I am new here, but have been lurking for a while so I've read all the great stories about contacting Mr. Miller at Capital One via Planetfeedback. My husband has 2 Cap. One cards that we'd like to combine--and of course the regular CS people and retention reps are like 'sorry we can't do a thing for you.' So following all your examples, we wrote a letter through PFB and got a response back, but from a Mr. Cooke...in the Consumer Advocate office. Any thoughts on this--or should he have asked directly for Mr. Miller?! Of course, if Cooke can do the same, then great. I guess we'll just try to call Monday as he'd already left for the day. Any advice on what to say when we do speak with them? We're asking to combine the accounts, get a higher credit limit and reduce or eliminate the annual fee for starters. My husband had a BK in 1993, so he's still rebuilding credit since a lot of the prime places won't touch a prior Ch. 7 (like, for example, he's on Citibank's blacklist). Does grovelling/begging work any better?! He's had Capital One accounts for several years now, so they know he has a good track record (the only glitch w/ them is one late payment about 8 mos. ago shortly after my husband was laid off, but he quickly found new employment). Thanks in advance for the info...and for sharing your experiences. I am so glad we found this board; it's a plethora of great information!!!
Mr Cooke is Mr. Miller's counterpart. He can do the same, although he seems to me to be not quite as generous as Mr. Miller. That is, you have to "spoon feed him" what you want, whereas Mr. Miller took the initiative. Still, a pleasant guy.
Mr. Miller is the bomb, he gave me a $1,000 increase same day he read my PFB letter, I kept getting Mr.Cooke's voice mail, finally reached him for a $500 increase. Mr. Miller combined my other half's three accounts, dropped rate to 15.9% and increased her line by $300. It took three weeks to combine the accounts.
I was wondering myself about the Mr. Miller/Mr. Cooke difference. I contacted PFB about an offer extended me for a Cap 1 secured card. I have two unsecured cards (a Visa and a MC). One with no annual fee and the other with a $49 annual fee. Out of BK for a year now, I wanted to add another post BK tradeline or two. My husband who filed BK with me received a pre-approved offer for an unsecured Cap 1 MC. He got the card no problems. Me with more credit cards (mostly Dept. store lines and the two bank cards) all in good standing none included in the BK, one received since the BK gets an invitation to apply for a Visa gold. I applied over the phone and the offer I get extended to me is worse than the one I applied for! I received a quick response via e-mail from Mr. Cooke and called him back the same day. I was told it would take a couple of days to check on what I wanted (an unsecured card and a lower annual fee). When I did not hear back in 3 days, I called back twice, getting Mr. Cooke's voice mail both times. Called again Monday, got voice mail again, but did not leave a message since my other two messages were not answered. I get a voice mail at home a couple hours later from Mr. Cooke asking me to call. I called, got Mr. Cooke's voice mail again, left another message. A couple hours later when I received no call back, I called and finally got Mr. Cooke. He told me that because my app. defaulted in their system to a secured card there was nothing that could be done about the security deposit. He did tell me they would waive the annual/monthly fee. He did say he was checking on getting me the same type of card my husband received (one of those Gold affinity type MC). I wanted the offer in writing so that I had documentation of the type of card (the fancy affinity card if he could get it) and the waiver of the annual fee. I do not feel comfortable in sending in the paperwork I have from them and would rather send in documentation for what I was promised to receive. Maybe I asked too much to get it in writing. He said he was hoping to get back to me later on Monday. It is now Friday and I still have no call, nothing in writing, and no idea what is going on. I am patient, but will once again have to play this phone tag game on Monday. Maybe I would have had better luck with Mr. Miller. I just didn't want to go over anyone's head. At least maybe I would have some idea of what card I was getting.
I'd call back and ask Mr. Miller if their was anyway that Cap 1 could do better. Once everything is finalized it will take at least six months for an upgrade.
So you think that it would be better to bypass Mr. Cooke even though we have been dealing with him and ask to speak to Mr. Miller instead? I just would like to get this darned thing in motion instead of running round and round. I should have never said anything about hubby's affinity card, but I could not understand why his card is unsecured with a lower annual fee than the offer extended to me.
