Capital One Scam

[Gruntina]

Re: Capital One Scam

Poundwise, I gotta tell ya I think the whole CC industry is a scam bent on hooking people and keeping them hooked. The only way to win at the game is not to play. Just my .02 cents!

Sigh....... I literly recieve 15 mails a week from CO alone! I do not want to have a card under them and they were even sneaky enough to find my old married name and send me duplicates mail. Just that alone is a turn-off... oh how I wish I could not see one more mail from them!

[tabbycat31]

Re: Capital One Scam

Capitol ONe is the company that hurt me the most when I had my identity stolen (from a former friend). I found out she did a "check by phone" with them using my checking acct (I had owed her $$ and wrote her a check). When I called CO (I Hate to use those initials for such a horrible company because they're also my initials) about it their response was "we don't care whose account we get the $$ from as long as we get the $" and the operator did not care that my money was stolen by them.

[neatdesign]

Re: Capital One Scam

As a former CapOne employee, I'd like to shed some light on some of the things touched on in this thread.

Spontaneously-added $4 monthly membership fee -- This is actually not that common, but it does happen. CapOne tended to add this fee to accounts that were subprime and/or costing CapOne a lot of money to maintain. (A good example is the former Kmart cardline.) Sometimes the fee is added and that's that. Other times the customers are given the chance to opt-out by sending in a coupon by a certain deadline date. If customers chose to opt-out of the fee (or APR increase, that happens, too), then they won't get the fee but they can also no longer charge to their cards. Charging to the cards triggers the fee.

Paying Lowe's cards in stores -- The reason people who have Lowe's Visa cards through CapOne can't make payments on their accounts at Lowe's stores is because the cards are through CapOne, NOT Lowe's. The Lowe's chain has its own store credit card, but it is completely separate from the CapOne Lowe's card. Lowe's cards issued by CapOne are wholly managed by CapOne, so the payments can only be made through CapOne. Lowe's the chain has nothing to do with it. The only thing that they share, really, is the name on the card.

No online payments for Lowe's cards -- This has been a HUGE irritation not only for the CapOne Lowe's card customers but also for the customer service reps. I cannot emphasize enough how much the CSRs at CapOne WANT ALL customers to have the online payment option. Why? Because the CSRs hate getting screamed at by customers when they discover they can't pay online, even though they have other CapOne cards they can pay online just fine. Even worse, CapOne did (does?) a horrible job at alerting their Lowe's customers that they DO NOT have that option. Basically, most customers didn't discover this until they really needed it as an option, and nearly all of them don't want to pay $10 to make a phone payment, which really gets them steamed. CapOne has been saying they were going to set up the online payment option for Lowe's cards as far back as January 2003, when I was hired. Sounds like they still haven't done it. My advice, then and now, is to do online payments through your bank instead. Just make sure you don't wait until the last minute -- do it at least a week in advance, 10 days is better.

Sending payments via express mail -- As someone who used to work in CapOne's Payment Investigations dept, I can't tell you how much frustration this causes customers. This is what most customers don't know and/or understand: The payment address on your statement is for payments ONLY sent via REGULAR MAIL. That is, with a 39¢ stamp on it, preferably in the envelope that came with your statement. Sending a payment to that address via express mail -- FedEx, UPS, DHL or USPS Priority Mail -- will most likely DELAY the posting of your payment, NOT accelerate it. That's because the payment address on your statement is not set up to receive that sort of mail -- so they have to send it to the address it SHOULD have gone to, and most likely that is in another state (Missouri, I think). Once it gets to THAT address (the one supposed to be used for payments sent via express mail), THEN they process it and post it to your account. But obviously that takes time; I've seen it take as long as 3-4 WEEKS. So while you might have proof that someone signed for it at the Regular Mail address, CapOne will say, "But you sent it to the wrong address, so we have to go by the day it got to the right address." In the meantime, you might get a late fee, an overlimit fee, a jacked-up APR, and who knows what else.

