The Consumerist blog recently had an entry discussing the results of the 2007 J.D. Power and Associates 2007 Credit Card Satisfaction Survey. As expected, Capital One performed terribly, and American Express led the pack. What I don’t quite get is how the “Industry Average” beats so many banks. The only explanation I have is that there are a lot of small banks, all of which have very high satisfaction ratings. But then, shouldn’t J.D. Power at least make the bar graph more representative by showing the customer weighed average instead?

Consumerist also had another entry about Capital One.

Citing “Market Conditions” Capital One Raises Reader’s APR 4.99% to 13.5%.

I have had a Capital One Mastercard for about 10 years. My interest rate has been 4.99% for as long as I can remember. I received my statement for October to find that my interest rate had jumped from 4.99% to 13.5%.

I called Capital One to find out why. After a completely confusing phone tree and 10 minute wait, I got through to a real person who explained that the increase was not because of anything I did, but because Capital One made an “executive decision” to increase rates “for all cardholders” because of “recent market conditions.”

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Now for anyone who has worked at Capital One M&A, I’m sure this entry is just hilarious. For that matter, I wouldn’t be surprised if I knew who was responsible for this decision =P