Capital One Suspended My Account Without Warning

Capitol One makes very little effort to communicate with customers
unless their bill is past due! My account was canceled after Capitol
One identified fraud. 12 days after the fraudulent charge was
identified, my card was declined when I tried to pay an emergency vet
bill. Called Capitol One and was told they had tried to get a hold of
us to no avail.(They never called us!!!!!) 2 days later, we get a
letter from Capitol One telling us they identified possible fraud on
the account, that they had been unable to reach us (again they never
tried) and that our account was closed. I'm glad they were able to
identify the fraud and closed the account immediately but it should
not have taken 14 days for them to notify us!
The card will be paid off completely in about a month. I seriously
hope they don't cancel the card on us. Its the only credit card we
have and we only use it for emergencies. This card saved us when we
got hit with almost $10,000 worth of medical expenses over a 2 month
period and the hospital set up a ridiculously high payment plan. We
may have to pay interest but in the long run, its cheaper than having
a collection account on our credit report!

But they did warn you. They sent you a letter. "Without warning" or
not being "Otherwise informed" would be true if you went to use the
card and it had been suspended, leaving you in an awkward situation
with a service provider, sales clerk, etc.

You need to ask yourself if you seriously want to go into debt in the
middle of an emergency!!!

Then ask yourself how much money you need in savings to make yourself
comfortable in the event of an emergency. Then get that amount of
money in the "emergency" account and then cut up the credit card.

I am glad to see that the credit card companies are doing you a favor
and cancelling your card, just get some savings in place and be done
with them!!!!!!!!!!!


Good Day

If you have no debt on the card and everything was paid, and the
account was closed solely due to inactivity, I doubt it would
negatively affect your credit.

I would simply re-apply for another credit card, or not open another
card at all. Since it seems like you have not had any problems, and
don't really need the credit, you could save up some of your earnings
as a safety net and earn interest in the process. When there is an
emergency, there will be no interest to pay and no finance charges or
debt.

Just a while back credit card companies were inudating our homes with
credit card applications. Now they are pretty choosy as to who they
want as, or to keep as customers. Its in their ballpark now, not the
consumers.

The previously written explanation was correct. And although I applaud
your ability to NOT use your card, albeit an emergency, the card
company is actually loosing money having a card not being used.

As for your FICO score, I would check first to see just how this
affected your credit rating. It could be that they made this a
no-fault cancellation since there was no activity on the card.

the reason they don't tell people is that they want to close those
cards down because they aren't profitable. If they told people, most
would probably run out and charge a pack of gum, just to put a recent
transaction on their card. Then they would put it back in the
drawer.

It is a big game, you see. Once you understand the rules, you can
play it better. Unfortunately, you lost this round. What credit
experts recommend is periodically (preventatively) charging something,
so as to make the account look active.

The credit card bank isn't going to call the customer up and warn
them. That would be the courteous thing to do, but you have to
understand this is the business of *money*, and the clause "we can
close the account at any time" is a very important one from the bank's
perspective.