At the end of this bout, one of these competitors will have paid the price in blood. And lord help them if they try to dispute that payment with either company’s customer service departments.

Capital One continues to have a reputation for making mistakes on customers’ accounts that are both obvious and, at least according to Capital One CSRs, irreparable.

They also haven’t given up on their practice of flooding consumers’ mailboxes with credit card applications. This is especially true for people with less than stellar credit who probably could do without another card — and 5-year-olds.

But what really locked Capital One into its WCIA slot for this tournament is the recent purchase of online bank ING Direct. In addition to ING customers who are terrified of what is going to happen to their favorite bank, several readers expressed concern about Capital One’s rapid growth — and the government’s rather rapid approval of the merger — at a time when the economy is still reeling from the failure of a handful of mega-banks.

And then there’s good ol’ PayPal. If you want to sell things online, it’s all but a given that you’ll need to deal PayPal, especially considering its incestuous relationship with parent company eBay.

Yet for all the people who use PayPal for selling and buying, the company seems to have about three customer service reps, none of whom can help but all of whom apparently have the ability to summarily freeze a transaction — or an entire account. Heck, they can even tell customers to go ahead and destroy a purchase simply because the buyer claims the item isn’t authentic.

Luckily, getting resolution on PayPal complaint only requires numerous calls, e-mails and mass, concerted shaming from the entire Internet.

This is now the part of the story when everyone votes:

(Voting for this poll will close at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, March 16)

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2012 series. The companies competing for this honor were chosen by you, the readers. See the entire WCIA 2012 bracket and schedule of match-ups HERE.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.