Capital One has been sued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for allegedly "cheating" millions of customers out of more than $2 billion of interest payments on savings accounts.
When interest rates rose across the U.S., Capital One allegedly froze interest rates on its flagship "360 Savings" account, which promised one of the nation's "best" and "highest" interest rates, the financial regulator said Tuesday.
Around the same time, Capital One created a new savings account, "360 Performance Savings," that differed from the other account only in that it paid out more interest, including as much as more than 14 times the "360 Savings" account rate at one point in time, the CFPB said.
Capital One allegedly kept "360 Savings" customers in the dark about the better savings account when it waged a marketing campaign for the higher-yielding accounts, saving the bank more than $2 billion in interest rates it could've paid to those customers, the CFPB said.
The CFPB said the lawsuit aims to stop the conduct, which it calls unlawful, and seeks fines and money to pay back victims.
Capital One didn't immediately respond to ConsumerAffair's request for comment.