Capital one permanently restricted?

[Candice]

Sorry if this should go into credit cards forum instead.... Anywho, right now I have a revolving capital one account reporting to all 3 bureaus since June of 2006. It is my oldest account - I was really lousy with payment and even though in the credit reports from EX/TU/EQ it shows paid or paying as agreed and an open revolving account it is not - capital one has told me it was permanently restricted. I sent them a GW last week asking to reconsider opening the account. My question is has a similar situation ever happened to anyone else regarding Capital One and "permanently restricted"?

[Anonymous]

Yes. Cap1 is a strange bird. Once they "restrict" a card, they won't reopen. But they are all too happy to open up a new one for you. It doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, but they rarely do anyway lol.

It's like having a closed acct with any other creditor, but you still get the benefit of it showing up on your report as open and pays as agreed with a credit limit, so it appears it will continue to help utilization and age. At least that's how it has been on my report. They gave me a second account and when I went to register it online, there was my old "restricted" account. All 3 of my reports continue to show the old one as open, with a credit line, and pays as agreed. The new one is now reporting as well.

[Anonymous]

That is a hoot...but hey, if it's a positive TL, why rock the boat?

[Anonymous]

I just got off the phone with an account supervisor who said they reopen restricted accounts all the time. You have to receive the offer letter in the mail before they consider reopening. She stated there was no guarentee if you will even get a letter.

I asked her why my statement still showed available credit balance and I was being charge a yearly service fee when they had restricted my account. She stated she didn't know

[Anonymous]

The answer, of course, to the "If it's a positive TL, why rock the boat?" question, is a matter of balance. Is it one of your older accounts? Then you may want to leave it open for AAoA. Was it a high CL? Then you may want to leave it open for lower util. If neither, then if you don't have much else, you may want to leave it open in hopes they lift the restriction at some point.