Why Credit One Credit Cards Are a Rip-off

Several months ago, I received a credit card offer in the mail. Usually I just throw these kind of letters away as I already have 3 credit cards but for some reason I was compelled to take a look at this one. The offer was for a MasterCard credit card with a credit line of up to $1,500 from Credit One bank. Supposedly the credit card was generally offered to people with bad credit who were looking to rebuild and improve their credit history. This stuck me as odd as I had checked my credit scores just the month before and they were about average. I decided to go ahead and apply for the card online mostly because it was a MasterCard card (all my other cards were Visa and contrary to their commercials, they're not accepted everywhere).

So I went to their web page, filled out a few forms, selected my card design, and was approved for a credit card with a whopping limit of $350. Quite a small limit but I only planned on using the card for small purchases anyway. A few weeks later, my card arrived in the mail with the Credit One activation hotline number attached. After calling the number, entering the last 4 digits of my social and pressing "1" a bunch of times, to my surprise, I was told that the activation was nearly complete and that I would be charged a $69 enrollment fee plus an addition monthly fees of $5.95 per month if I chose to confirm my activation. "So I'm supposed to pay $75 plus addition monthly fees on a credit card with a meager $350 limit?" I thought to myself. I had never been charged a monthly fee or activation fee on any of my previous credit cards...and they had much higher limits. The machine asked that I press 1 to confirm. Needless to say, I hung up without completing the activation.

So I set the card aside, planning to call Credit One to cancel it eventually but figured I had nothing to worry about in the mean time, as the card was never activated. About a month and a half later, I find the card in my dresser and decide I should probably call and have the account deactivated. So I log on to their website looking for a customer support number to call and what do I find? A balance of $113.95 on a card with a $350 limit, a card I've never even used, no less. As I looked through the charges, it turns out that they had charged me the enrollment fee regardless of the fact that I had not completed the activation process. I had also been charged monthly fees for 2 months as well as interest and a late fee for not paying the activation fee minimum payment during the first month.

Outraged, I searched the Internet to see if anyone else had a similar problem with Credit One. Interestingly enough, the search team "Credit One scam" yielded a myriad of results. To my dismay, it seemed something similar had happened to many people who applied for this credit card and there didn't seem to be much anyone could do about it. I tried calling several of the customer support numbers on their web page (which weren't easy to find, mind you). It turns out every number on the page, simply reroutes you to the activation answering machine. However, at the end of the activation, just before the confirmation, there is a second option: Press 2 to speak to a customer service representative to activate your card. I certainly wasn't interested in activating the card but I pressed it anyway hoping to speak to an actually person. No luck, all their customer service agents were "unavailable."

At this point, I was going to simply cut my losses and pay off the balance until I discovered that Credit One charges $8 just to make an online payment from your checking account. You could not pay a higher amount than your balance so there was no way to pay off the card online. Paying by mail wasn't an option for me so I seemed to be stuck with an ever increasing balance on a card I had no way of canceling.

After again searching the Internet about who I could report this rip-off credit card company to, I found my answer. I attempted to get in touch with an actual person several more times and was finally successful. With the contact information for my state's Attorney General's office, the Better Business Bureau, and the Federal Trade Commission on the computer screen in front of me, I demanded to know why I had a balance of over $100 on a card I had never activated. I was put on hold for quite some time before the customer service rep returned to give me a standardized response about enrollment fees, etc. I informed her that I would not be paying these charges, that I wanted my account closed immediately, and that I would be reporting the company to the above-mentioned agencies if this was not done. After being put on hold again, the customer service rep informed me that my balance had been zeroed and that my credit card account would be closed within 12 days. Victory!

The reason I tell this little story is that hopefully someone else will search the Internet and read it before accepting a card from Credit One. This "bank" is an absolute rip-off. Do a Google search on them and you're sure to find plenty of similar horror stories about Credit One Bank. If you're thinking about getting a credit card from them because you have bad credit and can't get a card from most other banks, save your time. Paying ridiculously high fees for things most banks won't even charge you for isn't the way to get your credit back on track. If you're already a victim of this scam credit card, I recommend you do what I did and keep calling them until you get a live person and demand, don't ask, that the charges be erased from your account.