Many moons ago, I penned a personal review of the Capital One 360 Checking Account. Actually, I’d opened the account when it was still managed by ING Direct, but then Capital One came along and bought ING Direct’s U.S. assets, and so one of my most beloved bank accounts fell into the hands of a Nearly Too Big To Fail bank … and one for which I’ve never really cared all that much.
I still have my Capital One 360 accounts (savings and checking), and I use them more than any other non-credit-card accounts I have, save one. To date, Capital One has given me no reason to look elsewhere for similar, online-only accounts.
However, an email from reader “K” hit my inbox yesterday which other readers might find interesting:
Greetings,
I just finished reading your review of your Capital One 360 account. Although I’m sure it’s wonderful for the account holder, there’s a little problem with outside account holders.
I have an issue with all the online “toys” my husband insists on signing up for, mainly because I’m getting very much aware of how much “ME” is out there and available, and I’m trying to avoid volunteering more information if I can.
Enter “Person2Person” transfers! Hubby owed me some money; nothing major, but since we’re in the same household, mere feet from one another, I kinda would have preferred he just cut me a check. “I just wanna try it.” Okay, fine, ignore my request and play with your internet crappola, because “…they only need the last 4 digits.” Yea, okay.
So you already know how THAT went; they need the whole account number and routing number, I’d rather they did NOT have access to my checking account, but since he already used that one, that’s the one I have to give them. Fine. I tell him, he apologizes, whatever honey, they already have my information now, thanks.
Oh, but it gets better, and here’s the part I’m guessing you were unaware of — the credit inquiry! A day or two after the transfer just happened to be the day I receive my monthly credit update from Experian. It shows me any changes in the last month, such as negative information, new accounts, closed account … and credit inquiries! There was one new inquiry: Capital One.
I am anxiously awaiting their reply of my angry Nasty-Gram. I did NOT ask them for a line of credit, I did NOT open an account with them, and there were more than sufficient funds in my husband’s account. They had NO BUSINESS sticking their noses into MY credit rating! Pretty much everyone is aware that, of all the things that can lower your credit score, top of the list is “Credit Inquiries,” not so much as how MUCH it dings your score as the fact that it can happen a LOT and most people were unaware for a very long time. I am VERY aware, and they did NOT have authorization to do so by me.
Just thought you’d appreciate the additional information. Thanks for listening to my rant.
— K.
Now, for my part, I’ve used the Person-2-Person transfers mentioned by “K” precisely one time, and that was a test transfer to my wife (whose account info ING Direct/Capital One already had). So if slinging out credit inquiries is a matter of course for Capital One in these transactions, they’d have had no reason to do it in my case.
If this is what they do for new not-really-a-customer customers, well, it fairly sucks. I haven’t utilized the P2P transfer feature for anything more than a test, and won’t be doing so now, either.
UPDATE: It Wasn’t a Capital One Inquiry.
Turns out that upon closer inspection, the credit inquiry which K. saw on her report was from HSBC, not Capital One. The fellow from Capital One who’d responded to K.’s “Nasty Gram” had told her as much — that Capital One did not perform credit inquiries on the accounts related to P2P transfers.
When K. traced the phone number associated with the inquiry, it pointed to HSBC. Their inquiry (for an unrelated card) just happened to coincide with the timing of the P2P transfer at the center of this here blog post.
So Capital One 360 customers and P2P transfer users can rest easy. No willy-nilly credit inquiries here!
Eleanor E. Spring wrote:
Hi, while I do realize the issue with Capital One was mistake, I just wanted to point out that not all credit inquiries ding your credit report. There are hard inquires and there are soft inquiries. Hard inquiries are when a person is applying for credit, these types of inquires will ding the credit report. Soft inquires are when credit card companies and other businesses target a certain group of people say within a certain income level.
Hope this is helpful.