So, BEWARE. If you absolutely must send a payment via express mail, call CapOne FIRST and ask for the express mailing address.

Indian reps -- A lot of people probably don't know this, but if you get an Indian CapOne rep on the phone, you CAN request to be transferred to an American rep. You don't have to say why, just ask politely. Whatever you do, PLEASE don't say something like, "I can't understand you people" or "I don't trust talking to a foreigner about my money" -- it's tacky and insulting to the person you're saying it to.

~ Jenney

[tinapbeana]

Re: Capital One Scam

jenney:

thanks for stepping up to the plate and being willing to take some of the heat on this issue by speaking from the other side. i used to train customer service for a major telecom company, and things that make business sense from the company end are sometimes difficult to explain to a customer who, understandably, simply wants the situation taken care of.

bravo

Re: Capital One Scam

Sigh....... I literly recieve 15 mails a week from CO alone! I do not want to have a card under them and they were even sneaky enough to find my old married name and send me duplicates mail. Just that alone is a turn-off... oh how I wish I could not see one more mail from them!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Crapital One no longer sends me pre screened offers .
When they were flooding my mailbox I sent back several of their offers in their postage free envelope along with a note telling them exactly how I felt about them.
Someone read all my rants cause they stopped. LOL!

[Mathew Green]

Re: Capital One Scam

Capital One...were even sneaky enough to find my old married name and send me duplicates mail.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." (source uncertain)

If your "old married name" is no longer your legal name, you can't legally apply for a credit card in that name. So CO must have gotten that name from an out-of-date mailing list. Nothing sneaky about it -- they're just being their usual stupid selves.

BTW: If you're getting 15 letters a week from Capital One, it's because you've messed up somewhere; like not using a consistent name and address for everything, not filling out the "privacy form" (a total oxymoron!) sent to you by financial institutions you do business with, etc. The first step, if you don't want to shut off all CC offers, is to examine every piece of mail you get from them to see if the name and address is exactly the same on all of them. Any that aren't addressed to your prefered name and address, you can contact the credit bureaus and Direct Mail Association and take other steps to have that variation of your name/address put on all available "no spam" lists.

FWIW Capital One is at the top of my Boycott Forever List. If they were the last bank/cc-company on earth I'd never do business with them.

[Mathew Green]

Re: Capital One Scam

Capital One...were even sneaky enough to find my old married name and send me duplicates mail.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." (source uncertain)

If your "old married name" is no longer your legal name, you can't legally apply for a credit card in that name. So CO must have gotten that name from an out-of-date mailing list. Nothing sneaky about it -- they're just being their usual stupid selves.

BTW: If you're getting 15 letters a week from Capital One, you've probably messed up somewhere; like not using a consistent name and address for everything, not filling out the "privacy form" (a total oxymoron!) sent to you by financial institutions you do business with, etc. The first step, if you don't want to shut off all CC offers, is to examine every piece of mail you get from them to see if the name and address is exactly the same on all of them. Any that aren't addressed to your prefered name and address, you can contact the credit bureaus and Direct Mail Association and take other steps to have that variation of your name/address put on all available "no spam" lists.

FWIW Capital One is at the top of my Boycott Forever List. If they were the last bank/cc-company on earth I'd never do business with them.

[dorkiedoode]

Re: Capital One Scam

wow i wish i would've found this forum earlier!! i just signed up for cap1 plat limited cred history card and i think got accepted. they were suppose to tell me in 60 seconds but after i click appy they just said wait 10-15 days for a response... if i did get accepted what should i do?? ahhhh!! ever since i applied i been hearing horror stories about them.

[Elgin526]

Re: Capital One Scam

I have a CO card and have had no issues with it at all. I've kept it even after paying it off because I have a locked in 9.9% APR, and while I have no intention of ever carrying a balance again, well, life happens and if I must carry a balance, I'd at least like a low rate.

