poor (Capital One)

Member Name: jonnywilko

Product:	Capital One
Date:	13/09/08 (287 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: nothing

Disadvantages: everything

Following a divorce several years ago and having got into a few problems with credit as a result I took a conscious decision to get rid of all lines of credit I had available to me. So one night I cut up all 14 of my credit cards (with a total available balance of 105,000 believe it or not) and negotiated a reduced rate with all of the card companys. Since that time I have not even tried to get anymore credit cards as I didnt think I would be able to due to bad credit, but then I saw an ad online from Capital One saying that anyone was guaranteed to get a card if they applied online. The way they did this was by saying that either you would have a very low credit limit or for the people with the really bad credit history you would have to send them a cheque which they would then sit on all the time your card was active and if you failed to make a payment then that cheque was theirs. (A kind of security for your debt)
They agreed mine without the security but gave me only a paltry 200 pound credit limit which at the time I was quite happy with. Anyway soon after I had reason to use the card. Then I went on holiday for 2 weeks. When I came back I found my Capital One bill saying that payment was due in 2 days time, but that every single method of payment they would accept would take 5 days to hit my account!!

I phoned them up to ask why they would not accept a debit card payment over the phone and got thru to a call centre in India where they speak terrible English and was told that this method of payment was not accepted by Capital One. So even though I was trying to pay them they were refusing to take my payment in any way which would mean it hit my account in time.
I argued with the agent who told me that I should have informed them that I was going on holiday??? - Also that a 15 pound charge would be applied to my account for late payment and that as that would take me over my credit limit another 15 pound charge would be applied to my account, and then all of this would have interest charged to it.

Needless to say when I received my next months bill my original debt of 189 pounds had now increased to 225 with interest and the minimum payment was 28 pound. I allowed this to go out of my bank account but then when I phoned them about this again they told me that as this had only taken my account to ust below 200 pound when the interest was added again for the next month this took me over the 200 pound again and thus I got the two 15 pound charges applied again.
This would have continued to happen month in and month out if I had not put a stop to it because they were setting the level of how much the DDM would be for the minimum payment and it basically wasnt enough.

Anyway, needless to say I have now paid off the card in full and cut it up and will not be using it ever again, and I would suggest anyone who is thinking of applying to Capital One for a credit card - please think again

Summary: bad