I get the feeling the Credit Reporting Agencies have gotten a clue about Capital One and other companies that operate like this (since they're dealing with millions of ex-customers, I suppose it can happen).

I opened a Capital One account in 1999. In 2000 my wife and I had a major financial crisis that involved one of our children. We found ourselves having to come up with thousands of dollars on a constant basis. Once we had to just pay $4000 within the week, didn't matter how we got it as long as it got done, because it was our child. That kind of crisis. Luckily we're both Systems Developers and made good money, but we had to prioritize and things that didn't keep the lights on and put food on the table went on the back burner.

I didn't make any payment on my Capital One account for ten months. By that time we resolved the issue and I paid off the Capital One account (which had been closed) in full. When I checked my credit reports to make sure that they reflected the fact I noticed that Equifax (the other two had apparently not fallen for it) indicated late payments as follows: 30 days once, 60 days once, 90 days four times. The 90 day late payments were listed as separate incidents that occurred from one month to the next, in other words my report said that I was 90 days late in April, then I was 90 days late again in May, and so on. They can't do that because I would have to catch up on the bill and then become 90 days late again. I requested an investigation and it was verified and remained unchanged.

Then I called Capital One, and all the person would do is speculate that maybe if I had made some sort of agreement to pay them off and didn't come through that I could get another 90 day late payment on my report. I asked for a ledger showing my balance and payments that would prove that and he wouldn't agree to send me one. Finally I said "So your not going to send me a statment that shows all of my payments and balances?" and he said no, and they weren't going to change my reporting. I said thank you and hung up.

I then called Equifax, and pointed out that if you added up all of the months I was 90 days late, that it would be more than the number of months the account was open. Then I told her how I was calling her as a last resort, thinking that perhaps this is some sort of computer error on their part, before I contacted the FTC and took Capital One to court because they refused to send me a statement showing a complete history of my payments and balances that proved I was 90 days late on four separate occassions, also pointing out that I had been late 30 days and 60 days only once.

Apparently they don't like to hear that people are being denied their rights (on top of that, what credit card company representative is going to do the work of sending you a complete history of payments and balances just because you asked hehe) because the representative told me that Capital One is absolutely wrong because they are required to send a statment any time I request one, that it is my right. I told her that I know that, and that was why I was going to complain to the FTC, and take them to court if they can't prove that I was 90 days late on four separate occasions (yes there was a difference to my credit score P).

She offered to conduct another reinvestigation and I said yes. The next day (not 30 days later, they didn't even bother calling Capital One apparently) I checked my Equifax report and the entire payment history had been removed. A week later I got a letter from Equifax saying that the results of their investigation was that the entire payment history had been removed.

Not the same as getting the account removed totally, but better than nothing. Since then my score has gone up over 100 points and I have nearly a "Normal" credit score, with just this and one other little ding, and seven satisfactory accounts. At least I can get credit when I need it hehe, we were able to buy a house and two cars less than a year after this fiasco, we have a couple of cards for emergencies, what more do we need?

***** Capital One, their word is worth nothing!

Ok, here's the deal...

I once lost my job. My fault.

I had cash in my checking account, and expected a certain amount of cash from the period I had already worked in the pay period. Plus I expected to get a new job in less than a month.

So I continued to pay my rent, buy food, etc.

My last paycheck they took over 2/3's for various stuff (not that I had stolen, just "uniform fees" and junk I had agreed too and forgotten) so I wound up kiting, and finally bouncing a couple of checks.

This was in 1996. In 2000 I finally had gotten to the point where I needed a checking account again. I went to open one. Lo and behold I couldn't, because I was on "checkguard" as having an account where I owed money. So I got ahold of the old bank, thinking I owed them about 300 bucks in bounced checks.

Nope, I owed them about 60 bucks. So I sent them a money order. They sent me a letter saying "thank you for paying us in full, you don't owe us any more money."

