dealing with Capital One

Hi, I recently tried to do a balance transfer onto an old Capital One credit card that we had. It was denied, and I emailed asking what the reason was, and never rec'd a response. I was curious because the credit limit was 15,000. So I decided to try one of those different ones that come in the mail every single day. We have excellent credit so far, but things are kinda getting hard with gas prices and the price of everything going up. Anyways, we noticed that the balance on the discover card was $0. I again went to the Capital one site and asked if it went thru. I got a response saying No, it was not authorized because the "new" card had never been activated. And, I replied, okay, that is fine, because we found another company with 0% interest and a whole better deal. Then a couple of days later received a statement in the mail that the transfer now had been authorized. And the card has still never been activated. Can they do this? PLUS, the minimum payment is outrageous, not the normal 3% I thought I would be. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.