Capital One agreed to pay $2.4 million to settle a class action alleging it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by reporting living credit card holders as deceased and then failing to fix the errors when consumers disputed them. The case, Kromrey v. Capital One, N.A., was filed in August 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and received final approval on April 24, 2026, when the court dismissed the action with prejudice. About 1,142 cardholders are covered.
What Capital One Was Accused of Doing
The error had a specific source. According to the settlement agreement, debt collectors working on Capital One’s behalf were flagging individual cardholders as deceased based on information tied to a business account rather than the person. When a business associated with a consumer showed up as deceased in records such as the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, the collector reported that status to Capital One, and Capital One passed it to the credit reporting agencies as though the cardholder had died.
The second half of the complaint was about what happened next. When the bureaus forwarded consumer disputes saying the person was alive, the lawsuit alleged Capital One failed to conduct the reasonable investigation the FCRA requires and did not correct the reporting. A deceased flag on a credit file can trigger account closures and denials of credit or mortgage applications, which is why the statute puts the burden on the furnisher to fix confirmed errors, generally within 30 days.
Who Is Covered by the Settlement
You are a class member if all four of the following apply:
- You held a Capital One credit card account.
- Capital One reported you as deceased to one or more credit reporting agencies based on credit card account information.
- A credit reporting agency submitted at least one dispute about the deceased status to Capital One between August 13, 2019, and December 3, 2025.
- Capital One failed to correct the reporting in response to one or more of those disputes.
People who were actually deceased when the reporting occurred are excluded, and so are holders of Discover-branded accounts. Capital One’s acquisition of Discover did not close until May 18, 2025, and Discover-branded portfolios were on separate systems before the merger.
What Class Members Receive
The $2.4 million fund is non-reversionary, so anything not spent on notice, administration, attorney’s fees, or service awards stays with the class rather than going back to Capital One. The remainder is split pro rata among participating class members as compensation for statutory and punitive damages, meaning the individual amount depends on how many people ultimately participate.
No claim form is required. Eligible people were identified from Capital One’s own records, and the settlement administrator mailed each one a notice with a unique ID and PIN. Payments go out as paper checks to the last known address on file, and each check must be cashed within 90 days of issue.
Capital One also agreed to change how it handles this specific error for at least two years. Its debt collectors are now prohibited from reporting a consumer as deceased based solely on a deceased status linked to a business account, and they must disclose to Capital One the specific source they relied on to conclude that a consumer had died.
Key Dates and Payment Timing
Craig Kromrey filed the original complaint on August 13, 2024, in the Richmond Division of the Eastern District of Virginia, with a first amended complaint on October 21, 2024. U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne handled the case; Senior U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney mediated the settlement.
The settlement agreement was filed on August 1, 2025. Preliminary approval came on December 3, 2025. The deadline to opt out or object was February 18, 2026, the fairness hearing was March 20, 2026, and final approval was entered April 24, 2026. Payments are expected roughly 65 days after final approval.
If your address has changed, you can update it at CreditReportingSettlement.com using the ID and PIN from your notice, or contact the settlement administrator, American Legal Claim Services, at info@creditreportingsettlement.com or 1-800-566-8119.
Who Represented the Class
Class counsel were Kelly Guzzo, PLC (Kristi Kelly, Andrew Guzzo, Casey Nash, Pat McNichol, and Matt Rosendahl) and Berger Montague PC (E. Michelle Drake and Joseph Hashmall). Capital One was represented by McGuireWoods and Troutman Pepper.