So I went to open that checking account again. Nope, I was still on "checkguard." I said, but I have a letter from them showing payment so you can take me off.

"No, I am sorry, we NEVER take anyone off the list. You will come off the list 5 years after you originally went on it. Have a great day. -click-"

Notice.... I had ALREADY gone 4 years (and a few months without paying. Had I gone just 8 months or more and tried I wouldn't have been on the list, and my bank wouldn't have gotten paid.

Moral of the story: Don't pay them, wait it out. (no seriously pay them, they can REISSUE the complaint forever)

Here's another good one:

Went into a bank trying to open an account. "We need two forms of ID."
Me- "Ok, here's my drivers and social"
Bank- "We can't take socials as ID, you need a credit card or second photo ID."
Me- "What the heck are you talking about, social is a form of ID accepted on the I-9 employment verification for the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT! How in the heck am I supposed to show you a credit card if you won't let me open a bank account?"

(At that point my roommate grabed my arm and led me out before I got thrown out for causing a scene.)

Once I finally found a bank WILLING to let me pay them money I used their debit card to purchase a subscription to an online site.

Then I moved from the state and closed that online subscription.

After not using that account for 6 months while holding a balance of about 10 bucks I started getting messages in the mail about an overdraft caused by my being re-billed automaticly for the subscription which was 20 bucks. The overdraft fees were -20-bucks-a-DAY-

So I called the subscription company and told them they had improperly charged me, and that they needed to make sure it was canceled and that the charge and the overdraft fees needed to be refunded.

Subscription company- "sorry, we made a mistake, your subscription was canceled and we forgot to turn billing off, it's off now, canceled, and we will refund the charge, but the overdraft fees are your problem -click-"

So I called the bank and said "I obviously didn't make this charge, there had been no activity for nearly 7 months. I have contacted the company responsible and they will refund the charge. I expect you to void the overdraft fees as this was NOT MY ERROR."
Bank- "Yes, we can see that you probably didn't make this charge. But we don't see the refund of the original charge yet. I can void all the fees, once the original charge is refunded, but right now your account is 110 dollars overdrawn and if you don't transfer money in today I will have to continue to charge you the overdraft fees, even if the original charge is eventually refunded."
Me- "So, what you are saying is, you know I didn't and don't owe you anything, but that if I want to stop owing you and have the charges stop accumulating I have to pay them now and have you void the charges later?"
Bank- "Yes."
Me- "So you know I don't owe you anything, it's all a mistake, but you want me to wire (because I am 2000 miles away and can't just swing by with 150 bucks in cash) you 150 bucks so you can stop the charges and refund them later?"
Bank- "Yes."
Me- "What was the number I needed to wire the money to again?"

Upshot- Deal in cash. Always, except when renting a car. (See post below)

I'm not sure about the legality of calling someone simply because of similar names, but I am POSITIVE that any type of harassment or abusive/offensive language from a third party collector (not sure about rules for first party, except that they're more lenient) is in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA, full text availble at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpajump.htm).

Violations of this act entitle the wronged consumer to (I believe) $1000 per offense. If I remember correctly, it's $500 from the actual collector (person making the call) and $500 from the company, unless that's just the practice of a particular third party collector a friend of mine worked for.

For those that don't know: first party collectors are the company/person you actually owe money to, in this case Capital One. If their collection department calls, it is not under the FDCPA (or at least not all of the same guidelines). Third party collectors are people/companies hired by the original party to collect their debt for them.

It's worth looking into, because if "Rod" was actually "rude as hell," you could get some semblance of justice from the situation, though maybe not enough to make it all better. Also, boning up on the FDCPA is valuable for anyone who might ever have a collector call them. Third party collectors often don't know it as well as they should, and knowing their guidelines gives you much more ground to stand on.

Good luck!

