$36.92
-1.43 (-3.73%)
Capital One Financial Corp. (COF)
CAPS Rating:
A diversified financial services company whose banking and non-banking subsidiaries market a variety of financial products and services.
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These idiots just jacked the rates up on every customer except new cardholders. Longtime cardholders with excellent credit just got bumped from 7.9 fixed to 17.9 variable. Higher credit risk folks are really getting crushed. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE DUMBEST COMPANY ON THE PLANET! There are a lot of people out there who WERE faithfully making their payments month in and month out. NOT ANY MORE! They lost a lot of money last quarter and will lose way more going forward doing stupid backward thinking stuff like this. The smart thing to do would be to cut rates to keep those faithful people committed. Dumb, dumb, dumb...
Not quite as stupid as Shiti Group - or is that Citi? - which has been jacking up rates to 30%. Seriously, do these clowns really think people are going to pay 30% interest AND pay the taxes to fund the bailout?! Not a damn chance. What a bunch of delusional morons.
This why the FED or Congress should regulate consumer interest rates to limit the rates banks can charge.Cardholders with excellent credit shouldn't have a rate higher than 7%. Cardholders with a lower credit rating or default shouldn't be charged more than 12% maximum. Jacking up the rates is only going to have more people go into default or to bankruptcy court. These moves show they don't get it.
Why should any company have their consumer interest rates limited by the government? As long as the consumer is willing to hold a card and multiple cards, and continue to charge what they cannot afford - it's not the credit card firms fault - the consumer has all the power. Don't like it? Dump the company and its stock. You have all the power here, not the company.I say this as a marketing strategist of 30 years. Citigroup's subprime end (CitiFinancial) makes over 600,000 personal unsecured loans a year at 26% interest. Unfathomable. The average FICO? 680. Default rate was around 2%. Cut me a break. I realize this isn't a credit card operation - just an illustration of consumer-driven problem. What? A company should NOT make money? Irresponsibility on the consumer and business end all around.Charge'em if they'll pay. If they don't pay - well, companies will change.
You must have, or had, a Capital One card with a balance. Maybe even are stuck paying the high interest rate because you can't pay the card off.Your pitch is one of anger. It is emotional and not based on a sound business review.Go back and look at Capital One as an investment. Using the balance sheet, profit & loss statements and factual news, decide if it is a good or bad investment.Make your pitch then show the numbers and try to remove the emotion.If you do this with all your Caps your score, and hopefully your real investments, will improve.
I don't like COF either (I have a thumb down). But it is for entirely different reasons.The problem for COF and other CC companies is that what you owe them is unsecured debt. Over the next year or so, they are gonna have to write off an awful lot of that. All curtesy of the bad economy and the overleveraged consumers. The ones who though that buying sh!t at 7.9% was a steal...