, with offices in Boston, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Founded in 1993, we represent plaintiffs in class actions and multi-state, large-scale litigation that seek to protect the rights of investors, consumers, workers and whistleblowers. More information about the firm is available at www.hbsslaw.com.

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SOURCE Hagens Berman, LLP

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