Does anybody remember Capital One Life of Balance Transfer Offer From 2008?

Cardinal-Red

Hi All,

Took out what I am sure I remember as a new Capital One card, with a life of balance transfer offer of 6.9%.

Moved £6,000 onto the card in December 2008 - this has been paid off in dribs and drabs ever since, but always on time and always more than minimum payments.

Last month on checking my statement I saw the interest rate had gone up to 14+% - rang capital one and had a manager speak to me saying he remembers the deal from 2008 (??) and it was only until the end of January 2011.

This to me doesn't ring true, but predictably I don't have the original documentation.

So my questions are:

1) Can anybody confirm or refute my memory of this card at the time (tried a forum search but no luck yet)

2) Assuming there was a LoB offer, can Capital One be forced to honour it?

Thanks!

cse

I've had a look at Capital One's site from December 2008 on www.archive.org and it seems their headline offer at the time was 8.5% fixed until August 2012, which isn't too much help... it's possible you got some kind of 'test' product with a lower rate for a shorter time period

My first course of action would be to check your statements - register for the online banking and check there if you don't have paper copies to hand. How are the interest rates described on a monthly basis? Did you have any statement messages in Nov-Jan telling you that a promotional rate was coming to an end? Have you missed any payments that might have caused a promotional rate to be cancelled?

YorkshireBoy

I think they've terminated it a whole year early!

After checking the archives at www.stoozing.com it seems they launched a Platinum card late December 2008/early January 2009 which had an "until Jan 2012" offer at 6.9% APR. It also had 5 months 0% on purchases...does that ring any bells?

The above is backed up by a google search looking for "capital one 6.9% APR Jan 2012", which returns these hits...

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1259&bih=546&q=capital+one+6.9%25+APR+Jan+2012&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

Cardinal-Red

Thanks folks.

CSE - interest rates are described each month as balance transfer rate (around 6%) until February 2011 when it jumps to around 14%. No statement messages and no missed/late/underpayments.

YB - that looks promising as the 6.9% APR was definitely the one. Maybe because, in the circumstances, I considered it LoB as it would be paid off by the end. Expanding on the point to CSE above, the "Simple interest rate" on the monthly balance was 6.350% - does this translate into an APR of 6.9%?

Either way it seems they have terminated early - is this something they try on a lot?

Cardinal-Red

Correction! There was this written on my December statement:

"Your standard introductory interest rate for balance transfers will expire on 05 January 2011."

Cardinal-Red

Further update - using YB's logic I searched for "capital one 6.9% APR Jan 2011" and found no relevant results either...

cherie1122

My other half had one of those. It started at 5.9% and then went up to 6.9%

A couple of years ago he received a letter saying it was rising to 14% (ish). There didn't seem anything that we could do about it so it's been paid off and doesn't get used any more.

Moomum

I had this, I still have the card. I called them and they said I have 8.6% on LOB and purchases. I started at 6.9%.

YorkshireBoy

Cardinal-Red wrote: »

the "Simple interest rate" on the monthly balance was 6.350% - does this translate into an APR of 6.9%?

Not exactly. 6.9% APR equates to a simple rate of 6.69% (0.5576% per month) according to this calculator...

http://www.stoozing.com/mon2yr.htm

using YB's logic I searched for "capital one 6.9% APR Jan 2011" and found no relevant results either

I'd already done that (for you) and found no results either...just a whole raft of hits for the January 2012 offer I found in the stoozing site archives.