Capital One - Get it out of your wallet

Posted October 19, 2007

Capital One is not to be trusted. I've been getting calls from them demanding money. I closed the account back in February. At least, I thought I did. I called them and told them to close the account. I then transfered the remaining balance to my WAMU card, with a ridiculous rate, just so I could be done with Capital One. But no, they didn't close the account. Just one more reason to never go to them again.

In 2005, I had two Capital One cards. Neither had a very high balance or high limit, and they both had a better rate than my WAMU (Providian at the time) card. Not hard to do, that WAMU rate is obscene.

Both cards had payments due at the same time. I sent both payments out at the same time. What didn't make sense is that one was always late. How? They were sent the same day, sent separately. Well, every month for six months, I would get a late fee on my statement. Every month for six months, starting a month later, the late fee was removed as an accounting error. In May of 2005, I was looking to buy a home. I found one I liked, and could afford, and started the loan process. In that time, Capital One continued their misrepresentation and actually *reported* a late payment to the credit agencies. Now, if I'd consistently made late payments, that wouldn't have been an issue. It would have been annoying, but my own fault. But I didn't. My payments were on time. Something Capital One even acknowledged, by virtue of the fact that they consistently removed the late payment fee without any intervention from me.
Having late payments allowed them to increase the rate on that card, both because the payment was late, and because, by reporting, my credit score dropped. Significantly. I'd just pulled a report for myself in April of 2005, so I could see where my scores were. I pulled what's referred to as a tri-merge, a report showing my credit as reported by all three major bureaus,. Experian, Equifax and Trans Union.

Incidentally, you should check your credit at least once a year. You get one free report a year from all three agencies, perhaps more depending on state laws. Colorado, for instance, allows a free report any time a new derogatory item is added.

But I digress. Capital One reported late payments to the credit agencies. Payments that weren't actually late. Because of this reporting, my scores dropped about 50 points. That's significant. Very significant. I worked for 6 years in mortgage, I saw what sort of a difference even 10 points could make, as far as loan amounts and rates a borrower would be eligible for. I didn't know about this until after I'd already had a loan in place.

Basically, by lying about my late payments, they ruined my credit score. They ruined my chances at getting a better rate on my mortgage. I've since been able to cancel my card again. This time, I got a letter confirming that not only was my account closed, but the balance wiped out. Damn straight.

Like I said, if my payments had actually been late, that would have been a different matter. But they weren't. Capital One is a shady, dishonest company, and not one I will ever do business with again.