Published on Nov 22, 2024
Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex led colleagues in warning the Office of the comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve of Capital One’s history of consumer abuses ahead of its proposed acquisition of Discover Financial Services. The letter cites Capitol Forum coverage from July about employees engaging in a practice of “robo-signing” legal statements due the sheer volume of affidavits they were required to review.
The letter, published on November 20, states:
“On top of this parade of consumer abuses, Capitol Forum reported in July that Capital One employees engaged in a practice known as ‘robo-signing’ legal statements representing consumer debt amounts, spending ‘less than two minutes reviewing each affidavit’ in lawsuits against credit card customers. According to the report, a team of four clerical workers ‘was sometimes asked to review 1,000 affidavits a day.’ Though the facts of each affidavit are legally required to be thoroughly reviewed and confirmed by the signer, former employees admitted that ‘workers could get overwhelmed by the sheer volume and sign some affidavits with wrong debt amounts.’ Critically, in most of these cases, the bank wins by default as many customers don’t hire a lawyer.”
