Help Capital One Increase APR

Lula-Hula

hi,

just to add my personal experiemce ;

interest hike from 11 to 23 % :eek: :mad: but one phone call later & if I promise to pay the minimum ( I was overpaying) & promise not to use the card again & return it when the account is clear then the 11 % remains.

No adverse effect on credit rating as the account not frozen or closed.

It's just going to take them longer to get their money back as I'm now switching my snowballing. I was clearing this first & going to transfer other CC balance to it when done ... now I'll take my time & they've lost a lot of business from me :rolleyes: serves them right for being greedy .

Sagaris

I just got the letter too - I'm fuming! :mad: 14.9% to 21.87% for purchases (I never use it to withdraw money). Just phoned them and got the usual excuses that although the base rate has gone down, it's actually costing them more to operate my account - oh dear, how sad, what a shame.

Lucky that I got myself a Barclaycard 0% for 12 months earlier theis week to do a balace transfer! I rang Cap One to advise them of this, and they still wouldn't budge - so I'm off.

Wouldn't mind, but I've never gone over my credit limit, never paid late, always paid more than the minimum - still, it's their loss.

I think they will be losing a few customers over the coming weeks!

M4RKM

not cap one, or MBNA, but i've recently had a letter from AMEX, saying my interest rate is increasing to 19.9% APR.. i was straight on the phone, asking for it to be reduced, and they obliged, taking it to 14.9%, which was lower than it currently was..

this is all in Martin's info, call up your credit card company, and ask for it reducing..

i've done this with 3 cards now and being successful on each one, the biggest drop being barclaycard and amex, and virgin,

tightarsey

Received the letter this morning from Capitalone, my card rate is increasing from 14.88% to 22.88% purchases, 29.94% for Cash Advances. 7% increase when base rates have dropped 3.5% over the same period.

I've never missed a payment, pay minimum by direct debit, then generally always pay off my balance, once paid minimum, then paid following month. Spend £300-700 a month.

My credit limit was £4000, but I decided to reduce this amount to £1250 (a week ago) by my own accord (just being prudent) as I didn't like have large limits that I didn't use because of all the current rise in chip/pin fraud & overseas fraud. Looks like by deciding to reduce my own limit, I made it look like my credit profile was worsening.
I did see that Capitalone made a huge 1.5Bn loss this week, so looks like I am paying towards that!



THE LETTER BELOW
'We value you as a customer, which is why we want to tell you about changes to your account as early as possible. That's why we're writing to you know about an increase in your rates after your March 2009 statement.
Due to changes in the credit environment, it's now costing us more to lend. Because of this we have reviews your customers accounts and are increasing the standard rates in your agreement to 22.88% p.a. variable for purchases, 29.94% p.a variable for cash withdrawals and 22.88% p a for balance transfers.

When the change will happen
This change will take effect after your March 2009 statement and you'll see it on your April 2009 statement. We wanted to give you time to budget for these new rates.
We value you as a customer and hope you will choose to stay with us. However, if you prefer not to be moved to these rates you have two options available.

Two options.
1.Repay your outstanding balance at your old rates immediately and close your account by calling.
2.If you can't afford to pay off your balance immediately, you can continue to make your monthly repayment at your old rate until your entire balance has been paid off. To do this just call us by 20th February 2009, destroy your card and make no new transactions. Once you have paid off your entire balance you will need to call us on the above number to close the account.

INT1

tightarsey wrote: »

Received the letter this morning from Capitalone, my card rate is increasing from 14.88% to 22.88% purchases, 29.94% for Cash Advances. 7% increase when base rates have dropped 3.5% over the same period.

I've never missed a payment, pay minimum by direct debit, then generally always pay off my balance, once paid minimum, then paid following month. Spend £300-700 a month.

My credit limit was £4000, but I decided to reduce this amount to £1250 (a week ago) by my own accord (just being prudent) as I didn't like have large limits that I didn't use because of all the current rise in chip/pin fraud & overseas fraud. Looks like by deciding to reduce my own limit, I made it look like my credit profile was worsening.
I did see that Capitalone made a huge 1.5Bn loss this week, so looks like I am paying towards that!



