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I used a blue select check from my Cap1 card back in May of 2009. The offer was for 0% APR for fixed for the life of the balance. The check went through fine and Cap1 charged me the 3% fee for using the check. For the next six billing periods the interest rate remained correct for the "SpecialTrans" section as cap1 calls it. No missed payments and amounts about the minimum. My latest bill arrived and the APR for the "SpecialTrans" section magically showed 3.99%. I am not carrying any balance in any other category of charges so it was easy for me to see that the interest rate had changed. I can see however, if was someone carried other rates in the other categories, the change might not be so easy to notice.
I called and talked to a "supervisor" and after wasting about 10 minutes with being putting on hold/off hold/on hold they "were going to take care of the problem". What's odd to me is that they couldn't give me any reason for why the shift in rates happened. I was told, "Must have been a computer glitch". I am sending a follow-up letter with copies of the original select check offer, just to cover my butt.
With all the crap these CC have been doing in the past few years I cant help but think that the rate change just happened to be right after a 6-month period. Perhaps my account was inaccurately lumped into another caragory where the interest rate changes after a lower rate at 6-months. Or perhaps this kind of interest rate changing is something they are doing intentionally, but who really knows. That said if they pulled this rate shift with 300K people and 5% didn’t notice, that’s 15K people paying more interest. I just wanted to give a heads up and warn others to keep an eye on their "SpecialTrans" interest rates from Cap1.
CapOne sent out letters right after those checks to let everyone know they were printed in error and that the APR promo was not "for life."
I got the checks too...but I threw them away after I got the letter advising of the mistake and fact that the rate would not be as printed on the checks.
@Anonymous wrote:CapOne sent out letters right after those checks to let everyone know they were printed in error and that the APR promo was not "for life."
I got the checks too...but I threw them away after I got the letter advising of the mistake and fact that the rate would not be as printed on the checks.
Honest mistake, maybe, but how come we never seem to hear about some CC company sending out a letter saying, "oops, the actual deal you will get is a better deal than what our promotion had promised"?