depends on how you define " a scam". you haven't described the offer. capital one is a reputable bank, however. it issues both prime cards(for people with good credit) and sub-prime cards (for the credit-challenged, meaning no credit or bad credit). if you're credit is poor, you may receive a card with a very low limit ($200-300) and you will pay a hefty fee in the range of $40-50 before you use it to buy your first bag of potato chips. the chief problem with cap 1 sub-prime is that you may wait a year to get a measly $100 credit increase and you may have to threaten to close the account just to get that. for this reason, i don't recommend cap 1 as a credit builder. you may want to look at Providian and Orchard. Providian's interest rate is higher than Cap1 and the subprime card comes with no grace period, but the credit line increases are frequent and generous. (check some of the other posts on this board about that) Orchard's rate is slightly lower than Cap 1 and Orchard reviews for increases at least every six months. all three banks allow you to pay online which is a very good thing because you can avoid late charges. hope this helps. Providian's strong point is
thanks, it was for pre approved gold, so i went to their web site to accept the offer, but then it said status of application, cant I sue them if they decline? i mean pre approved MEANS approved, right
Joseph, Pre-approved. Thats a whole topic of discussion. In short, there usually is a stipulation in the fine print that they will run a credit check to see if you still meet the pre-qualifications. The lists they pull(promotional inquiries into your file) are usually 60-90 days old, so they re-run your profile once you apply. The bottom line is Pre-Approved and Pre-Selected don't always mean its in the bank. See This Article: http://www.creditmania.com/feature.htm As far as your CapOne gold card. The limit can start at $200, so don't get your hopes up. Good Luck on Your Journey, BarryN
Actually I find this question strange coming from you as you participated in a thread dealing with this very same topic under another alias back in May. http://board.creditnet.com/read.php3?num=1&id=4766&loc=0&thread=4766 Considering this, I've decided to repost my message from that very same thread At one time "pre-approved" really meant pre-approved until some of the shadier banks tried to weasel out of that and got busted by the post office for what amounted to mail fraud. So they resorted to what they usually do and that is to pay off congress to basically loosen 'truth in advertising' as far as credit offers are concerned. On the letter, a true pre-approval offer is required by law to have text informing the consumer that their consumer credit report was used in conjunction with the pre-approval offer. It also must list the number to the credit bureau(s) that supplied the information in case the consumer would like to opt out of future offers. Now the majority of offers should by right called "pre-selected" or "pre-qualified" which could be literally pinpointed to specific areas of a town where demographic information has revealed that this is a well off area to mass mailed to the whole country. These offers aren't worth the the paper their written as filling out the form guarantees you nothing but another negative inquiry on your credit report. These mailings should be stamped for what they are which is JUNK MAIL and you know what to do with that. Now as for pre-approved this usually means that they have purchased the list from some data or marketing firm or from the Credit Reporting Agencies with the criteria "anybody without a bankruptcy" or some other variation. Naturally the more "prestigious" cards use a more selective criteria such as no 30 day lates, no public records, sufficient number of tradelines, a credit history of minimum X amount of years, a good credit to balance ratio, the variables are endless. You'll find by and large that the premium creditors such as Discover will more than likely make a bona fine offer though this by no means is a hard and fast rule as many here have discovered upon being declined for reasons and codes that must have obviously come from a hat as they have no basis in reality. Again the key thing is right there in the 'very small print' have the notation that the credit report was used in conjunction with the offer. If you don't see that trash it. Now as far as the Capital One Gold card is concerned we must take into consideration these three factors 1. They send this offer to virtually everybody who has a pulse including those with premium cards with sky-high limits (hi Doris K.) 2. The card is a joke 3. I have yet to hear of anybody being declined Taking these factors into consideration this pre-approved card is about as guaranteed as it gets.
No, it isn't a scam. Capital One is one of the ten largest credit card issuers in the country. They issue a whole range of cards from secured to prime platinum. In fact, they may already *know* that you have damaged credit, but for some reason they think you might be redeemable. They are *very* interested in picking the potentially profitable prospects out of the sub-prime pool. But *nothing* is guaranteed. You can find an explaination of what "pre-approved" credit card offers actually mean at... http://www.cardreport.com/overview/overview.html Good Luck. -- CardReport.Com - Credit Tools, News, And Reference http://www.cardreport.com/ Everything You Need To Know About Credit And Debt --
i got approved for a gold card with capital credit is this the same as capital one? if not i can't seem to find a number to contact a service rep. there is a number on the card that was sent to me but you have to have an established account with them in order for anyone to speak with you so do you have any suggestions?
