How to reactivate my dormant bank account in the US as non US resident?

Question

I opened a bank account with Capital One in 2009 when I was in the US for work and travel.

Last year I started Android app development and I used this Capital One account for Android app sale payments. It has been one year since I have started to use the bank account for app sales and now there is $6,500.

Two months ago Capital One sent me an email which told me that my bank account is now in a dormant state because I haven't made any withdrawals for one year. They want me to come their office to resolve the problem. Since I live in Turkey flying to US to solve this problem would cost me more than $3K, so I was wondering if there are any other options to resolve my problem.

I can think of two possibilities. The first one is I can legally make one of my friends who will fly to US act as a proxy for me. My second option is to hire a lawyer from the US and let him solve problem for me. I should admit that I have no idea how these things work in US, and I have no idea if my two ideas are even possible.

Can anyone enlighten me and give me some guidance?

Answer 1

If payments from app sales are continuing to be deposited in your account, your account is unlikely to have been put on dormant status just because you made no withdrawals for a year. If no payments have been deposited for over a year and no withdrawals have been made either, then the account might have been put on dormant status. I don't believe that it would be necessary for you to come to the US to visit a Capital One office to resolve the matter, and sending a proxy is more hassle all around since the bank might want the proxy to have a Power of Attorney (POA) from you in order to settle the matter, and if you send a POA with your proxy, the bank's lawyers might find some fault with the wording of the POA, or the notarization, etc.

I suspect the matter is resolvable by a phone call to a customer service representative or by chat on the Capital One web site. Unless you want to continue to hold the funds in the US, you should be able to arrange to close the account and have the balance issued to you as a check, or transferred to another account. But if you want to keep the account open and all Capital One wants is to have withdrawal activity on the account, tell them to re-activate the account right now, and withdraw a small amount right away. In the future, make a a withdrawal at least once each year. Other possibilities are to use the Electronic Funds Transfer capability to pay for some purchases you make in the US by a withdrawal from your account instead of a charge on your (Turkish) credit card, or pay your US credit card bill from the account, etc).