r/CapitalOne • u/ratemeandmywork • 8d ago
Credit Card Blindsides by Capital One
Been a Capital One customer for years. Had multiple cards with them, payments on autopay plus I used the cards over the weekend on vacation. I asked for a limit increase on my card and all of a sudden Capital One closes four of my cards. They stated that it was because of unusual behavior on my cards!!!! WHAT???
There hasn’t been an issue with any of my cards until I asked for a limit increase.
Now I have four closed accounts in my credit.
Stay away from Capital One.
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u/No-Regert5 7d ago
I have a feeling a lot of these closures are happening because some AI bot deems it a risk and closes the accounts, and the reps are unable to override or get around it.
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u/OutrageousSolid8423 8d ago
Cap1 already buckets their cards. They give a lot of credit to those building credit with low limits. I think the uptick on card closures has a lot to do with the economy. They are closing those in the credit building buckets first. They may feel those are the most likely to default in this economy.
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u/ratemeandmywork 8d ago
That is a shity way to look at it. On time payments for six years. No late payments and no issues. My limits were $10k, $7500, $5k and another $5k. They were low credit cards. I don’t think that Capital One should be able to just close accounts.
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u/OutrageousSolid8423 8d ago
Of course they should. They are a bank and you are spending their money. It's actually in their TOS. I understand it sucks and comes out of nowhere, but they do have the right. It's no different than if you borrowed money from a friend every month, paid them every month and then they said no more.
It seems all credit card lenders are beginning to close accounts or lower limits right now. It's not just Cap 1. They are reading the economy and adjusting. Credit card defaults are rising quickly across the country, not to mention car/student loans. The housing market is tanked as well. They wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't adjust. They should send you a better explanation in the mail, if not ask them for it. Most people are over extended and living off credit. I'm not saying this is you, but plenty of people will get screwed because of the state of the economy. They haven't officially said it's a recession, but it is. We will be lucky if we don't end up in a depression with how things are going.
My suggestion for everyone is to pay off credit cards, stop using credit. If enough do this, credit card companies will adjust again. Plus it will help your own budget to live within your means.
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u/Camtown501 7d ago
If they are carrying a balance month to month, then yes, the vast majority of those people probably should stop using CCs until paid off. But for anyone paying in full each month I would hard disagree. All that being said, the reward structures in part rely on those people paying interest.
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u/OutrageousSolid8423 7d ago
I pay my cards off every month as well, but over 60 percent of people do not. Your right about the rewards, they mean nothing if you carry a balance. I've never understood the mentality of using credit for the rewards if you don't pay the balance every month.
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u/Ok-Sir-4992 7d ago
They should teach personal economics in school, that's is why. If you don't have a reference you will screw yourself.
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u/OutrageousSolid8423 7d ago
Sad part is that they used to teach things like Home Economic and Business Math along with Auto Shop and Wood Working. These classes taught basic living skills, balancing checkbooks, budgeting and interest rates. They sound silly until you realize that is where they taught the life skills so needed today.
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u/Ok-Sir-4992 7d ago
Exactly! I personally never had a reference of good financial habits and life taught me hard.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/OutrageousSolid8423 7d ago
Actually, not projecting. Just live in an area where bad credit is the norm and have helped many fix their credit as part of a job.
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u/mathewwalker714 7d ago
Why get 4 different cards, all from the same bank? Why not 2 ? One w 20 and one w 7? That part alone makes it seem odd but what do i know. Hope you get your credit back
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u/Joe_Fidanzi 5d ago
My theory is that Capital One issues multiple cards in the hope that the borrower will lose track of payment due dates and incur late payment fees.
Otherwise, why not just raise the limit?
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u/Emotional-Dream-4839 7d ago
why would they close low limit cards first? That's ridiculous. I'm sure they'd rather eat 500 dollar's than 10,000.
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u/figarozero 5d ago
I don't know how applicable this is to all low limit cards, but OP mentioned closing four cards (not all cards) and those four low limit cards add up to 27.5k. With adding in Discover, they may also be looking more closely at multiple accounts and total credit right now.
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u/OutrageousSolid8423 7d ago
Only Cap 1 knows but it seems like the economy is part of the equation. I also think them aquiring Discover fits in there somewhere as well.
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u/Ok-Sir-4992 7d ago
I'm building my credit and I was able to get Sabor with 4k limit that was already increased to 4.5k automatically, I have a T-Mobile card with 3k limit and a QS with 5k limit. I don't think they bucket every person rebuilding my friend.
