Letter from Capital One...
 

Okay so today I get this letter from C1 about the $755 I owe them. The letter looks just like a new credit card app. its says..... "

"When you accept this offer, the $755 you owe us will be put on the C1 credit card that we'll send you. There's no deposit required to get the card, no annual fee either.

After C1 receives your first payment, you will get a credit limit of $50. Whats more, as you make payments, you can receive increases in you credit limit...up to a maximum limit of $300."

Sounds pretty good if ya ask me? 65 a month for 12 months i can handle that. Is this a scam?

the interest rate? they aren't doing this out of the goodness of their own hearts...

Hrm.. yeah, I'd probably look into this a bit more before I jumped into it. I feel like there has to be SOME kind of catch. Most of the credit card apps I get have the super low interest rate, then it jumps up to double or so after 6 months or a year. Maybe something like that is going on, it's hard to say without all the details.

If you have questions, you could always call them, ask whatever you can think of. I think I just have a natural distrust of credit card companies :)

to add.

if you have other financing options to take care of a relatively small credit card debt...take it over another credit card re-fi. frankly, i'd try to scrimp on the next couple pay checks and just try to get rid of it once and for all.

did you have a card canceled from them in the past? what's your credit like in other respects? do you currently have an open line of credit with C1?

First of all do you owe CapOne any money?

I would immediately challenge this assertion. The burden of proof for establishing that any debt is owed is on CapOne and you have 30 days to demand such proof, before the debt becomes defacto owed. CapOne is notorious for some very underhanded collection tactics and they have an entire division dedicated to collecting on under performing debt, they buy for pennies on the dollar.

RUN AWAY FROM THIS. It will damage you're credit and label you as an easy mark.

Never do business with CapOne if you have the option.

Fight this tooth and nail.

-bear

You got a letter out of the blue saying that you owe then over $700??

I think he was saying he already owes them $700, and they want him to transfer it to another card.

C1 is a (legitamate) scam. If you are 1 day late on a payment, the jack up your interest rate to 28.5 %, and WILL put the bite on you to get it.
avoid them AT ALL COSTS!!!

That's not a scam. It was in the contract you (were supposed to) read over and then signed. Now, whether it's to your liking or not is another thing completely ;)

their advertising deliberatly leads people to believe that their cards do not incur such high interest. think about the "barbarian" series, that states that C1 cards have low fixed rates. The MN attorney general filed complaints for the ads being misleading.

i have a C1 card, but i *never* carry a balance...there's a reason for that.

Not only are they cruel with their interest rates. We had an account with them. We paid off the balance, called to cancel the card and stopped using the card but they kept sending us bills and charging us for a monthly fee. So we went a letter stating that we wanted the account closed and made sure things were paid in full. We still received another bill with further charges. We finally sent them the cut up card which we had saved in another letter reiterating our previous request to close the account. When we bought our house it was still on our credit report that there was a remaining balance. We needed to clear our credit report so we paid it but we paid it through a financial institution who sent one of their own checks. We finally got a notice from them that the account was closed. This was received almost 2 years after the first request to close the account.

I will never use Capital One again and will encourage any of my family and friends not to do so. Their customer service was difficult to navigate, most of the people were not helpful, and the hold time was extremely long most days. Not a very well managed company.

OK, I didnt know any of that, I stand corrected. It sounded to me that he was just complaining because he didn't pay the balance and then got hit with a high interest rate :)

overall, credit companies are getting more and more explotative. they take bad risks on poor creditors, and then whine to Congress to get laws changed so that they can take the shirt of someone's back to get their money. loose credit truely is the meth of the american economy. sure it makes things move quickly, but that doesn't mean it's always so good. and any move to crack down on that will squeeze lower income persons first. it's ugly...

Capitol One will never ever get another penny from me. I consolidated several cards with a company like AmeriDebt (not them) and I got a letter from C1 that the monthly payment amount wasn't enough for them. They had gottend the consolidation request. A month later they charged off my account and turned me over to a collection agency. These people are ruthless. I'll never do business with them again.

Just for a conflicting story, I have had nothing but a great experience with Capital One. I am not discrediting your story, as it does not suprise me. However, I have had great customer service through them. About 7 years ago when I started college, I had their high-rate student card. I never carried a balance and they kept increasing the limit slowly. I called after a few years of having the account, and they helped me close the student one, and open up a regular account. 8.9% interest and a decent credit limit. I had a late payment one time, I called them and they took off the charge. Also, I noticed on my credit report that they never said that payment was late. When I just got married, I called them and they offered 6 months no interest on all purchases. If they were not paid off after 6 months, no back interest was applied. I've been happy with their CSRs, rates, and also I like their simplistic website.

You probably fit their profile for a desirable/potentially lucrative customer. Cap1 markets to people with lesser credit, but you know they want to keep _some_ good credit risks, people who carry a balance but always pay off. So when your record pops up on somebody's screen at C1, it's probably flagged "don't treat _this_ one like shit."

The job of computerized customer databases is that companies can assign different customer service policies to different classes of customers automatically, based on their records. The Big Computer punches some people a first class ticket, but others get steerage.

Rodney-

This is VERY true. I had a decent experience with Cpaital One, but also learned my lesson that NO credit card is a good credit card.

Personally, I suggest not having one at all. Put together a "nest egg" large enough to take care of emergencies (usually $5k is MORE than enough) even though this can be tough if you don't make much money. Then just use a debit/check card. Paying interest is good for them and bad for you... always... without fail!

You flaming radical! People like you will destroy America as we know it today! :D

Seriously, that's the policy I've always followed. My parents were dirt-poor during the Great Depression, and so nest eggs and staying out of debt were very important to them. That's why my mom is still in the black every month at age 82, and still puts away money in savings!

Somewhere between the '30s and '60s that financial wisdom got lost. People were persuaded that times had changed, you should buy whatever you want as soon as you wanted it because debt was easy and fun, and that the good times would last forever. But they aren't...