Das Kapital (Capital) One!

Instead of Barbarians, I would suggest Capital One change their mascot to Dictators. You can pick you Dictator of choice. You see, a dictator is an authoritarian ruler who assumes absolute power without question. This is what I believe after receiving a letter from Capital One on Friday.

In attempts to provide “good” and “honest” communication Capital One advised me that despite me being a good costumer they were raising my default rate (I learned later I was not the only one. My friend received the same letter). Of course they do give me the opportunity to decline the new terms, but if I do so they will cancel my account. In a nutshell Capital advised me to take their increased default rate or I will be denied credit. It is Capital One’s way or the highway. Now, I must advise I have held a zero balance on this card for more than six months. So you may ask why is Capital One raising my default rate. They are not making any money off of me because I am not using my card. I have another Capital One card that contains a balance and that default rate is not being increased. They are raising my default rate on a card with good credit, and keeping the same for my other card with a balance. Anyway you look at this, it is abusive and threatening the consumer.

In an ironic twist of fate I have paid of my debt more than six months ago and when I tried to close my account, Capital One hung up on me. They tried to get me to jump through hoops to keep my account open, so I did. I left my account open, but now never use. NOW, Capital One is threatening to close my account. WHY BY ALL MEANS! This is what I was trying to do six months ago. It is almost laughable.

Once again, I’d like to remind that Capital One received a 3.1 Billion dollar bail out last year. It was California House of Representative Maxine Waters who questioned banks who receive tax payer bailout money who was raising rates. Well Madame Walters – Capital One is increasing rates on good costumers. This is actually shocking to me when Capital One seems to have plenty of money for their Barbarian advertising campaign seen on every channel, but now I’m not so sure if those Barbarians are the fun and frisky Barbarians we have all grown to love and adore. Now it seems they are the raping and pillaging Barbarians reminiscent of a past time and in that case, perhaps I’ll take a maniacal dictator. Perhaps if Capital One is hurting financially, instead of taking it out on good consumers they should reduce their advertising budget.

Then I saw a commercial that was indeed a real head scratcher. Capital One, along with other banks is claiming to care for the consumers well being and in their words, “Here to help.” I’d have to ask, do they know the meaning of help?

Anyone with half a brain will know this is in the spirit of gauging and exploiting the consumer. In times of economic hardship everyone must sacrifice, including credit card companies. Perhaps in the spirit of “Helping” they should lower rates and remove expensive advertising campaigns from television, or better yet, temporarily lower the salaries of CEO’s and upper management. Why should they continue to get rich while we are suffering? All consumers demand is an equal playing field, consumer rights and an opportunity to pay down debts.