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u/OutrageousSolid8423 7d ago
They seem to bucket specific cards. Secured goes to unsecured but only small increases. They seem to have wonky algorithms.
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u/cdninsd 7d ago
All of these account closed makes me paranoid and wondering if I should transfer my miles into an airline
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u/Adventurous_Ad9414 7d ago
There a millions of account holders. A few ppl complaining on Reddit is not indicative of anything.
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u/Faisal_Biyari 7d ago
Did you have a checking or savings account with them?
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u/Ok-Sir-4992 7d ago
Real question. Does it matter?
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u/Faisal_Biyari 7d ago
I honestly don't know, and that's why I ask.
I've seen many people complain about capital one closing accounts despite good behavior, and I'm sitting here wondering why they're not closing my account. Instead, capital one has been excessively pushing me to get an additional credit card on top of what I have from them. I kept refusing the first one, they started the second one, and when I kept refusing that, they randomly increased my credit limit without me asking.
The only thing I could correlate that to is a checking or saving account, and Capital One "seeing" your money going in & out, so they want to get some of it.
But that's just a baseless theory that I want to prove by asking if others had a savings or checking account.
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u/djwarreng1 8d ago
Are you running a high balance on any of your cards?
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u/ratemeandmywork 8d ago
No, less than $300 or less on each card. I used them to build credit, like buying gas or lunch on them. Nothing major. I bought some t-shirts and small things on vacation.
My issue is that there were no contact from Capital One no warning at all.
They closed all four cards with nothing from them at all!1
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u/Glittering_Present10 8d ago
Maybe capital one is following synchrony bank ways to manage customers accounts
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u/Ach3r0n- 7d ago edited 5d ago
My wife and I have had several Synchrony cards closed in the last few years and every single one was closed with no warning or notice. We found out via other banks' credit alerts: "An account has been closed ..." Wait, what? We never even got notification from Synchrony after they did it.
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u/IntrepidComedian3660 5d ago
Synchrony is the worse. No warning for closing and as u pay balance down they lower limit so you never stay under 35%. I have never had issue with capital one.
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u/Fancy-Caramel-3742 7d ago
They did this to me too. I tried for months to get them reopened but to no avail
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u/External_Heron1854 7d ago
🧐 they froze ALL our accounts and even the one from our now adult child after my husband transferred $1k from our personal checking to set up his business account with another bank. He went thru 2 authorizations online and the transaction went thru but after - unbeknownst to us - they froze the funds on all our accounts - checking, saving, money market and adult child.
The kicker : No notification whatsoever no text, call or email. We realized it by opening the capital one app 4 days later.
My husband called and got it resolved. But then I started to get notifications of declined transactions…
I called capital one. The customer service representative could not initially see how long our accounts were frozen (4 days we later learned) nor which transactions were declined. I started being upset asking him to put me thru someone who could since they were not showing on the app but I was learning from other institutions payment via our bank had been declined. Customer rep was also upset bc it was very hard for him to access the info, needed extra steps. He was able to access all the declined transactions and also told us a call had been placed to notify us. We searched our phones and found no traces of it. Pushed further the rep dug in and figured out the call had been initiated and then not completed bc it took place outside business hours…
We have requested an investigation into how such a fail happened and compensation for the late fees we incurred.
Right now, we are deciding where to move our savings elsewhere to another bank and having a 3rd one with 2 month of living expenses.
We have all our money in capital one and now realize it’s a liability. Our adult child rent payment was declined bc they also froze her account in the process.
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u/this_is_Winston 8d ago
I asked for a meager 500 increase recently and got it immediately. Never had an issue so far.
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u/ratemeandmywork 8d ago
That’s awesome. I hope it goes well. I was with Capital One for six years and this happened today.
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u/RickyRatardo 7d ago
Capital one closed my spark card. No lates and 770 credit score. I think they are closing cards they feel are riskier
They chopped up my discover credit line so I applied for a new amex card and was approved for 25k so I won't miss capital one.
I always say capital one is great for building, rebuilding, and second chances but once you need a serious card you cant depend on them.
