vote here for capital one not to increase rates

tightarsey

Received a 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.

Anyone else received the letter today, or is this an individual thing - 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 be 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.
Pay all my bills by dd, never paid a bank charge. I did see that Capitalone made a huge 1.5Bn loss this week, so looks like I am paying towards that!
Is there anything I can do to appeal under the new voluntary credit card code?


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 increas 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.

_Andy_

the_doc735 wrote: »

"Pointless exercise."

this defeatist attitude is why we are walked all over by the capitalist corporate giants. AND THEY KNOW THIS ALL TOO WELL!!!

This experiment shows (as I thought) that no one gives a !!!! about anything (maybe excepting for themselves of course).

I think the reason people see this thread as 'pointless' is that you're not communicating with the company you have an issue with. It's not as if C-One are going to read this and go 'hey guys, we need to reduce our rates'.
Have you taken the time to write a constructive letter to them?

ILW

the_doc735 wrote: »

"Pointless exercise."

this defeatist attitude is why we are walked all over by the capitalist corporate giants. AND THEY KNOW THIS ALL TOO WELL!!!

You all bicker between yourselves with idiotic schoolboy jibes and thus we are divided and rendered useless and impotent against the capitalistic dictators.

I will not sink to that level at any price and will continue to ignore such stupidity without a single retaliatory rude or obscene remark.

This experiment shows (as I thought) that no one gives a !!!! about anything (maybe excepting for themselves of course).

Roll on the revolution comrades.

Inactive

_Andy_ wrote: »

I think the reason people see this thread as 'pointless' is that you're not communicating with the company you have an issue with. It's not as if C-One are going to read this and go 'hey guys, we need to reduce our rates'.
Have you taken the time to write a constructive letter to them?

Exactly, little point in ranting on here about them, write and complain or do the sensible thing, find a better company.

iscrimger

I got my letter from Capital One a few weeks ago. My interest rate is being increased from 22% to 35%!!!!

A 13% increase!!! They've lost me. I do have a balance on the card but this increase is unbelievable. My account is now cancelled and I'm paying the outstanding balance on my current rate.

35% my a**e!!

tightarsey

Inactive wrote: »

Exactly, little point in ranting on here about them, write and complain or do the sensible thing, find a better company.

I sent a formal complaint via the secure online website, to send a secure message -click on account maintenance - send secure message. Saves you spending your money phoning, writing and makes it clear to them how many people are going to jump ship if they carry on and implement the rate hike.
For me personally, it really isn't worth the risk of paying a interest rate of 22.88% when base rate will be between 0-1% by March (if you have any savings that is).
I just intend to pay for what I need by debit card or pay another credit card (lower rate) off each month.
As a Natwest/RBS customer, they have recently offered 0% for 6 months for existing customers 3% fee, so check them out if you also have one of these cards.

A 7% increase is just taking the p***.