Consumer complaint received 2022-10-02
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: MO
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card
Sub-issue: Credit card company won't increase or decrease your credit limit

Complaint:
I made the unfortunate mistake of trusting Capitol One with a card account that they claimed wasnt predatory and would give periodic reviews for the chance to refund my deposit or receive a higher and more useable balance. I opened an account with Capital One in the beginning of the year. I am unsure which date they would use because it took a month and a half to get the account open. They required that I put {$200.00} down for a {$200.00} limit. They are holding that deposit as well as the deposit of millions of consumers and utilizing that money in their own day to day activity as a means of procuring capital - from the wrong people preying upon consumers who may not have had the same economic opportunity most likely due to family background. Instead of paying higher interest rates from the fed like they are supposed to - like the rest of consumers including business, they are utilizing a predatory card program to increase capital into the business in a manner that doesnt require them to pay any interest whatsoever. They are doing this pretending to be a legitimate company - offering legitimate products and services. But when its time for their end of the deal they dont hold up. I opened an account with discover around the same time- my first two card accounts and they plan to be my only two for now till I can grow the length of history on them - as my other accounts are much older. I opened an account with XXXX with a XXXX dollar deposit, and wouldnt you know it - like the legitimate company they are THEY held their end of the deal - they graduated my account and refunded my deposit PLUS raised my limit to XXXX without even asking. This means that I can actually use my XXXX card and keep the balance under 10-15 percent and actually be able to utilize this card to show financial responsibility and use it as a proper financial tool I may even be able to enjoy some of the benefits of the card - similar to the benefits Capital One uses to lure consumers into a predatory account but they will never receive if they use the account responsibly. Capital One has not done that. Even though I have requested three. All times I have been denied because they want to continue making predatory interest rates, utilizing their stream of capital from the nations struggling to produce better numbers for the company- and the want to continue the disguise they are a legitimate company to do legitimate business with. Their reasons were simply you can not request a credit limit increase on a secured account- well NO ONE gets to utilize my resources for such a period of time in a predatory manner and think they have the power to just flick me away like that on a predatory card account. They are really protective of the language they use when describing if and when your account will be graduated because this program at minimum functions based off the performance of other XXXX XXXX Indicators in the business economically. I have never been so mislead or disappointed in my life. They are keeping me at {$200.00} limit so that I can not use the card to demonstrate financial responsibility- I cant even finance {$20.00} without a ding to my credit. I have already received a small ding to my credit once just for utilizing the card. I dont have these problems with XXXX XXXX If that werent enough - I log in tonight and try to pay my full balance ( I have to every month anyway as we just covered I can not finance more than {$20.00} or else it is financially irresponsible by all credit scoring model standards- it doesnt matter which model is being used. ) But now when I try to pay my bill it wont even let me!? This is what it says in the picture, and it is dangerously close to balance post time ( I just used the card yesterday and now I need to pay it today and cant ) You know when I was a youth I didnt have parents to get me started in credit. I never had a chance to ruin my credit or to gain credit appropriately because of companies like this and their predatory credit starter programs. This program feels more predatory to me than all of the other cards I researched and I didnt apply to those because they were blatantly predatory, but Capital One misled me and most likely millions of other consumers who dont need this card to begin with. Either work with me or close my account fully I can not keep playing these credit games I am trying my best to build enough credit to finance commercial real estate yearly. I literally do not have the time for this or the patience. Im trying to work beyond credit cards, to large scale loans, meanwhile you guys are over here playing games with my credit. How is this not playing games with my credit? How am I supposed to move forward period like this? 

One more thing to point out- they literally daily send me emails and reminders to refer a friend and the amounts have progressively gone up as their desperation to increase business funding has. Those offers have gone from {$50.00} - to {$500.00} and they have zero way of proving outside of a courtroom discover session - that referrals are in no way part of the graduation criteria. I have a feeling if we compared accounts in a legal discovery proceeding we would find a similarity between card accounts that did graduate. Either way youve held me back for close to a year now, why in heavens name but would I want to refer a friend to this program. My friends are at least financially responsible enough to know what this is.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation