And as for the topic of the thread... yeah, I totally agree.

This isn't really a bad thing. Some people want the choice. I don't think they should charge for it, but at least they are letting me decide.

Everett

Total account closure/ credit limit decreases.

Why not ask for a CLI

@vastrightwing: Very sound advice that I mostly follow as well

@Trai_Dep: Depends on how you market it, that's the beauty of marketing!

Please see tobacco industry, beer commercials, prostitutes and their pimps. All of these things are potentially bad for your health but marketed as the best thing in the world that you are most assuredly missing out on

I see other enabled features for card fine print have I wave all possible protections from the CARD act buried in the legalese.

@joepa1: Haha. Good one. Channeling Bill Clinton there. I'd like to opt-out of homocide laws since I want to go to CitiBank and give them a piece of my mind.

They asked me if when I charge something and I go over my limit... do I want them to deny it, or leave my account the way it is.. and process the transaction. She didn't say anything about the fees or try to sway my decision.

She didn't mention anything about waiving any other rights or anything like that. Just the over-the-limit one. It seemed to me more like an option than opt-out.

I chose to have my account stay the same. That was the only thing I authorized, to have that portion of my account "stay the same."

Just thought I'd post my experience, this was about 2 weeks ago.

I'm with you here. Clearly there's something fishy with CaptialOne, if they've got some kind of fee schedule for illegally doing something, and a different fee schedule for legally doing it.

I hadn't read the comments prior to posting mine, but now that I have I think it's worth noting that your misleading choice of words has apparently confused a few people.

I think your choice of words unfairly demonizes Capital One for giving people the opportunity to make stupid decisions. There are a lot of reasons to demonize Capital One, but they're not doing anything wrong or outside the intent of the CARD act.

@Michael Belisle: i dont want to murder bad enough to get a job at an insurance company. jeez im not that evil.

Thanks for clarifying that point frank. I was unaware of that provision in the law, and it's good to know because it will make me a better-informed consumer ;)

They can't pick and choose which parts of the act they want to implement, or ask customers to opt out of some parts of the act. Over-the-limit transactions (and associated fees) are specifically allowed if and only if the customer opts in:

Requires Opt-In to Over-Limit Fees: Consumers will find it easier to avoid over-limit fees because institutions will have to obtain a consumer's permission to process transactions that would place the account over the limit. [www.whitehouse.gov]

Sounds to me thats what permission they tried to obtain here.

I need to find these regs in plain english somewhere... Time to google

can i opt in to murder, that would be wicked cool. im willing to pay a $29 fee for each murder.

Opted out? Approval and fee.

It's all a Commie plot, I tell you! There was and is no recession; no banks have failed; and CIT is doing just fine thank you.

</end sarcasm mode>

Seriously, wtf is so hard about denying a charge if it's past the limit, that they should charge $40 for the privlege?

Also, I thought it wasn't possible to sign away your rights, and any contract in which you do so is lillegal and invalid?

Anyone else see the irony of this offer?

The credit industry assesses people's ability pay back extended credit. By allowing someone to go over their credit limit (of course it is for ~emergencies~), this is failure of the corporation to assess the credit repayment risk. This is a micro version of offering mortgages to people who could not afford to pay the mortgages back. Here the government is specifically trying to protect the consumer by forcing the company to stop offering credit above the originally offered amount which would, by default, protect the corporation from non-repayment, and yet corporation wants just more!!! While I am sure that some actuary in the company identified the demographic /economics of the people to whom to extend the "bust your credit line" offer, it still stands that the corporation is trying to get yet more!, more!!, more!!! without regard to overall risk to the industry since the focus is probably just some executive vice president going after a bonus...

Is this company in the same industry that cried rivers when people couldn't afford to pay back their debts? The same industry that had to get the entire bankruptcy law changed because people couldn't pay back their debts and the industry was "losing too much money on deadbeats"?

So why would this industy encourage people to get back in debt beyond their assessed risk? Oh, yeah, $29.00 per month in pure profit.

Here in NY City, we have very strict regulations regarding residential properties and leases. Any rider or additional clause added by the property owner which seeks to circumvent one of those regulations will be deemed to null and void, even if the tenant signs the lease.

I would be very interested to have The Consumerist contact the proper government agency to see if Capital One is not violating the law by engaging in this slippery activity

@opticnrv: I agree. If these things start rolling out en masse, it would be helpful to get some of the language so we could see what we may have to look out for. Credit card companies deliberately mask their language in all sorts of ridiculously vague terminology, and sometimes it makes it difficult to figure out what they're actually saying.

"No over-the-limit fees unless you request (opt-in) the credit card issuer to process over-the-limit transactions. Otherwise, over-the-limit transactions would be denied and you would not incur a fee."

So in short it looks like he's just opting in to have
over the limit transactions approved.

It is kind of a fake fee too, it doesn't costs them anything for someone to go over their self imposed limit. Many limits are artificially low because they have been reducing them and in some cases balance chasing. Really what they are saying is we can't by law screw you anymore, but if you let us we can! And we will make it $10 less!

@Rectilinear Propagation: That's what I'm concerned about. This will end up like the arbitration issue: either you agree to it or we close your account. It will become an industry norm and it will be like the CARD act never existed.

@Chumas: I agree that its bad (for me), but if the OP wants the ability to go over his limit and just pay the fees, he should have the ability to do so. At a certain point, it's his choice.

However, I think that the CC companies must make it very clear what this means (i.e. that they can raise it any time they want, etc.).

Why is this a bad thing? IF, and only, IF, someone prefers to have the ability to go over their limit, and pay a $29 fee, they can do so. It's opt-in, so I don't see where the problem is here.

Excellent. Where do I sign up?