I utilize several credit cards. My favorite is a 2% cash back credit card for personal use from 1st Financial Bank USA. Their website stinks horribly - but they continuously pay me to use their card, and that I can't argue with. They also are regularly raising my credit limit, which is always nice.
I make a lot of purchases for business purchases, however, so recently I signed up for a Capital One credit card. I figured it would make expensing much easier by having my purchases centralized on one card - not to mention that it offered airplane miles and since Charity and I try to travel to Alaska to see her family around once a year, these could come in handy. Let me tell you - I have had a lot of bad experiences with businesses and this is just another example.
At first everything seemed fine and dandy - except for the extremely low credit limit they gave me ($2,000). My 1st Financial is currently at $14,000. My credit score is very good. Why such a low limit? Oh well, no biggy. I'd started years before with $500 for my credit limit on the 1st Financial (it was my first credit card ever) and worked my way up, I was sure I could do the same with the Capital One card.
I began making purchases and everything worked as expected - expenses were centralized and life was a little easier. Then I logged onto their website. I wanted to view my past bills. The site was having problems. I couldn't view any past bills. I tried again a few weeks later - still no luck. I called the Customer Service and was informed that the site was having problems and had been having problems for some weeks or months now. I asked when the problem might be resolved - the CSR stuttered a bit before informing me that there was no known time frame.
I was shocked. As an individual who works for an internet company I understood the difficulties of maintaining services and how many things can go wrong - but that doesn't mean that we allow them to, or that we allow them to continue for prolonged periods of time. Yet here was a very large business that was utterly failing in the web department.
A bit later I needed to see one of my previous bills but couldn't locate my paper copy. I couldn't access it through the website so I called and requested a copy. The representative told me I would receive one in several days. Several months later I am still waiting. I will have to call and request the bill again.
Next, a payment for my credit card was deployed to someone else's credit card (luckily someone in the same company). After a bit of hanky twisting it seemed to be all straightened out. We transferred the funds from his credit card to mine. The Customer Service Representative insisted several times that we must have both parties present to perform this transfer while we repeatedly attempted to explain that we were both present.
Okay, everything is settled, right? Nope. My next bill informed me that instead of having a credit applied to my account - I've been billed! I'm guessing that the CSR performed the action in reverse.
So am I done yet? No, not quite. I missplaced this card so I called them to request a replacement. First off, I think this should be a web-based capability. I should log into my account, click "Request Replacement Card" and receive it in the mail two to five business days later. No such luck. I called in and worked through the phone menus, speaking to an agent after perhaps 2-3 minutes in the mail system (that's not bad actually). But the connection was horrid. I looked at my bars - nope, cell phone connection appeared fine but the static was heavy. Still, I could hear them fine and it appeared they could hear me, the static was more a nuisance than a serious hampering.
The representative asked me a multitude of different questions and at the very end informed me that she would need to transfer me to another department. During the questions I would reply and she would then act as if I hadn't made an answer or if my answer had been other than it was. Sometimes it was as if she was asking the questions and then without waiting for an answer asking another question. She told me the card was being replaced but that she still had to transfer me to another department. I was confused - but fine. I waited as she began the transfer. Then the connection became horrible. The music faded out and the static became constant. She'd informed me I was being transferred to the collections department. I'm not sure what she thought I asked, but between the static and being transferred to a department I had no idea what for, I was getting fed up. I held on the line till there was nothing left but static, then hung up. If they want to talk to me they can call me back.
I don't write this review out of anger. I'm not angry. I do write it because I think Capital One needs to pick up their act. Perhaps I am the only customer in the world who has experienced such a grand series of problems in the 1 year or so since I received the card - but man, has it been a year. I'll be keeping my eyes open for a different business credit card preferably one that includes:
- A working web-interface.
- A full-featured web-interface.
- A working phone system.
- Prompt and understanding customer service.