Riverside County DA Announces $2 Million Judgment Against Capital One

CALIFORNIA — Capital One, N.A., was ordered by a judge to pay $2 million in penalties and costs related to unlawful harassing and annoying phone calls made to California residents, including people in Riverside County, according to an announcement Thursday from Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin.

The case, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, involved district attorney's offices in Riverside, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Clara County counties, according to Hestrin.

Of the $2 million, Capital One will pay $1.45 million in civil penalties, $362,500 to each of the four district attorney’s offices, $300,000 in investigative costs, and $250,000 in restitution, Hestrin's office reported.

Beginning in March 2015, Capital One made phone calls with "unreasonably excessive frequency" and "persisted in calling wrong numbers" in an effort to collect debts — the practices violate California’s Rosenthal Act and the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act, Hestrin's office said.

This judgment settles all the outstanding claims regarding Capital One’s improper phone calls to California residents, Hestrin's office reported.

In addition to paying penalties, Capital One must limit its future debt collection phone calls, according to the judgment.

The company, which did not admit wrongdoing, must implement, and maintain policies and procedures to prevent harassing debt collection calls for four years after the judgment date, Hestrin's office reported. Among them: to not make more than seven calls to an account in a consecutive seven-day period, stop all calls to accounts that do not have a valid telephone number, and no longer call those people who request verbally or in writing that they not be contacted, the D.A.'s office said.

Capital One was contacted for this story.