Citibank Says Lowering Rates...

Not for me though :)

Citibank says in a 9/10/2009 Washington Post article written by Nancy Trejos


"Samuel Wang, a spokesman for Citigroup, said the company provides a variety of programs for customers in financial distress, including modifying interest rates and matching payments to help retire the debt more quickly. "Citi is proactively reaching out to its customers who are not delinquent but who may be showing signs of financial stress," he said."




I guess I am not struggling enough.

So let me get this straight. I need to stop paying them for a few months.....and then tell them I am poor and struggling and then they will reduce my rates?

Really? Is that all I need to do? Just tell them I can not pay them and they will lower my rate?

Here is another ironic twist. My 22 year old daughter who has been late paying her card a few times with a marginal credit history has a 19.99% interest rate on her Citibank card. The first thing she did after reading my letter was check her rate.

Apparently I can be 22, occasionally forget to pay my bill on time, and my rate will be lower.

This whole not paying thing - does it really work that way? I wonder what Citibank will do if I stop paying my mortgage? Do you think they will restructure that loan? Maybe shave off some principal....lower my rate to below 5.75%?

Really - being irresponsible is sounding better and better with each passing day.

I am still waiting for Jody Lang - sing songy sweet
- Executive Assistant to President of CitiCards to call me back. I guess this is a real headscratcher for them. I may have thrown a monkey wrench in their master plan to screw the responsible people who pay their bills.

Really it is genius on their part if you think about it. They know the deadbeats aren't going to pay - their credit is already screwed. So they have to take pennies on the dollar for people who have already defaulted. This really leaves them no other option then to stick it to the people who still care about protecting their credit ratings and fulfilling their moral obligations to pay what they owe.

Or maybe another option would be to not take bonuses and perhaps wait a bit before spending millions on brand new corporate suites. No - that would be very UnCorporate of them...after all what would their corporate neighbors think if they did that....my god they might start a trend of Corporate Morality....we can't have any of that...no that just won't do...........