Careful with that automatic $500 increase, etc. and Capital One in general.
1) As stated above they have never reported limits to the agencies and yes this DOES hurt everyone's score - especially those responsible folks that never have come close to maxing out their limits since the only "limit" they report is high balance. They are FINALLY supposedly going to start doing what they should have been forced to do all along and report "real" limits by the end of this year.
2) Perhaps one reason they didn't report limits is because they have REALLY messed with limits. For example a huge promotion to get new customers in December 2006. Most were given a card with $3K limit and told if they used in 90 days they would get $500 increase in that limit. GUESS WHAT. The "retro" adjusted down 10's of thousands of these cardholder's limits with NO WRITTEN NOTICE, causing over limit fees and worse that they refused in many cases to reverse! Imagine getting a card, an agreement and a statement that say you have $3K or $3.5K limit, charging $1K and then getting a statement with an OVER LIMIT fee on it and in some cases that same statement STILL SAID limit of $3K. When thousands called they were just told that they should have never received $3K limit in the first place nor the $500 increase. THESE IDIOTS it seems did not bother to check credit on anyone until AFTER they used the card the first time and THEN decided going BACK what the limit would be.
3) Some then tried to pay in full the accounts but interest unlike other cards is charged even if balance is paid IN FULL before due date.
I would strongly suggest doing searches on the net re: Capital One over the last two years, lawsuits, consumer reports, fraud allegations and worse.
I was a card holder with them for 13 years. At 8 years into it they raised my fixed rate and told me the only way I could get a lower rate was to close that card and open a new one (hurting my score with new card). I did it once in 2002 and got a card with a FIXED RATE GUARANTEE forEVER as long as no default. NEVER defaulted and rate was 6.9% until I got a notice two days ago that it is going up 130% to 15.9% for NO REASON even though I have all 3 FICOS OVER 800!
What card is in MY wallet? NOT THIS ONE. They said they were losing too much money (check out the CEO's pay for the last four years) AND that although the initial offer and agreement AND company spokesperson re: lawsuits all said rate would not be increased on this card unless consumer did something wrong..early this year they decided they just HAD to raise them all and most doubled or even worse like mine.
After all I discovered about them re: lawsuits, improper marketing fraud, etc...I have learned to never get ANY credit card with ANY company until I do my research to see what their most recent reputation is. Capital One USED TO BE a decent CC company...no more! My opinion of course. Do your own research.
