@wwalter2718 wrote:OK, here's one for which I have an answer that may actually be useful!
First, others who have assumed that interest would be charged immediately are probably wrong. Unless things have changed just recently, CapOne cards will actually do a BT as a pseudo-purchase -- they don't incur interest until the next statement cuts and the balance hasn't been paid off by the due date. Of course, if there's a revolving balance, this doesn't apply.
I took advantage of this odd feature a couple years ago. I had a 0% BT expiring on a Barclay card and a BT offer for just 1% BT fee on the same card. So I BTed a few thousand to CapOne, then as soon as it arrived there, I BTed it back to Barclay for another year at 0%. I had multiple BT balances on the Barclay card and, as each came due, I paid it off (pmts were applied to earliest-expiring offer, thankfully) and then sent it back. I did this probably half a dozen times, for a total amount of maybe $28k. It worked every time. Never paid CapOne anything. Life was beautiful.
Until it all went bad. CapOne decided that they no longer wanted to maintain a business relationship with me. They shut down both cards I had (and I'm pretty sure I never used the smaller one for these BTs) as well as a CapOne 360 account I had tried to open for a bonus.
Now, my Walmart card just transitioned from Synchrony to CapOne. I had a zero balance and essentially never used that 10K of credit line, but as soon as it showed up at CapOne it went pretty much immediately to "restricted" status and I got a credit-monitoring alert that it had closed (in addition the Synch acct, so 2 notifications). It still shows as open/current/never late, etc. but I believe it really is gone. That with a true FICO of 750 and up on all 3, perfect payment history, no derogatories, etc. So, I'm clearly on CapOne's black list.
So, if you do it, do it just once. Or don't do it.
Dio
Great post. I had exactly the same experience. Thought those fee-free, interest-free balance transfers were great, until Capital One without warning closed all my accounts, including my checking account which I'd had for 15 or more years, going back to ING Bank.
They've never admitted that that was why they did it, and they never gave me a chance to just stop doing them.
Their "Executive Office" said it was a "back office thing", and the back office never tells them why it shut down an account.
