Longy

But this is a big problem with Capital One. They do quite often send out offers before you have a score, but these will most likely have application fees and annual fees which makes the card quite expensive to get in the first place. You would likely have a very low limit as well, and Capital One are renowed for not giving credit line increases. What they do is send you more offers so you end up with a number of cards with low limits, annual fees and high interest rates. Up until recently they didn't even report your limit to the credit reporting agencies so it looked like you were maxing out your card every month you used it. A lot of people's scores took a really battering from this.

The first Capital One offers I got that didn't have an application and annual fee on it were about 5 months after I had a secured card - about a month before I actually got a score. I imagine if you don't have a fee on yours it may be that you actually benefitted from the BOA debacle as they must have opened the card at some point and therefore you got a history from it.

BritGuyTN

this is a really strange post since bank of america are widely regarded as a decent prime credit card issue and capital one are widely derided as being total shit - i kid you not - the name often used is 'crap one'

between me the wife and the business we have 8 mortgages, 2 lines of credit, 2 savings accounts and 4 checking accounts, aside from them gettign confused about putting my wifes new surname on her checks we've generally had good experiences

I was annoyed when they told me that my secured credit card could not become unsecured since I was not a permanent resident at the time, but it wasn;t a huge deal in the scheme of things

bank of america have low interest rates on their credit cards, excellent online banking, and often mail you 0% balance transfer offers

BritGuyTN

no shit

mid 700s fico for my wife, years of history and they never increased her limit above $600!

this is when bank of america/amex/citi (the 3 best card companies in my mind) all had limits of 10-20K....

they keep sending me business card apps

these keep going in my shredder

'crapital one, not in my wallet!'

kins

They may usually be wonderful, but when a bank has screwed up your mortgage to the extent that the day before closing you find out you're not actually going to close because of their ****-up AND they've lost your credit card repeatedly then given it to someone else, you do start to lose faith in the system.

We have a mortgage with them though, so let's hope you're right. I signed up for online banking about a week ago and am just waiting for my password or PIN or something... anything really... to arrive in the post. I'm not holding my breath. I'm sure I'll find out in a few weeks that some chap from Romania has access to my account and is happily paying off my mortgage for me (the person who'd been using our credit card in Brussels had been paying off the bill for us, which was nice of him seeing as it was him who was running it up).

I'm sure Capital One are just as bad when they get a moment to really shine.

Peacefulove

Damn i just applied for the blue amex before checking back for replies on here not surprisingly i got denied im now looking into secured cards instead. Wil definately be avoiding BOA now......

BritGuyTN

frankly, ignoring bank of america is a stupid thing to do, 2 people on this thread have disparaged them, Bob whose wife or someone worked for them and wasn't treated particularly well (i can see why hes not impressed) and another poster who now has a capital one card which is close to being one of the worst sub-mid-prime credit card companies.

banks and all other business **** up, we all do. there a big difference between aceidentally messing up once in a while and being consistently incompetent or having arduous or usury terms to deal with

this is a site for british expats, not strictly just people building credit, i would suggest not using this place as the basis for building your credit profile in this country

got to www.creditboards.com which seems to be one of the leading forums on credit building/repair/general info and do some research there

a proper bank of america card or any other prime card is a way off for you right now - getting a secured card with bank of america is one of the best steps you can take right now

this is not conjecture, this is fact (based on the info you have given)

most other secured cards have awkward payment facilities, horrible billing cycles and disgraceful fees. household bank (a part of hsbc) is one such provider. bank of america's secured program has none of these issues.

cranston

Very wise words.

We use Citibank and HSBC and they both have their downsides but overall I am happy with them

Longy

I agree, unless you have a good alternative, and when you have new credit there are very few, I would advise getting a BOA secured.

kins

Ahhhhh so my experiences are invalid because I hold a Capital One credit card.

I'll be sure to remember that next time I think about posting my experiences in an attempt to help people ;-)

kins

I have some stories about Citibank's incompetence in failing to close our account, then trying to bill us a year later for fraudulent activity on the account we thought had been closed for the previous year... but I'd better not post them, after all what do I know?

ugacrew

Despite the previous comments and recommendations it's ultimately up to you and some honest research. Not asking on a board that really won't provide you with hard and fast facts. At the end of the day we ALL get screwed by a credit card company in one way or another. It's just a matter of choosing by who, how much, when, and where -- all to some degree. Whether it be Bank of America, Capital One, HSBC, MasterCard, Visa, or AMEX. Do you homework and look at the intro rates, grace periods, and so forth. Here's a section of Epinions.com that will give you a summary of customer reviews. It's a much better resource than here. Epinions. It's also a good site for reviews of other products as well.

Good luck on your selection and remember to assume the position when you get your card.

Bob

BoA also have a really crap reputation in banking, crap banking practices, crap work practices and who'd have thought that after some other institutions...

Bob

Aye, well it's not just because of the poor work practices, it's the knowing what they try to do to people....people with businesses get good treatment, other people they screw to the hills and will flog all kinds of things to screw you over. Much worse than MBNA used to be, and they would provide bonuses to people who would hit quotas for screwing people up the most, BoA took that to a new level.

There are plenty of other card issuers out there, citicorp, if they don't go under, do offer good cards.

Peacefulove

Well everyone has been really helpful and ive got a better idea of who to approach now than before, it was a bit rash to say about avoiding BOA based on someone elses bad points but I myself has some terrible experiences of banks before and so im extremely cautious of who I choose now. Thanks for all the advice and opinions

BritGuyTN

no they are not invalid, I was just pointing out that you seemed to have a contrary experience to the perceived customer experience

we've never had a issue with capital one since we don't use the card