Capital One. To ditch or not to ditch.

Xpheroid

I have had a Capital one card with a £200 deposit for some time now. Recently I tried for an ordinary HSBC card and was accepted. Now I'm not sure whether to cancel Capital One and get back my £200 or stick with them and use it to continue to build rating.
Perhaps if I rang them and threatened to cancel they might give me back my £200 or is this highly unlikely?
Also could anyone tell me whether cancelling a card affects your credit rating?
Thanks for any help.

ontheup_3

i had the same card, and then got a barclaycard , i rang to try to cancel/get a better deal and was told that the section i needed to speak to was unavailable till sept 4th , so im still waiting ,but i have read on the board somewhere that someone was offered their £200 back and was given a better rate was a good few months ago though

Ring and try see what you get i will be on the phone first thing on the 4th and i will be trying to get the same , in nearly 2 years of having the card my limit has been raised once , from £200 (which is mine anyway) to £400 , so its no good to me now as b/card have gave me over 3 times as much with a better rate!!

Please keep us informed

Hope this helps:)

Xpheroid

Thanks for replying ontheup. I am still not sure whether to cancel yet as I want to know whether it badly affects your credit rating as someone else posted. Also I have read that Capital One reports to two credit reference agencies so its useful in that way for building rating.
Anyway I will have to wait till the middle of next month before I do anything as thats when I pay it off, also I will have to change some automatic bills that come off it first.
I will post on here if anything interesting happens.
Thanks again. :beer:

ontheup_3

I dont believe that it does affect your rating , as you are to be seen as being responsible with your credit , on the other hand i also think it is a good tool for improving your rating , even if you only spend £20 a month on it and then pay it off at the end of every month , wether a credit card has a £10,000 limit or a £200 limit its still shows as a credit card on your report (doesnt show you paid for the credit in advance) and every month that passes it will give you a green [0] on your credit report which improves your credit .

I would try to do what im doing ring up and say unless you give me summat better then i will cancel and see what they say , the worst they can do is say no we cant lower the APR or raise the LIMIT , so then you just keep the card spend a few quid on it each month and pay it all off , if they say yes then you have 2 good cards and still spend a few quid each moth to keep it ticking over , in giving you a better credit report.

there are many factors to a good credit report the important ones must be showing that you are paying them off every month without fail .


Hope this gives you a bit of a idea what to do :rolleyes:

Xpheroid

Thanks I think I will try that next month. I have transferred all but one of my automatic payments to the new card. Paypal is being a nuisance though. It will not let me delete it as a backup funding source as it says there are transactions still pending. I don't see why because its only a backup and the payments come out of my bank account. Oh well, they say it will take about a week to clear so I will just have to wait.