Closing Capital One Secured Card. Better Suggestions?

[OpIvy03]

Wow ok. So I am going to close out this card. I made the mistake of running up the card. I know it wasn't the smartest move. All from the nice increase of gas prices. Finally they are letting up. Anyways, the card doesn't have a large cl. I normally pay off the amounts I use as soon as I get paid. The first payment went through with no problem. Now the fortunate thing with me is that if I do decide to make a payment I'll do double the min.

Well like I said the first one went through fine. So I did the second one and that's when hell broke out. The system froze my account because I made a larger payment??? Then they said not to worry because it would reflect on my account and not report the incorrect util. Oh boy I should have known better than to have listened to that one. Before I had called them it was kind of the out of sight out of mind thing. I just submitted the payment and went on about my day. Next thing I know a week and a half later. I realize the payment never went through.

I called them immediately and they had to call my bank to see if the funds were available to pull. They did wham problem solved. They explained that it was like a glitch. So I schedule my next payment again after the last incident. Only to have them freeze my account again. Then the money never came out of my account. I gave it a few days. Nice misfortune. Another payment from a different account posted and ate up the funds for Cap1.

So they processed the payment a day later and I got a nice Returned fee billed to my account. Then they froze my account again for fraudulent activity. When I called them to get them to push the payments through since I had money in my account again. (This is within a weeks span and I have the bank records to prove it). They took the payment and the payment came out 3 days later. Then they left my account frozen for over a week. I hate their system and customer service.

On a different note I love my USAA Secured card. That thing works beautifully. I will close out my Cap1 card probably this week and wait for my refund. Any suggestions on where I could take my business?

[OpIvy03]

Sorry also to add on to this. What really got me was their explanation as to why my accounts would freeze and the payments weren't processed in a timely fashion. The answer provided was that their system was created to track payment amounts. So if you were to pay anywhere from 50 bucks or more than your previous payment. The system would auto freeze your secure card. Talk about a lame system.

[JohnPTEX]

What is your age of account for the Cap One?  May be worth leaving it at a zero balance to keep the AAoA higher.  Just my thought.

[AZHeather]

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@JohnPTEX wrote:

What is your age of account for the Cap One?  May be worth leaving it at a zero balance to keep the AAoA higher.  Just my thought.

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+1.  I would pay it off and just leave it alone.  Maybe make a Starbuck's purchase on it once a month just to keep it active.

[OpIvy03]

The account is fairly new. I opened it in Jan.

[AZHeather]

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@OpIvy03 wrote:
The account is fairly new. I opened it in Jan.

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Still, it counts towards your utilization and revolving credit, so why not keep it?  You would want to replace it (I assume) and that would mean that you would have to take an inquiry hit to get another card.  Like I said, if you keep it and only use it once a month for a very minimal purchase that you could pay monthly without setting off all the fraud alerts and whatever else they are doing over there, then it will age and give you positives toward your score.  In a year or two, when your credit is more established, would be the better time to drop it if you still want to.

Of course, the decision is complete yours.  The above is just my humble opinion and what I would do. 

[RobertEG]

Closing wont affect your AAoA.  The immediate effect of closing (it is assumed that when closing, you will pay the balance on the acct) will be loss of its CL in your overall % util calculation, the loss of an individ account that you could maintain at low or 0 % util and thus improve the sum of your individ % utils, and the loss of one account in the denominator of your % reporting a balance.

The account will still remain in your credit file for approx ten years after closing, and still count in your AAoA calculation.

To impact your AAoA, the account would have to be deleted.  Being so new, that might be an advantage.

Not a decision based on one factor.

The only clear advantage would be elimination of the annual fee.

[britishexpat]

I have had the same problem as new to this country... uk citizen

got the secured card as my 1st cc and they gave me 150 CL, I increased it to 450 (300 secured) to look better on file and to give me some room with purchasing.

I did the same paid off more than the min.... infact paid it off in full only to then constantly go online check my balance and it was taking ten days to show up as cleared...

same thing again this month paid it off in full thinking that maybe the 1st month was meant to take a little longer... nope same *hit different day, rang them up and could not understand anything they told me.... now I am just going to keep the card and use it once a month for basic houshold stuff and then cancel it when I can get a new CC in a few months time once my history shows more payment history...

[AndySoCal]

I do not know if USAA will allow this or not you could close CAP 1.  Take proceeds and add that to your USAA secured card giving you a larger credit limit.

[britishexpat]

I got refused with CHASE freemdom/BARCLASY/DISCOVER yesterday and they ALL stated that my scores are really good, but the obstacle I have now is that I do not have enough time on the history of payments to my cap 1 secured, 4 new store cards added today to help in process....all banks backdoor reps said give it another 2 to 3 months and they would accept me for a card...  8-12 weeks to go and I am confident that a better unsecured card will be in my possesion and CAP 1 secured, can be closed for good!