FYI: If you are getting flooded with CC offers, you can opt out of future mailings. I don't have the info on hand, but you can do a search on these boards, or post a new thread and ask, someone here will have it. I opted out and all CC offers stoped with in about a month, my total mail volumn dropped by over 60% I'd estimate, and it's given my paper shreader a break! I have a rual route mail box (although I live in a city!) and since it's not locked, anyone can steal my mail and thus steal my identity so I just didn't feel safe with 20+ CC offers in my mail box each week (I don't send out checks through my mail box either, I drop it of in the corner mailbox on the way out of my neighborhood). If you want to apply for a credit card, you can just go to the company's website and apply there directly, you don't need an offer in the mail!

[poundwise]

Re: Capital One Scam


There are horror stories about EVERY credit issuer.

For the record: I too have had a Capital One account for years with no problems.

However, I don't think any account is safe from potentially becoming a horror story. We have to proactively manage our credit accounts. Start by being sure to read everything the creditor sends you and don't believe anything the 'tell' you unless you also have it in writing.

[tinapbeana]

Re: Capital One Scam

There are horror stories about EVERY credit issuer.

poundwise, the ever vigilent voice of reason

[Gruntina]

Re: Capital One Scam

[QUOTE=Mathew Green]"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." (source uncertain)


If your "old married name" is no longer your legal name, you can't legally apply for a credit card in that name. So CO must have gotten that name from an out-of-date mailing list. Nothing sneaky about it -- they're just being their usual stupid selves.

Very true and you are right. I think it just aggravated me more than normal because CO is the only mail that shows my married name. I have not seen any letters or mails with my old married name in years! Seems like they are collecting old data then and if so. many wasted ads will go out.

[neatdesign]

Re: Capital One Scam

If your "old married name" is no longer your legal name, you can't legally apply for a credit card in that name. So CO must have gotten that name from an out-of-date mailing list. Nothing sneaky about it -- they're just being their usual stupid selves.

Capital One, like most creditors, gets people's information for solicitation purposes from the credit bureaus. If your maiden name is still on one of your credit reports, then that's why you'd get offers in that name. Errors like that occur all the time.

FWIW, I've received credit card offers in my maiden name before, and I applied for at least one of them and got approved, no problem.

The fact that you no longer use your maiden name doesn't make that name "illegal" -- it's an alias. If your maiden name was illegal then your birth certificate would become an invalid document. My passport is still in my maiden name, but as long as I book my tickets using my maiden name, I'm good to go.

At the end of the day, if you don't want to get millions of credit card offers in the mail every day, you need to opt-out -- that means, you are telling the credit bureaus not to sell your information to creditors anymore. It's very easy, just go to OptOutPrescreen.com and submit a request online. It will opt you out of ALL prescreened offers (even ones you might like to get) for up to 5 years. You can also opt out permanently, but that must be done by mail.

I know this probably makes me sound like a credit card company apologist, but honestly, creditors wouldn't be able to send so many offers out if the credit bureaus didn't sell them people's information so willy-nilly. I really don't get why people put all the blame on the credit card companies.

~ Jenney

[Gruntina]

Re: Capital One Scam

Actually it was an old married name in my case. I changed it back to my maiden name years ago. Whether or not it's illegal or not... I am sure Identity theft could happen. My first and last name are very popular but not sure how the credit card companies assign the social security number to the advertisements unless its the same company as other credit card one may have.

[neatdesign]

Re: Capital One Scam

Actually it was an old married name in my case.

It was in mine, too. I usually just refer to my previously married name as my "maiden" name because it's just easier and I'm lazy.

My first and last name are very popular but not sure how the credit card companies assign the social security number to the advertisements unless its the same company as other credit card one may have.

If one or more of the credit bureaus isn't updated with your current name, but still lists your old married name (or any previous legal name), then THAT is the name that gets sold to creditors, who then use your information to send you prescreened offers. CapOne, for instance, primarily gets their information from Equifax, whereas other creditors buy information from Transunion and/or Experian. Your information could be correct on Equifax but not on the other two.

~ Jenney