Capital One

[Anonymous]

I have not carried a balance on my Capital One Card in three months yet my CR still shows an outstanding balance that I had three months ago. I am trying to get a home loan and this balance is pulling my score down. Is there a way to make my CR's show the correct balance?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I have not carried a balance on my Capital One Card in three months yet my CR still shows an outstanding balance that I had three months ago. I am trying to get a home loan and this balance is pulling my score down. Is there a way to make my CR's show the correct balance?

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The problem with them is that when you don't carry a balance, they often don't report anything for you which means they screw you with the last reported balance and no history for a while. Only way I have seen to fix this was a friend who "disputed" if you will to have them update balance/history information and in a case I was involved with, I just put a small balance on there and let it report on the statement and then paid it off and the next month it reported again and went to zero.

[haulingthescoreup]

I occasionally had this problem with my J.Crew store card. I called the card's customer service, and they swore that they updated every Friday. (yeah, right)

I finally got exasperated and disputed the balance with the CRA's. WFNNB (the bank behind the card) updated to $0, and it hasn't happened since.

[Anonymous]

So I should begin gripping to Customer Service at Capital One. I hear they are not the best.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So I should begin gripping to Customer Service at Capital One. I hear they are not the best.

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Sure, if you enjoy p-ing in the wind. You are too kind, they are not only not the best, they are one of the worst. You'd have better luck training a field mice to sing god save the queen. You can try but don't hold your breath as they will almost certainly tell you: "We update and report your information to all 3 bureaus each month." a fancy way of shining you off. I guess it can't hurt though but be prepared to be disappointed is all I am saying.

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, if a person contacts the CRAs to dispute the balance, that person might be taking the risk of losing the entire account from his/her credit report.

I haven't disputed the amount of the balance, but I did dispute a Sears Mastercard account because the payment history had not been updated in several months. Sears/Cit responded by instructing the CRAs to delete the entire account from my credit reports. Several years later that account is still missing from my credit reports after spending a lot of time and effort trying to get that account restored to my credit reports.

[haulingthescoreup]

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MojaveMoon wrote:
In my opinion, if a person contacts the CRAs to dispute the balance, that person might be taking the risk of losing the entire account from his/her credit report.

I haven't disputed the amount of the balance, but I did dispute a Sears Mastercard account because the payment history had not been updated in several months. Sears/Cit responded by instructing the CRAs to delete the entire account from my credit reports. Several years later that account is still missing from my credit reports after spending a lot of time and effort trying to get that account restored to my credit reports.

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That's useful to know! I've always written to never, ever dispute closed accounts, as it's easier for them to drop the accounts entirely rather than to clean them up, but I thought that they were required to report all open accounts. It's part of their agreement with the CRA's.

What does Sears/Citi give you as a justification for refusing to report?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
In my opinion, if a person contacts the CRAs to dispute the balance, that person might be taking the risk of losing the entire account from his/her credit report.

I haven't disputed the amount of the balance, but I did dispute a Sears Mastercard account because the payment history had not been updated in several months. Sears/Cit responded by instructing the CRAs to delete the entire account from my credit reports. Several years later that account is still missing from my credit reports after spending a lot of time and effort trying to get that account restored to my credit reports.

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an absolutely valid concern but that is usually a problem with accounts that are no longer open or being reported and it has happend to me but with active and reporting accounts, it has generally not been an issue. although companies like HSBC are real bad with this and will mark your account (in the comments) with "Consumer disputes account" which is so hard to get off and affects negatively. I lost a Discover re-eval because of that.

[Anonymous]

@haulingthescoreup, exactly, thank you, you made my point for me, its usually a greater issue with closed accounts than active ones. closed they can choose to dump it unless you hunt them down and force them to report it which most wont, but with active sooner or later, it HAS to report.

Message Edited by Guardian on 02-02-2009 06:11 PM

[Anonymous]

You are better off charging a tank of gas or a 1/2 tank of gas to your Crap 1 card than taking the chance of losing the tl.

Something needs to be done to Crap 1 and their business practices, this is a prime example!