Worst Credit Card Experience Ever
Written: Jun 27 '02 (Updated Jun 27 '02)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Customer Service: |
 |
|
| Web Site Experience: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Easy to obtain
Cons: Customer service is bad, APR is high
The Bottom Line: Avoid it like the plague!
|
|
|
| coresponger's Full Review: College Student Card (Capital One) |
Despite the glowing epinions posted by other members of this glorious community, I am going to have to disagree about how great Capital One is. My experiences with Capital One lead me to believe that it is perhaps the worst credit company on the market.
First, their is the misconception that if you are a college student it is hard to get a credit card. WRONG! Credit card companies are practically drooling to give college students cards due to the fact that a ton of consumer debt is rung up by students who have little-to-no income yet still want to maintain a decent lifestyle (which we all know cannot be had with the paltry financial aid given by universities). So while the Capital One card is easy to obtain, that in no way makes it unique from other credit card companies (as many other companies offer similar "student" cards).
Also, Capital One's great 6-month, low, introductory interest rate is not extraordinarily superior to other cards (or even better for that matter). Most credit cards offer interest free, or low interest, balance transfers along with low interest rates for the first six months that you hold the card. So again Capital One is not doing anything unique or exquisite.
You might be saying to yourself, "yeah so what, you still haven't mentioned why Capital One is so bad." Well, here we go. First, I had to switch my billing address on the card when I moved at the end of a school year. It took Capital One 2 billing periods to finally get my new address right. So in the meantime I am not getting any statements and I have to keep calling them to get my balance as I did not have internet access yet at my new place. Also, I have to pay by phone since I do not have an invoice to mail in with my payment (their policy not mine), which is another annoyance. However, I was late in realizing that I had not received any statement, so when I called to make the first payment upon moving, Capital One was already charging me late fees. I had to beg and cajole them to remove the fees since it was their fault in the first place since they did not change my address, as I had requested them do so with plenty of notice given to them (one billing cycle). After getting that resolved I thought everything would be okay.
Little did I know that was just the first in a series of problems. Since the second month they had promised me that the address problem would be fixed I was even less wary of when my bill should be showing up. Sure enough it did not show up again, and I called them again. Of course I had missed the payment deadline (which some of you out there might feel is my fault, but when you receive multiple assurances that something will be done one should be able to believe it), so again Capital One was charging me late fees. Mind you both times the late fees were small as I was only a day or two late. However, this time Capital One refused to remove the late charges. I again pointed out that their errors had lead to the payment being tardy, but they were totally unresponsive to my pleas. Finally, I pulled the trump card that almost always works in these types of situations that involve small amounts of money (I am talking less than $20) by stating that I would like to cancel my card. This did little to effectuate an improvement in the situation, so I was forced to pay the late fees and cancelled my card.
However, Capital One somehow thought that I should pay more fees for canceling the card since my last payment was late, and tried to charge me an additional $10. I grew incredibly irate and started yelling at the customer service manager (I had already gone past the subordinate after I was making little headway with her), but apparently "nothing could be done" and "it was policy." Generally people do not like to hear throw away corporate lines like that when you are already screwing them over. So, I asked how much would I have to pay to be completely done with any interaction with them, and promptly paid that amount and cancelled my card.
In my experiences with customer service departments of credit card companies, they are usually very amicable to eliminating small fees and charges for late payment. Usually they are very friendly and accommodating, but Capital One was none of these things. I would steer clear of any involvement with this company if at all possible
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
coresponger
|
|
Location: Los Angeles,CA
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
27 year old attorney.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.