A Credit to the Industry
10 December 2007
Dear XYZ Credit Card Company,
I know it is extremely unAmerican of me to actually pay off my credit balance every month (especially in December) instead of a making a minimum monthly payment. Nevertheless, I do so to stay out of debt and I would appreciate being rewarded, not ridiculed for my discipline.
Therefore when I finally get to tell the customer service representative in India that an error on your part indicated that I only paid the minimum as opposed to the entire balance, please don’t act like it is my fault. I didn’t spend over 20 minutes going through automated menus and listening to bad Christmas music for you to lie and tell me that the check was written for $20 as opposed to $200 when you don’t have so much as a photocopy of the check and I have the duplicate right here in front of me. I am sure if I had been required to pay $200 and mistakenly sent you $20 instead your reaction to such a mistake would not have been half as gracious as mine.
However, I do appreciate that after another 10 minutes I was finally transferred back to the United States where, because of your extremely high call volume, I was once again placed on hold for 10 more minutes before finally talking to an actual human being who had the original check in front of him and confirmed that I did indeed write it for $200. I further appreciate your generous offer to fix this mistake (which I think I have easily proved was yours, not mine) without charging me any of your standard fees.
Nonetheless, no matter how heartfelt the holiday wishes you bestowed upon me before I hung up were, I can assure you I won’t be using your card for my holiday shopping now. Happy holidays to you too!
Sincerely,
Renée
