18 Months Interest Free with Capital One

Pete_Harman

HMMM....!

Got the 18 month 0% balance transfer leaflet from my Sky magazine, filled it out, sent it off - 2 weeks later "You have been provisionally accepted blah blah blah send us your bank statement blah blah blah we will make you a formal offer by return"

And what an offer |(or rather INSULT!)

The offer (remember, I applied for 0% bt for 18 months) was .. wait for it...
0% on PURCHASES for 6 MONTHS (thereafter 24.2% (that's twenty four point two percent!!!)
Oh yes, and I can transfer balances from other cards for the astonishing rate of 24.9%

What's in my wallet? Certainly NOT a Capital One card

kbabar

I think they offer different intrest rate, periods and offers to different people. they offered me
11.9% on purchases ( which i am not going to make any)
0% on balance tranfer for 18 months
0.5% cash back on every purchase ( not bad if you dont have BT on the card
no annual fee blah blah
I think their offers could be based on the credit scoring etc???

Reaper

They have only given me 6 months too. I have never been refused credit in my life, and never missed a payment.

I can't help but wonder if the 18 month deal is a trick to get customers without actually giving it away. I'd be interested to know what proportion of applicants actually get it.

si2004

Applied online on Wednesday was accepted there and then. Received confirmation letter/ t&c's this morning all confirming 18 months 0% for BT's. Have signed and returned the t&c's and now waiting to see if my request for the £7200 BT from Egg is within the credit limit they give me. So far so good!

Pete_Harman

I too have never ever been refused credit before, and as far as I know I have a good credit rating (decent salary, outstanding mortgage of less than twice yearly income, never defaulted any payments on anything, no CCJs, etc etc). I have a £6.5k balance on my Halifax card (0% runs out in Feb), which I am paying off at £400 per month regularly, so 18 months would have comfortably cleared my debt.

I agree that Capital One are using the carrot of 0%bt over 18 months to entice applicants, and will be writing to them if only to complain about their cheap tactics.

Looks like I'll just have to 'tart' my debt around 3 cards over the next 18 months - and Capital One is firmly crossed off my list!

Galstonian

Your credit rating may not be as good as you think and the methods used by different lenders for different products can differ. I agree that Cap1 may be offering something that very few people are going to get but others are getting accepted with decent credit limits. It is always worth asking why and seeking a change in their decision rather than simply going stright to a heated letter of complaint but before that I'd get copies of credit reference reports because the phrase "as far as I know" won't cut too much ice with any lender - get the same information as they are using.

frequent

Galastonion

Is there a preset amount of customers that the card company making the offer has to accept by way of law ?

Or is it really just down to their own preferences ?
And who is responsible for checking ?

Watching sky news the otherday and the chairman of commons select comittee was asking the boss of one card company (i think barc) about summary boxes.

He had received a mailshot and brought it with him, he asked the boss why there was not a summary box as that was agreed at the last meeting (when barc boss mention "to expensive").

Bosses response "I don't know but am happy to look into it for you"

Does the summary box make any difference ?

I'd of thought that making the small print not so small so we can all read it without a magnifying glass would be more important ?

If you had control of the promotional material side of things what would you do to make things easier for people to understand ?

Galstonian

I don't think they have to guarantee anything, after all, they don't know who will apply do they? I'd like to think that the rules and criteria used for acceptance are set before the offer and remain the same throughout but I'd guess that is up to them too. There are new rules coming in to force on "typical APRs" and how typical is defined.

If I had my way? Well I'd introduce the subject of personal finance into the national curiculum for a start. It is all very well trying to say what the companies have to do to protect individuals but it is surely better to give everyone the means to protect themselves?

MarkyMarkD

If a product (the same product) has typical rates shown, that rate or lower must be offered to at least half of those who are accepted. The half is about to be raised to two thirds under the changes Gal refers to.

But with credit cards they can easily get around this. What they do is accept as many as they want to on the product with the typical rate, and downgrade other applicants to different products which therefore have different typical rates which were never disclosed in the original advert.

I can't honestly see how the changes in the regs are going to deal with this one. More affects the companies (like Cap One) with thousands of different cards than the mainstream players I should imagine.

Pricy147

Real sickner - if you've got a C1 card already - you cant apply for this one also wont let you upgrade from another C1 card when I asked on the phone!

Sly as pie!