What are the worst credit cards and the worst issuers?

Commenter sjepps left the following comment:

I will strongly disagree with you and insist that Capital One is the worst. The fact that no one talks about or uses them confirms. They just don’t have anything at all to offer. At least Citi has the AA card and this (If you get to keep your points). I’ve been with Capital One for 10 years, I had to send a letter to the CEO to get my card upgraded from $500 to $5000.

I can’t disagree with badmouthing Capital One from a consumer standpoint–my wife and I have about 30 credit cards between us and only one is a Capital One card. We got it to take advantage of a balance transfer offer a while back and we haven’t used it in years. Capital One doesn’t have much to offer to those who seek the best deals in credit cards.

Whether that qualifies them as the “worst”, is, of course, highly subjective, as is any other definition of worst. You could mean worst deal for consumers, worst for people who frequent Flyertalk, Fatwallet, and Dansdeals, worst from a shareholder perspective, worst customer service, or something else.

By contrast, American Express’s Blue Cash Preferred offered unlimited 6% cash back on groceries, until Amex found out that too many people were getting too much unlimited cash back. And what did Amex do? They put a $6,000 cap on the 6% cash back.

What did Amex not do? They did not take money back from consumers, and they did not continue to offer the unlimited 6% cash back. This is one example of why I (and probably a lot of others) respect Amex’s management.

But I’d definitely rate Capital One as the worst from a standpoint of a credit card aficionado like myself. They have absolutely nothing remarkable about either their sign-up bonuses, their spending bonuses, or their partners (aside from the Best Buy card, which they’re selling to Citibank). I think their management is certainly better than Citi’s, and I would guess that the fact that they don’t have any great deals is a deliberate strategy on their part.

Of course, if you want to wade into the subprime world, things can get much worse. Consider, for example, the Continental Finance MasterCard:

This might be the worst credit card, ever. First, the $200 account processing fee, which is classified as a finance fee, should immediately scare you off. However, if you’re OK with that atrocity, note that you will be paying a 19.9% interest rate, which starts to immediately accrue on your finance charges. You do have a 25-day grace period on purchases, as long as the balance was paid in full the previous month. However, that’s about where the positives end with this horrible credit card. You’ll see a $12-per-month account maintenance fee, a $50 annual fee and a $25 credit increase fee each time your limit is raised; even if you didn’t ask for the increase.

A $25 credit increase fee! Talk about chutapah…