My apartment complex was purchased by a new leasing company; takeover happened about a month ago. At the time September rent was coming due they still didn't have their payment portal set up yet, so I had to send them a check.

I've been using CapitalOne billpay for sending checks for years so this shouldn't be a big deal. I set up the new owners as a recipient, and had a check sent for ~$2400 to cover my rent and utility expenses. Billpay immediately removed the funds from my account and mailed the check to the leasing office.

Yesterday I heard from the leasing office that the check was rejected when they deposited it with the reason being marked as "Refer to Maker"...which is the most unhelpful message ever, but I get exists to provide some privacy in cases of fraud and the like. I called Capital One and they say the check cashed and cleared, so now they are making a claims investigation.

The office manager literally showed me the rejected check with the Refer to Maker stamp and markings on it. Now they're charging me an Insufficient Funds fee and a late rent fee, and the money still isn't my account...and I'm waiting up to 45 days to find out if Capital One will recognize that there was an error of some kind and actually give me my money back, as well as hopefully cover at least some of the fees I've incurred, and I've had to charge a full month's rent to a credit card in the meantime because like most people I'm living paycheck to paycheck.

Why the heck would Capital One reject a check that was sent directly from Capital One BillPay? This is insane. I literally never held the check in my hand, the funds were automatically withdrawn, they cut the check, now they're refusing to let it be deposited.

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UPDATE:

After calling 5 different numbers for Capital One and speaking to people in different departments, I finally found a rep who explained to me what I needed to say to my leasing office, in order to tell them what to say to US Bank, in order to figure out what happened.

After another week, the office manager at my apartment bldg finally got back to me after working with their accountant. When the rent checks came into the bldg, they didn't have a check scanner in-office, so they took them by hand to US Bank and somehow my check got scanned twice. When it got scanned the second time it was rejected, but the first time deposit went through. The office got the rejected check back, saw it as a rejection and then billed me for the missing rent and fees. Now I'm just waiting on the office to credit me for the extra month of rent and all associated fees.

Nice to see this isn't a Capital One problem, but I do think it's unfortunate that they can't talk to US Bank directly to figure out what happened and instead just leave me hanging for weeks not sure where to go or who to talk to. It's ridiculous that my only resort was going to have to be to get a lawyer involved if everyone continued to refuse to speak to me about my stolen money, and I wouldn't even know which party (my bank, their bank, or the leasing company) I would need to be addressing.