Last month I decided to transfer the balance of my private student loan from Wells Fargo to Capital One to take advantage of a low-interest balance transfer offer. It was only going to save me a few dollars in interest but since it would only take a couple minutes online I decided to go ahead and do it. That ended up being a mistake. The payment from Capital One never showed up at Wells Fargo. I had to spend several hours on the phone to get it straightened out. Capital One has told me that they are stopping payment on the check they sent and will credit my account. I’m hoping that they actually do this.
Dealing with Capital One has been a PITA. I’ve had to spend 20-30 minutes on hold or more every time I called them. Then when I do finally get through to a representative they can’t help me and have to connect me with an account manager. This means another 20-30 minutes. Every time I have called them they are experiencing unusually high call volume. If you have unusually high call volume every day wouldn’t that make it normal call volume? Capital One is my oldest credit card so I don’t want to cancel it but I may not use it anymore.
Wells Fargo has been much better to deal with. I can get through to a person in just a few minutes and they actually seem to know what they are doing.
Before I do another balance transfer I’ll have to consider if the risk of it being screwed up is worth the potential reward in savings.
I always do a balance transfer for less than the true credit card (or other loan) balance.
My formula is:
Credit Card Balance – next Minimum Monthly Payment – $100 = Balance Transfer amount
Substitute for $100 any amount of money you consider fairly inconsequential. This gives the credit card balance transfer gods two months to F* up the whole deal.
Also, I recommend not waiting until the last month to do your next roll-over balance transfer when the teaser rate is up for this one.
Spank You Very Much,
The Spankstinator