Out of all these post almost all of it was bad. If people hate them why do they get them? Does anyone have a good story? Like my car broke down and I didn't get payed till next week so i put it on my credit card? Or I was mugged and instead of haveing cash stolen they took my cards so i called the company and cancelled the cards so the thieves got nothing. What are the advantages to having a credit card?

I agree that credit cards are the root of all evil, but unfortunately, there is no way to avoid not having one if you travel. Rental car companies will not rent to you if you do not have a credit card (as they want to know that they have a direct line for your money if you damage their cars) and some airlines will only accept credit card transactions.

As far as telemarketing, if you are called by any telemarketer, ask to be placed on their do not call list and tell them,"I want to be placed on the DO NOT CALL LIST and this is covered by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act"
By law, telemarketing agencies have to place you on their DO NOT CALL list.

That's my 2 cents!

Can I just say? I Love this website. The content is great, I use it at least 3 times a day (Boring days at work =P) and, even on Server Down days, you still manage to entertain me thoroughly.

These posts are hilarious! I would give you my own creditors and credit card horror stories, but they are all my fault. LOL

20K in Vegas without even gambling.
/sigh
It was worth it!

When I first turned 18 MBNA called me up trying to get me to get a card from them. I told them I wasn't interested. They asked if I wanted some information on the cards so I could look it over and think about, to which I replied no, i dont want that either. 2 weeks later I get a MBNA card in the mail along with literature on why its a good idea for a young person to get a credit card.

I then cut up the card, wrote a note to MBNA explaining why I was returning it, made a phone call to them and told them I was returning the card since I didn't want it. (of course they tried to get me to sign up for another, and I of course said no).

2 days before I go off to college Field and Stream calls me asking if I would like a subscription. They were offering tons of cupons for free stuff and such as an incentive. I told them no thanks.

That school year I come home for winter break, and look through some of my mail. I have a notice from a collections agency that my MBNA card is past due, and I owe 395 dollars. After some digging found out that Field and Stream is a subsidiary of MBNA and they had all my credit card info (yeah, the one that I never asked for, and never activated) And had for some reason signed me up for a subscription to the magazine (even though I never recieved an issue of it).

Since I had never actually signed up for the account and activated it MBNA never sent me a statement, so I didn't catch the whole thing sooner.

I called them up and they tried to make me pay for the subscription and late fees. About halfway through the conversation my Dad, who had been listening in on the conversation (as well as recording it) told them he was writing a letter to the attorney-generals office (along with sending a copy of the tape) and that if they didn't drop the charges, cancel the account and clear things with the collections agency he was going to file a law suit. Never heard from them again...

lol. after first reading this story, i checked my email. lo and behold, i have a junk message from Capital One, addressed to someone with the same last name as me.

The entire credit card industry is nothing but a big giant SCAM, "We'll let you use your own money, but charge you to do it"....

Hey Mr. Credit Card Man....BYTE ME!

Edited, Wed May 8 13:01:34 2002

WOW! I just read your letter on Capital One. All I can say is WOW! I also have a small story about them. My wife applied for one of their cards and reeived it (the seperater identy for maried women thing, which I wholeheartedly agree with). Anyway, after a few months of timely payments on very small balances, she gets an invitation for a credit limit update; sure she says. Well, the next thing you know she receives a 'new' credit card in the mail. The original credit card was due to expire in a couple of months so she put the new one in her wallet and thought nothing about it. Three months later we get a bill saying we are delinquent, we begin scrutinizing the bill. Oops; this has a different number on it. Short version - they had activated the charges on the new card (charging a monthly fee plus late fees) for the past three months, even though she had not called to 'activate' the card! It had NOT been used at that point. AND - the old one was still good too! She had two working cards from the same company (THEIR IDEA) at the same time and was not aware of it. She cancelled the original card (supposedly) and 'activated' the new one. Funny thing is, another three months have gone by and we just got another bill from them on the card that we called and closed back then. Another phone call and again, it it supposedly taken care of. Yeah, right!