Capital One Misses Me
Awww… Capital One misses me! I feel so loved… not. 
In the mail this week I got a letter from Capital One. For those who are new to the story, my credit card balance used to be at Capital One. After calling them and getting them to lower my interest a tad, I decided enough was enough on the whole paying interest thing and transferred my balance to a Citicard with a no balance transfer fee/0% interest for 12 months offer. I did this in September so I have until September 2008 to pay off the remaining balance (now sitting at UNDER $4000 woowoo) or start accruing interest there.
Well as I said, this week I got a letter from Capital One. They are trying to woo me back with a 0% balance transfer offer of their own. I find this hilarious, because when I originally called them to ask for an interest rate reduction, they claimed they could only go from 10.9% (what I was at) to 9.9%. But now that I took the money away from them, now they can give me 0%. It has a balance transfer fee attached of 2% of the balance (no maximum) but still, that is WAY better than 9.9%.
So… they miss me. Poor Capital One. This both amuses me and makes me a little bit gleeful. And it provides a nice backup plan. Of course, I am NOT going to be transferring anything anywhere right now. I am at 0% for a long while yet. But if Capital One is already sending me offers, they may still be sending me offers in August. If for some reason, I haven’t managed to pay off the credit card debt completely, I may have somewhere else to move it and avoid interest for a small fee. By then the balance will be much smaller so the 2% fee should be minimal.
Hopefully this is all irrelevant and there will be no balance to transfer come next August. But it nice to know I might have options. I really hate interest.
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November 7th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
LOL They miss me too. So does MBNA. I’ve felt very very loved lately… not.
November 7th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
It’s funny, because credit card companies won’t believe you when you say “Look, if I take my money away, you’re going to offer me even lower interest to get me back.” But they do it every time. :-p
November 7th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Nice! You won that round.
November 8th, 2007 at 5:43 am
I always find this very funny: Financial institutions are capable of the best offers and the best services ever… once you left for another one!
sounds like a very cheap relationship!
November 8th, 2007 at 5:58 am
Nice plan! But I believe that you’ll have that $4000 paid down before next August.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I’d stay the hell away from Capital One. For a while they were intentionally hurting people’s credit by not reporting their credit limit making it appear that they were at 100% debt utilization. This made it so other credit card companies weren’t as quick to steal Capital One’s customers away…now that’s a shady business practice. Don’t do business with banks like that.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:24 am
The cable company is the same way. My wife called recently b/c our promotion rate was going to expire on our internet service we had through them, and would more than double. We also were able to get DSL finally, which was around $20/month cheaper than what the cable company was going to charge. When my wife called them, and explained that if they couldn’t lower the rate, we’d be leaving for DSL. They said there was no way since we weren’t getting TV from them too. Well, we got DSL, and I called to cancel. Sure enough, when they asked why I was leaving and I told them, they offered me a new rate. Silly Silly cable company, it’s too late once I’m canceling.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:08 am
It is crazy how they won’t work with you until they lose you….
Ugh.
I’m planning on staying away in the future.
November 8th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
It’s nice to have a fall back plan. However, I find it ridiculous that they wouldn’t give you a rate lower than 9.9% before and now they’re offering 0%…it just doesn’t sound like a very good business plan.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I’m gonna watch this blog like a hawk! I’m rooting for you to pay off that debt and not need anyone’s interest rate!!!
November 10th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Even better, you can open a new 0% Citibank account then. You can’t transfer the balance from one Citibank account to another, but you can get them to send a check to you from your new citi account. You then deposit this check, and send your old citi account a check from your bank. I don’t have debt, but I have done this for years as an interest free loan to give me more money to invest.
December 12th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
After you transferred your balnce did you close the Capital One account? I’ve heard both trains of thought on this and just wondered what you thought. Love your blog by the way. Appreciate any help.
Thanks, Debbie
December 12th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
I didn’t close my account. It is my spouse’s longest standing line of credit so we are leaving it open for the time being.