msrw

In a recent large customer survey, Capital One was recently rated as one of the best large credit card issuers, while Chase was rated as the worst of the large issuers. My experience has been that these ratings are accurate. Chase is predatory in the extreme--Cap One isn't. I agree with you about Amex.

Interesting comments. I have a couple of Cap One credit cards--this one and their No Hassle Cash Back card--and I've had absolutely the best experience with Cap One in every way.

I've called them a few times and have NEVER gotten a customer service person who was inept, unintelligible or anything less than helpful. If you use either of these cards for non-dollar transactions, you save 3 percent foreign exchange fees, which can easily add up to hundreds of $/year for anyone who travels.

Twice I've made large purchases in Europe. The Euro/Dollar spread on the day I did the purchase was higher than on the day that the transaction cleared, and Cap One refunded the difference.

Their card security is outstanding, their website is easy to use, and their customer service seems much better than average. I'm using these cards more than I am my Amex these days.

I've had this card since it was introduced a few years ago. It may seem absurd to pay $175/year for this card when any number of premium level bank cards are available with no annual fee.

However, Amex customer service, for me at least, has always been truly extraordinary. They earn their high annual fee.

Wow, all these negative experiences are surprising. I have never had a Starwoods Amex, but I've had Amex Gold and Platinum cards since the early 80's and have never had anything other than extraordinary customer service. Couple of examples, which go well beyond my experience with Mastercard and Visa:

Amex once refunded the full cost of a computer that was shipped to me in Jacarta and never delivered. The vendor said they never got it back, so Amex absorbed the cost.

Amex once sent me a check for over US$ 10k when a rental car was broken into and one of my camera systems was stolen. They have some sort of insurance program for items purchased with the Amex card.

On the few occasions when I've disputed a charge, Amex handles the whole affair with a phone call. MC and Visa usually require a letter, and generally don't go to bat for the cardholder against the merchant. Amex does.

Thanks. I don't want to belabor this, but the issue from a card holder's perspective isn't what legal statute would appear to prohibit. We all know that credit card issuers, if so motivated, can find ways around statutory restrictions.

What matters is how customer focused the credit card issuer is. For the example with Chase, Citibank also offered low interest balance transfers with no time limit to their best card holders; however, when the economy tanked, Citi, unlike Chase, did not attempt to change the terms under which these balance transfers were executed--Citi left the original terms in place.

Wall Street lately has started using the term "counterparty" in place of the term "customer." The difference in meaning is that counterparties work together only according to their own self interests, and have no other obligations with respect to each other. Chase would appear to regard its card holders as counterparties, whereas Citi appears to see its card holders as customers.

I would guess that most credit card holders would rather be thought of as customers than as counterparties.

To the moderator....

Thank you for your response. Of course it's great that Credit Karma publishes unedited user reviews of the financial services which appear on this site.

The unfortunate practices that I highlighted about Chase are not in fact banned by law. Chase is continuing those practices, or at least they are for the 400k cardmembers I mentioned.

Of all the major credit card issuers, Chase has a reputation for being the worst. One very relevant example. A few years ago, Chase offered low interest (1.99 to 3.99 percent) fixed rate balance transfer offers in perpetuity to their most credit worthy card holders--I believe it was to people with FICO scores above 750. The minimum payment per month for the offer was 2 percent.

Then in late 2008 Chase changed the terms to 5 percent minimum monthly payment, and added a $10 monthy fee. So card holders who had been paying a manageable $300 a month were all of a sudden obligated to pay around $900 a month.

When customers called Chase to try to find some more reasonable accomodation, Chase helpfully offered to allow them to keep the 2 percent minimum monthly payment--the only thing that the customer would need to do is increase their low fixed interest rate by 300 percent. Let's call this what it was--attempted extortion to force card holders to increase their interest rates.

Chase chose to do this at the absolute height of the financial crisis, that is, at a moment when every financially responsible person was seeking to increase savings. Chase also went out of their way to prevent cardmembers from discovering this change until the last possible moment. And this is how their treated 400,000 of their most credit worthy and overall best customers.

I don't know about anyone else, but this is pretty much the worst behavior on the part of a credit card issuer that I've ever seen. There's at least one class action lawsuit against Chase as a result.

With all the great credit card issuers, like American Express, Citi, and any number of others, it's hard to imagine why anyone would choose to hold a Chase credit card.

I'm a bit amazed that Credit Karma has a Chase Slate card listed as one of the best cards for people with excellent credit--the very people that Chase quite recently--and very seriously--abused. What exactly is Credit Karma's criteria for rating cards? Obviously it doesn't take into account the customer centric (or lack thereof) policies of the card issuer. The reason I pay a few hundred $/year for an American Express card when most cards have no annual fee is because of the superb customer service. I would guess that most people place great value on credit card service factors.

Can I suggest that Credit Karma switch to a MUCH more robust card rating process? It would probably make sense to let users rate the cards, and then publish those results, rather than hype the cards of your advertisers the way you seem to do now, which of course degrades Credit Karma's credibility.