Capital One's underhand tactics

bargains83

In 2001 I was coming to the end of the first year of my college course and had just turned 18 so decided to apply for my first credit card. I chose Capital One since that was the easier to get at the time and they supplied me with a Classic Mastercard with a Stonking 29.9% APR and a measily £200 credit limit. :mad:

Anyway, I managed the account well in the beginning, always paying the statement balance in full and therefore avoiding the interest. Sometime In the summer of 2002 they wrote to me and said I could have an upgrade to the 'Premier' card and get an increase of my credit limit to £800 all for the not so reasonable fee of £29.00

What I didn't realise was that for my £29 all I got was a slightly different looking card with the word 'Premier' in the top left corner. The Interest rate remained at 29.9% and the £800 limit.

Most CC companies give you a credit limit increase at No Charge so basically looking back I can see i was conned.

Also looking at the Capital One website, they no longer offer the Premier card but Im pretty sure the correct APR on that was about 14.9% at the time. It looks like this has been replaced with the Platinum card at 15.9%

Anyway I have now paid the card off in full, as over the last couple of years I have become much better at managing my finances. Even despite my stupidity though I have NEVER missed a single payment on a credit account either, and have good credit history!.

However I have been paying around £16 a month interest on an £800 balance for at least 4 years (yes its always been pretty much maxed out, stupid I know) totalling around £768!!!!

Absolutely disgusting when I've also had a Lloyds TSB Platinum card in my wallet for the last 2 years with a much more competitive APR!


Do you think I would have any claims against capital one on the grounds of mis-selling i.e the £29 charge for a card which gave me no benefits, and the fact that I was led to believe I was getting a Premier card with a reduced interest rate but still ended up paying the maximum of 29.9%?.

ts_aly2000

Erm. No.

You could run it by them though but you know what they'll say. T&C.

vwman_3

bargains83 wrote:

In 2001 I was coming to the end of the first year of my college course and had just turned 18 so decided to apply for my first credit card. I chose Capital One since that was the easier to get at the time and they supplied me with a Classic Mastercard with a Stonking 29.9% APR and a measily £200 credit limit. :mad:

Anyway, I managed the account well in the beginning, always paying the statement balance in full and therefore avoiding the interest. Sometime In the summer of 2002 they wrote to me and said I could have an upgrade to the 'Premier' card and get an increase of my credit limit to £800 all for the not so reasonable fee of £29.00

What I didn't realise was that for my £29 all I got was a slightly different looking card with the word 'Premier' in the top left corner. The Interest rate remained at 29.9% and the £800 limit.

Most CC companies give you a credit limit increase at No Charge so basically looking back I can see i was conned.

Also looking at the Capital One website, they no longer offer the Premier card but Im pretty sure the correct APR on that was about 14.9% at the time. It looks like this has been replaced with the Platinum card at 15.9%

Anyway I have now paid the card off in full, as over the last couple of years I have become much better at managing my finances. Even despite my stupidity though I have NEVER missed a single payment on a credit account either, and have good credit history!.

However I have been paying around £16 a month interest on an £800 balance for at least 4 years (yes its always been pretty much maxed out, stupid I know) totalling around £768!!!!

Absolutely disgusting when I've also had a Lloyds TSB Platinum card in my wallet for the last 2 years with a much more competitive APR!


Do you think I would have any claims against capital one on the grounds of mis-selling i.e the £29 charge for a card which gave me no benefits, and the fact that I was led to believe I was getting a Premier card with a reduced interest rate but still ended up paying the maximum of 29.9%?.

Crapital One did the same with me, 3 or so years ago, I received a letter asking if I wanted a 'Premier Card' with lower APR and a higher credit limit and as you say all for £29.00p.

I also took them up on the offer and the APR dropped to 16.9% and an extra £400 credit limit, they then took the £29.00p.

6 months later got a letter saying that they had reviewed all the accounts and were putting the interest back up to 29.9%.

I have never missed a payment or been late, I tried talking to them but do they listen do they bo**ocks.

bargains83

ts_aly2000 wrote:

Erm. No.

You could run it by them though but you know what they'll say. T&C.

Surely though they won't want to lose my as a customer, which they will be doing if they don't offer something generous to make up for such dreadful behaviour. The fact that I now owe them nothing ought to carry some weight. I certainly won't spend on a card with that APR ever again!.

ts_aly2000

The fact that you owe them nothing makes you a bad customer. In their eyes you were the perfect customer before when you had a balance of £800odd and were religiously paying £16 a month in interest.

They couldn't care less.

CTT_2

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