THE LETTER BELOW
'We value you as a customer, which is why we want to tell you about changes to your account as early as possible. That's why we're writing to you know about an increase in your rates after your March 2009 statement.
Due to changes in the credit environment, it's now costing us more to lend. Because of this we have reviews your customers accounts and are increasing the standard rates in your agreement to 22.88% p.a. variable for purchases, 29.94% p.a variable for cash withdrawals and 22.88% p a for balance transfers.

When the change will happen
This change will take effect after your March 2009 statement and you'll see it on your April 2009 statement. We wanted to give you time to budget for these new rates.
We value you as a customer and hope you will choose to stay with us. However, if you prefer not to be moved to these rates you have two options available.

Two options.
1.Repay your outstanding balance at your old rates immediately and close your account by calling.
2.If you can't afford to pay off your balance immediately, you can continue to make your monthly repayment at your old rate until your entire balance has been paid off. To do this just call us by 20th February 2009, destroy your card and make no new transactions. Once you have paid off your entire balance you will need to call us on the above number to close the account.

had the same letter with the same rates.

Now I pay my balance in full every month. I just earned £130 worth of cash back with them. This means I have spent over £13k's worth on this card.
Now are they targeting me as I settle in full every month and not making as much money out of me?
I like the Cap One card a lot for the cash back, the statement viewing on line etc etc I have even gone paperless with them which saves the environment and saves them more money. For info it costs about 14p for a credit card company to to produce us a statement.
Some may think that as i settle in full every month it's why am I worrying. Well I think it is principal that they have done this. the current climate is the bank of England have reduced the base rate so they can lend money, how does this encourage people to lend and help pay off their debts when they higher the interest rates?
A strongly worded letter will be coming their way with possibility to referring to the FOS. I would like a cler explantion of their justification to higher these rates. I think I will go back to using my AMEX but I only owe 0.5% cashback using that card.

INT1

Sent my letter today to them. I will post the response on here once/if I get one. Otherwise I will go the Ombudsman as it's not treating the customer fairly...

mikemoate

Also had the letter and although the rate rise doesn't effect me as I pay off my account each month, as a matter of principle I was inclined to close my account.

Rang them today as before making my final payment and closing my account I wanted to know what the situation was about cashback I have earned so far this year, £15.09.

Should I take it off my final payment to them I ask? Oh no he says, if you close your account you will lose it as they only credit it once per year in December. Ok says I, I won't close my account but will as usual pay my bill in full, not use my card, unsubscribe from paper free statements, and find something to spend my £15 cashback on next Christmas, at which point I will close my account.

INT1

My Cashback was paid in January just gone. thats jsut stupid that they give you the option to close your account on the back of the letter and they would take your cash back away!
makes me more angry

MerchantOfSound

Had same "three options" letter from Capital One.
Purchase rate increase from 23% to 33%
I pay it off every month (except last month which was min. payment) so on the one hand it doesn't matter to me what the rate is. However, I'm somewhat spooked - as are many here - that other cards will follow. Only debt locked into "x % for life" is going to be safe!

The choice:
Pay off the card either now or over time at the old rates and then close the account (option 1 or 2). Or accept the new rates (option 3).

There is no option to pay off the card and still retain it!! I can only retain it if I accept the high rates and don't pay it off! Outrageous!! (Even 23% is too high for me and last months min. payment was a blip so it has to be option 1, unless I'm missing something?) Why would anyone NOT close the account, unless they couldn't? Surely Cap One are in trouble?

MattLFC

9.94%... amazing, mine went up from 11.9% to 14.6% to 19.8% in the space of 12 months, without me every having missed a payment or gone over my limit. Funnily enough, the credit limit increased at the same rate!!

I "wish" I had 9.9% lol. As already mentioned, in the current economic climate, that is a very good deal.