"What's in your wallet??" from Clarkhoward.com "Capital One uses an analysis program to figure out which customers are near their limit and likely won't be able to stay under it. The company then sends another card to that person in the hopes that you'll charge that card beyond the limit. Capital One will keep sending cards to people who are beyond their limit as a way to generate over limit fees. These can add up to $350 a month." (yet another problem) ". . .What happens is Capital One does not report the credit limit on your card. Why? It lowers your credit score and therefore destroys your credit image with other potential credit card companies. So, you're more likely not to get approved for another card and will continue to use the Capital One card. By not reporting your limit, the credit bureaus guess your limit and that makes you very risky."
Capital One is probably one of the worst cards to have... If you're looking for a good card, I've had extremely fantastic luck with my Driver's Edge Mastercard. I've made mucho money back from it. About $500 in cash every year!
My Chase card gives me pretty decent 3% cash back (in subaru buck) with no annual fee. so far it bought me free prodrive axle back, sti side splitter, lots of oem filters. Aint bad.
FWIW, Capital One isn't the only bank (far from) that only reports high balance rather than actual credit limit. But yeah, they're a bunch of shady predators otherwise... But ultimately, it's the cardholder that gets themselves in trouble and while companies like Cap One do take advantage of it they couldn't if the cardholder was responsible with their credit in the first place.
^ +1 i've been a cap one cardholder for over 10 years now with a rate of less than 5%. i keep a low limit. and they can only take advantage of what you allow them to.
well, that would be fine, if they listed their credit reporting practices in their terms up front. They don't. So you wouldn't know about this practice until you had a balance and maybe applied for another car, or a home loan. By not reporting limits, that can incur a 50point swing in you credit rating. on top of that, because that reflects poorly on your credit, it traps you to keep whatever you had up until that point, even if its not the best deal out there. But thats just the problem, they're taking advantage of you regardless of what your limit with them is. Because they don't tell the credit report companies what your limit is, the credit report companies report this negatively on your credit score, no matter how good a standing your account is in. Because you have an artificially lowered credit score, it will be harder to get a different car even if you wanted to blow of Capital One. I recognise its not a new practice, but they are definetly the biggest bank to be doing it, and among the notoriously least customer service friendly...
I've been getting screwed by Capital for awhile, but we stopped using them a few months ago. They will be going away permanently very soon. I've got a WaMu card now!