Last year Citibank announced a product called Ready Credit, which is basically a credit card, but with the fancy feature of 4.9% interest on balance transfers until you have it paid off. No six month limit or anything. Since ING is paying 5.4% on their savings account, only paying 4.9% on a loan was a bloody bargain, so I signed up, transferred my outstanding balances and ditched all but my daily card. I never bought anything using the Citibank card (and chopped off the magnetic stripe so I couldn’t!) and just made the regular monthly repayment.

Today I get a letter saying that they’ve decided to introduce a $160 “credit facility fee”, payable on Dec 1st, but that if I spend $1000 before then I won’t have to pay it! That’s practically fucking extortion. Oh well, time to move credit providers.