What's In Your Wallet?

You've seen the ads with the vikings pillaging hither and yonder. Taunting and stealing from the poor, common village folk. Then they look in the camera and say "What's in your wallet?"

But before you apply, let me tell you about my experience with Capital One. I have had a Capital One card for years but I don't use it much anymore. American Express gets the majority of my business these days and will continue to for the foreseeable future. Although, there are still plenty of places that don't take Amex - the entire state of Maine for instance - so it never hurts to have a backup.

I got a letter in April from Capital One with an offer for a balance transfer of 0% until September 2008. It said the only cost is a 2% upfront transaction fee, a pretty reasonable deal. They need to make a profit, I understand. "Sign me up for some of that" I thought to myself. So I promptly stroked a check for $4,800 to knock out all my existing credit card debt, mailed it off and never gave it another thought. Until today.

Today I was perusing my June 2007 Capital One statement and low and behold it shows an interest rate of 18.21% on the balance I transferred over. 18.21% is not 0%, not even close. My initial thought was "What the fuck?" My next thought was: "Where is the phone?"

I dialed Capital One at 10:31pm EST, it took me approximately 3 minutes to navigate through their phone maze to get to an actual person. (Just press zero a bunch of times and you will usually cut the wait time way down.) At 10:34pm Fiola answered the line and I explained my problem to her - got a letter, zero percent til September 2008, being charged 18.21% instead. At first she said they did not have any offers like the one I mentioned. When I offered to fax her a copy of the letter - "because I have it in my hand" - she put me on hold to "research" things. She came back on the line to tell me that she would transfer me to a senior associate who could help me. (Skillz - that's level 2 to you.)

So, 9 more minutes on hold - thank god for speaker-phone - and Myriam came on the line at 10:46pm EST. Again, I explained the situation. She was very familiar with the offer I was referring to, it is a very popular offer for the company. So it does exist, amazing! She said there was an "error" and I was mistakenly charged the wrong rate for the balance transfer. She "corrected" the error and the proper interest rate of 0% will appear on my July statement and they will credit back the $88.17 in interest they charged me this month.

I am not officially closing the books on this one until I get my July Capital One Statement. I actually remember seeing a news article on Capital One on Dateline NBC or some other similar show a couple years ago. They are famous for doing this kind of stuff. Now you know how they operate, don't let them, or any credit card company, pull this type of crap on you!

It's Ironic:

That the people who have the license plate with the picture of the deer on it are the people who shoot deer.

Congratulations to:

Oregon State - Back to back National Championships in NCAA Division One College Baseball. If you go for the three-peat, please play South Carolina. Then I would have my dream of the "Cocks" and "Beavers" fighting it out for the National title. Is that too much to ask?