Credit Cards

Originally Posted by NYRSkate

Whatever you do, don't do business with Capital One. Their customer service barely speaks English, and you get ramrodded with charges from day one for shit you never knew existed.

Seconded.

Capital One cards either have stupidly high interest rates or nasty hidden charges, and they love to lure lower-income people in with introductory offers...only mentioning the 25% normal interest rate in 4-point MS Flyspeck Sans Serif. My first card was a Capital One card, and I paid it off and dumped it as quickly as possible when I got a lower-interest one.

And Capital One's customer service really is horrible. They must spend all of their money on cute advertisments with Vikings.

If you're a college student (or are going to college in the near future) and have at least some income, you'll probably get offers for "student" credit cards from various banks. They'll probably offer better rates than you can get with regular credit cards, and some come with halfway-decent perks, though you absolutely can't miss a payment with one (not that missing payments is ever a good idea) unless you want to pay a 30-40% penalty rate for a year.

Jam it back in, in the dark.