Capital One Visa - example of over the fee charges

# 8 for January 8, 2002

Complaints.com received the following e-message on January 7, 2002:

From: ANTOINETTE CARSON [Email User]

Capital One Visa - example of over the fee charges

I have a complaint/warning to others about Capital One Visa accounts. I have never had a Visa with such a low credit limit, $200 to be exact. Normally my limit was $1500 or more. Well, needless to say, my credit rating wasn't what it used to be so I accepted a card with a $200 limit.

I was to attend school in the fall and cashed out my card at the bank for the full $200 limit, with the idea of just paying the minimum payment. I moved shortly thereafter and was late on a payment. The late fee of $25 put me over my limit and they proceeded to charge me with a $25 over limit fee on top of that.

So now I'm are at $250. So I am wondering how this happened that they can charge me 25% of what my credit limit is every month if I only went over my limit because of the late fee. Does this mean that if someone has a credit limit of say $10,000 and they go over the limit that $2500 in charges is tacked on to them.

Shouldn't these charges be pro rated in accordance to each individual's credit limit. Ok, so now I moved and they kept charging me $50 bucks a month and I could care less because I know it's not very much in the big scheme of things since I am a full time student and need food and rent money and etc... I am living in the negative anyways so paying their evil bill would just shoot myself in the foot.

Cut to the chase...So after a year when I'm out of school I go to reconcile with my debt and low and behold it got up to $750 dollars. That's 266% more than my limit. So what you say? Or maybe not. Please see my side :) So I made a deal to pay it off in payments.

Done deal? Not. I still get phone calls saying I owe them and statements to state otherwise a month after the fact. They say it takes time to clear through their precious system. So my warning is to read the fine print, which they say stated they could hammer me like this. I will never use a credit card again, thank you very much.