Capital One will offer you different credit card interest rates based on which browser you use for the application
If you’re looking to apply for a credit card, you should know that all credit card companies are pure fucking evil, and Capital One is the worst. Some intrepid person at The Consumerist accidentally discovered that depending on which browser you use to fill out a credit card application with them will be a determining factor in your interest rate. Why? Because credit card companies do stupid shit like that because they can.
So this is a new one. Not sure if you’ve seen it before. I just put my order in for my Nissan Leaf and received the total price for it so decided it’d be a good idea to take a look and see what auto loan rates were. I checked my credit union first and they currently are offering 3.99%. Not bad, but about a week ago Capital One had sent me an email advertising a 3.10% rate. I went to check the website using my default browser (Firefox 4 Beta 6) and noticed it was at 3.5%. I figured it had just gone up since I received the email. I tried to use their little payment calculator but the flash based widget wouldn’t work properly in the Firefox Beta so I loaded up Safari to try and funny enough the rate offered was 2.7%. I checked in Chrome and Opera to see if it was maybe just something wrong with the Firefox beta and Chrome’s rate was 2.3% while Opera’s was 3.1%.
I’m not sure why Capital One would choose to offer Chrome users a lower rate than Firefox users, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
He used a completely fresh install of each browser for the test to make sure that settings or cookies weren’t a factor. So the lesson is, if you’re going to get a Capital One card, use Chrome. Or you could just not give Capital One any of your money. They were the first company I got a credit card company through and they’re the sole reason I refuse to have a credit card today.
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