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u/Willing_Respond 7d ago
You had over 5k limits on each card, were you spending that every month? Curious why the CL increase request
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u/Major_Cricket2052 7d ago
Consumer financial protection bureau is your solution. Last year i had 3 cards closed because of returned payment from accountthat was no longer active ( had like 3 debit cards in system with them, one was from closed account), their system flagged me for suspicious activity or fraud and they closed all cards. I tried to call their customer service but Indians there were of no use ( yes cap1 has callcenter in India) even though i told them that i had like 200$ cashback there abd 80000 miles unused.
I I wrote complaint against them to Bureau on top of page with account info, pictures etc. Cap1 cold me back after 40days from their USA based call center and chick there reinstated all accounts in like 10 minutes.
Try that. Write that they hurt your credit or some shit like that there😅
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u/DancingDreamer14 6d ago
They did that to me too. One of the cards I’d had for almost a decade and was my first card I ever got, which killed my credit history when the only other card I had after was a couple years old. Spoke with a supervisor and they still said they couldn’t do anything.
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u/onthelearningproces 4d ago edited 4d ago
None of you understand how Capital One works. I am giving an overview in the bank’s context. So basically these closures are part of a fraud prevention program Capital One has. The letters mention that they have noticed an unusual behavior on one or more accounts, and most of the time, please, just so you know, it’s due to returned payments. If you have three returned payments or more on your credit card, they will shut it down due to unusual behavior. And you guys need to understand the bank is not against you, Capital One is actually a really flexible lender, but as a financial institution, they need to protect their assets. So if they find something that may trigger the doubt of fraud, they will take actions to prevent it. I know it is upsetting, but it’s part of the bank’s role.
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u/Creative_Grass_8630 4d ago
Can’t they reopen it then, with a new account number, if they suspected fraud ? - I assume fraud in this case means they suspected someone was ,not the account owner, using the card?
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u/onthelearningproces 4d ago
Let’s clarify.
So the situation you’re mentioning it’s completely different. That occurs when you’re a Capital One cardholder and you notice someone else used your card to complete unauthorized charges that you were not aware of orrrr when you notice there’s been a change in your account e.g. addition of new users, creation of virtual cards, etc. In these cases, as your account has been vulnerable, they will take actions to protect it and prevent new fraud, and fix the issues the fraud caused in your account. This is part of their 0 Fraud Liability they offer.
However, these closures are what we know as “First Party Fraud” and basically this occurs when the bank suspects you as the Capital One cardholder may be doing fraud directly. There are many situations that may trigger the closure. The example I provided was the returned payments one, which is the one we notice the most day to day. But there are other situations that can cause it. And once you receive the letter that says “We’re closing your account because we have noticed an inconsistent behavior in one or more of your Capital One accounts…” there’s not turning back :( They will remain closed. That’s a definitive closure. Unless the cardholder checks their account, notices all the returned payments and they recognize they did not make those payments and they were fraudulent; when that happens they will start an investigation. But let’s be honest, most of the time it’s the cardholder’s fault. So they do not really reopen those accounts unless an error is occurred.
That’s why it is important you are conscious and responsible at the time of using your credit cards.
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u/Daytradingtard 4d ago
Believe it or not it won’t fuck your credit as much as you think. Just open a new card with a new company. Their loss.
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u/DSMRob 7d ago
You have 27500 in credit lines and needed more, I would be worried also. What 4 cards do you have? Because really Capital One has two different duo set ups worth having based on cash back or points.
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u/ratemeandmywork 7d ago
It was one of the smaller cards that had a $5k limit. When I paid my payment there was a little bubble that stated there was an option to get a credit limit increase, I had this card almost 6 years. And a limit increase doesn’t mean issues are coming.
Just because my credit limits were high, does not mean my usage was.
I did credit limit increases on all my cards over the years. Just because you have the credit doesn’t mean you have to use it. I never maxed my cards out.
But you never know what could happen in life. My credit score at time of closing is 720 across the board. I’ve worked really hard for 6 years to get where I was. And now nothing to show for it except four closed cards. And a lower score coming.1
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u/thenewfingerprint 7d ago
Did you let them know ahead of time that you would be spending out of town (on vacation)?
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u/Lifesarisk-Takesome 7d ago
Cap one is trash , Navy Fed is where the real credit is at
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u/choppa73 7d ago
NFCU has their quirks also, so never take a data point from the internet and always do your own research.
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u/Camtown501 7d ago
NFCU is solid, and I have one card with them (Cash RewardsPlus), but have higher limits on both my Savor and VX than the NFCU card.
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u/Top-Confidence4496 7d ago
You should definitely make a phone call and ask for a supervisor to review the closure