Capital One Sued for Closing Credit Card Accounts and Keeping Customers' Earned Rewards

Capital One is being sued for allegedly closing customer credit card accounts without notice and pocketing the rewards those customers had already earned.

The proposed class action was filed in Virginia federal court and accuses Capital One of unilaterally canceling accounts based on vague reasons like activity that's "inconsistent with typical customer account usage" — even when the cardholder has done nothing wrong, isn't behind on payments, and hasn't violated any terms. When the account closes, any unredeemed cash back, miles, or points disappear with it.

According to the complaint, Capital One reported that its credit card customers had earned around $9 billion in rewards by the end of 2024. The lawsuit alleges the bank has been profiting off rewards-eligible purchases — collecting merchant processing fees the whole time — while denying the actual rewards to the cardholders who earned them.

The lead plaintiff says he opened a Capital One Spark Cash Plus card in September 2024, hit the spending bonuses, and was emailed in June 2025 confirming he'd earned $8,000 in spend bonuses. A month later, on July 21, 2025, Capital One closed his account with no warning. He says he never received the $8,000, the $150 annual fee bonus, or roughly $2,500 in two-percent cash back rewards he'd accumulated.

The lawsuit argues this isn't a one-off. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has previously flagged that big credit card issuers boost their own profits by denying consumers rewards they've earned, and the suit claims Capital One's account-closure practice does exactly that to thousands of cardholders nationwide.

Who could be eligible

The proposed class would cover anyone whose Capital One credit card account was closed by the bank when the cardholder was not in default, and who didn't get paid out for the rewards they earned. Subclasses include Spark Cash Plus cardholders, New York residents, and anyone whose account was closed for "inconsistent with typical customer account usage."

How to file

There's no settlement yet — this is a brand new lawsuit. Nothing to file at the moment.

Download ClassyAction to track this case and get notified the second a payout drops.