My husband and I went through the same thing with TXU last year. That's why (unfortunately for us) we switched to Amigo Electric ... Don't make the same mistake we did! We're now actively looking for yet another electric company
I used to work in one of their out sourcing centers here in the states. It literally made me sick (physically ill) and I ended up quitting the job.
Anyways, what they don't tell you about bank transfers and your current balance is that the money you send it gets divided over different "owed" balances on your card and you do not get to pick where the money gets spent.
These percentages are off, but here's an explaination of it:
Say you owe $200 and have a $500 balance transfer. Both those have different interest rates... the $200 is at 10% so you have $20 due in interest on it and the $500 is at 0% so you have 0 due on it. Your payment of $100 is divided up among those four things in some convoluted way (despite asking for clarification several times to tell the customers, I was never given any).. so that $80 of it goes towards paying the balance transfer...and $20 of it towards the other interest amount. Now you're left with $200 that's still gaining interest, $420 on your balance transfer, and $0 in interest to pay.
Ideally, the amount you paid would be used to pay on the amount that was gaining interest. However, Capital One is in the banking business to make as much money as possible. Stay away from the scam that's this card.
First, call the number on your statement that's listed after the charge itself. (Capital One will tell you to do this and call them back if you don't do it before calling them.)
Then speak with whoever answers the phone on the other end and tell them that you did not authorize that payment and you want your money back. Most times, they're going to tell you that it's with XXX company and you agreed on XXX date to sign up for whatever service. Ask again for your money back and again tell them that you do not want the service that you're being billed for.
If that fails (happens a lot), call Capital One and hit either 0 or 1 to speak directly with your "Account Manager". They're going to try to help you and get you to do stuff with your account... Just be persistant and keep asking to speak with the dispute department. I tell you to go to the customer service first, because otherwise you'll get stuck in a vast maze of automated phone menu's. Also, call between the hours of like 10 - 2pm your time so that you make it within the business hours of the department you want to speak with.
Once you finally get through to them, let them know that it's an unauthorized charge and youv'e already contacted the company to tell them to stop putting it on your card. Capital One takes it from there and fights the charge on your behalf. (That's about the only good thing I can say about them)
Good luck.
Speaking as a former employee... What they probably did was take out a "member charge" on your card. I'd suggest calling them and asking for it to be waived, then canceling your card a couple days after that.
You can reapply for a new one without the membership fee on it.
Updates:
A friend of ours has decided to pay the remaining balance on what was due on the 10th for us, and we'll be paying her on the 29th.
We're actively looking for a new electric company, and right now it seems as though Reliant has the least amount of complaints against it. Does anyone have any feedback on them?
