This is good to hear. I started my Cap1 Secured earlier this month, and I'm really hoping my excellent payment history leads to a nice CLI at the 5 month mark.
Have you had any issues with Cap1 putting extra-long holds on your payments? Every payment I've made in the last two weeks has gotten a six-day hold. (I bank with Simple, an online bank owned by BBVA Compass.) So, I called when my available credit hit zero and I'd made all the payments required to bring it back up to $300 and had no pending transactions.
The agent I spoke with said the reason all my payments were getting the extra-long holds had to do with the frequency of my payments. Seriously? Right now, this is my only actual credit card, and I use it much like a debit. Purchase something, wait for it to post to my balance, pay it off. Lather, rinse, repeat. The agent I called about the holds told me I should only be paying once a month, and when I said that's not an option for me as I'm rebuilding my credit and need to avoid high utilization, she told me to pay twice a month, tops.
At this point, I'm wondering whether I should even keep using it at all. If I just stop using it, what happens with the 5mo CLI? Does anyone know? I mean, I guess I could use it to charge up about $30 (10% of CL) once a month, then pay THAT off, but it just seems like something else I'd have to remember to do. The way I'm doing it now, believe it or not, is convenient. I pay all but $10 or so just so there's *some* util for Cap1 to report.
Anyone else experiencing these issues? Will I still get my CLI, you think? Was that agent correct in telling me that the numerous payments are causing the long holds?
Oh.. I should also mention that I opened a new checking account over the weekend and I'm going to be using that for Cap1. It's Old National Bank, which is exclusive to the Midwest if I remember correctly, but it's a better-known bank than the Simple brand. Maybe that'll help?
