Crapital One has been sending me junk mail for the last two months, so I decided to use it to my advantage to try a new strategy. I returned the application completely filled out, but missing one vital component - my signature. Today I got a notification from my credit monitor that a hard inquiry has been made by Crapital One. The plan here is to use this impermissible purpose (if I understand it right) as leverage for them to remove some lates from my reports. Any suggestions?
See, it's not that simple. If you use the card, there's an implied contract even without your signature.
I am no stanger to litigation against Capital One. With that said, your potential bargaining chip sounds dubious at best.
Me neither and agreed. I should add that I wanted to get some lates on an unrelated (to the lawsuit) Cap1 tradeline removed, and they wouldn't do it even with a suit filed. The choice they gave was to leave it (but it had to be closed because of the suit) or deletion of tradeline. So, don't count on it. Imho, it's better to leave the lates on if the tradeline's still open because you'll eventually have an older positive account.
I've been looking around, and I realize that it might be better in my situation to just keep the card anyway. My credit is damaged from a CA TL (which I'm trying to get removed), and I have been denied credit once or twice (out of one or two tries). It seems to me that if I just keep the account, it will raise my score after a short period of time, I'm guessing 90 days. How long does it take for a new account to age to the point that it raises the FICO back up? I'm not sure exactly which accounts are part of the average age calculation, but here are some numbers I came up with: The average age of my open accounts (all revolving) is 25 months. The average age of all my revolving accounts, open and closed, is 72.67 months. The average age of all accounts, including CA and installment loans, is 49.42 months. Does anyone know the weight FICO puts on open versus closed accounts, to the extent of age? The whole point of this experiment was to be able to remove a closed Crapital One TL from 2001 that had a 60d late on it. Now it seems to me that I might just benefit a great deal more from keeping that account for its age and keeping the new account simply because it was granted to someone with damaged credit. What do you all think?
They have a right to pull your credit if they have a valid reason. In this case, you sent them an application for a new card. Just because it does not have your signature, does not mean that you did not want the card. If you take them to court, the best that can happen is that it will get thrown out. The worst is that they may jail/fine you for perjury (depending on what you say in court). If you have credit issues, it is almost always a bad idea to battle with the big guys unless you are 100% right. BTW, Cap 1 is the worst CC issuer out there. From what I understand, they do not report your credit limit, but something more like the highest balance the card has ever had.
Several of the above statements are misplaced. Wouldn't be perjury unless the OP was on the witness stand AT TRIAL and it's not always a bad idea to battle "big guys" unless you are 100% correct. In this area of law, many issues would be ones of first impression for all courts and thus, a good faith argument is all that is required.
Last I heard, you need to go to court to force a judgement. He may be able to get them to side with him out of court, but if push comes to shove and it ends up in court, he could be charged with perjury.
Perjury is defined by Merriam-Webster as "the voluntary violation of an oath or vow either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath." I would not be swearing to anything that is untrue. I didn't sign the application.
Perjury is more than that. If you lie in court and say you weigh 200 pounds when you are 225, nothing will happen. The falsehood has to have a possible affect on the outcome of the case. But when you go to court and say that you did not want a credit card from them and that you want damages for the inquiry, you would at best be chastised from the judge. At worst (and it goes to a state court for instance), you could face big trouble. I am not a lawyer (I am sure you can tell by my lame arguments), but the point is that courts do not like stuff like this. Yes, we all know about the crazy cases we hear, but there are many, many more that the courts have no desire to hear. Crapital One (I still have NEVER figured out why ANYONE would do business with them), pulled your credit because they received an application completed with your information on it. You may try and say that you did not want to aply for the card and that your lack of a signature is proof, but that would not matter. The intent (to Crapital One) is the fact that you sent the application completed in your own handwriting. Considering the fact that the application has your private information on it, it would be very hard for a court to find fault with the credit card company. If you are repairing or improving your credit, you need to never use that card except for the first time or to make a one-time large purchase. From what I have read (this may have changed), they do not report your credit limit, they report your highest balance (or something like that). Believe me, I truly wish I could say, "Stick it to Capital One with what you have, drop those crooks to their knees". Unfortunately, I do not believe that to be the case. I am not now, nor will I ever be a Cap 1 fan. Good luck to you.
Well said, dogface. I realize that none of this would really hold up in court, nor would I be bold or stupid enough to take it that far. All I really wanted to do was get ammunition for pre-court lame arguments in order to convince Crapital One that I have enough leverage to request that they remove my old record. Oh well.
